192: Bushido and Beamsabers

[Ollie Barder]

Tomino has two settings, the first kills everyone, the second ends the main character in a Harem (Few exceptions of course)
Personally I like Xabungle more because I prefer Comedy to Tragedy.

Also delicious nude Rag.

Rean isn't tragedy and neither is Dunbine (as technically they all return to Byston Well). Gundam on the other hand is very tragic but I still adore the original movies and TV series.

 

[Ollie Barder]

Man, the article kinda made me want to dig out Dynasty Warriors Gundam...

Which they did not even mention considering the picture they used.

The image of Katoki's Musha Gundam was used to illustrate an aesthetic point, not a functional one. As the Gundam Musou games aren't actually mecha games [http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/01/column_roboto-chan_a_theory_of.php].

 

[Aptspire]

I know now why I had one helluva hard time playing the DW:G demo :S

 

[Ollie Barder]

If DW:G was actually like the Anime then the beam rifle would be over powered as hell. it's just a musou game re-skinned. just like SRW is really just an SRPG skinned with robots.

Yes to the first part, not so much to the second; as the mecha in SRW have had their ability set transferred to a turnbased strategy setting. It's still a functional allegory compared to something like Virtual On or Armored Core but not as overt as in Gundam Musou.

Personally, I don't mind the Musou games. They make mecha visually more accessible at the very least, which can only be a good thing in the long run. It also shows how much this genre of gaming has branched out in terms of popularity over the years.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

If DW:G was actually like the Anime then the beam rifle would be over powered as hell. it's just a musou game re-skinned. just like SRW is really just an SRPG skinned with robots.

Yes to the first part, not so much to the second; as the mecha in SRW have had their ability set transferred to a turnbased strategy setting. It's still a functional allegory compared to something like Virtual On or Armored Core but not as overt as in Gundam Musou.

Personally, I don't mind the Musou games. They make mecha visually more accessible at the very least, which can only be a good thing in the long run. It also shows how much this genre of gaming has branched out in terms of popularity over the years.

The fact they actually ported it to the US is what shows how popular it's gotten. This kind of game for Japan is par for the course.

 

[sketchesofpayne]

I always say: "If you're not using the entire keyboard to play the game it's not a real mecha simulator."

 

[teh_v]

I think people love mecha games because it lets you pretend like your something larger then life. In a mecha game you can battle to the destruction of your mech, then eject and live to fight another day. Also, with mecha combat the battle can seem more intense and longer with a larger focus on skill and training not impersonal things like luck and strategy. In a mech you wont die from a single bullet to the head. Your skill in piloting the mech and ability to properly gear your mech for the fight will decide who wins. It a romanticizing of war. You can have all the glory of combat without the risk of death. That's just not a Japanese thing that a human nature thing.

I'll never forget in one of the battletech books "ideal war" a couple of mech pilots get captured and one of the pilots has a nervous break down because he's no longer safe "in his metal", and can now face death and war upfront and personal. That's what fantasying about being a mech pilot gives us. We can be a war hero but the chance of death in combat lowers incredible. To the point where it's no longer a factor in worrying about our survival.

apparently you never watched Gundam, his nickname is 'Kill Em All Tomino' for a god damn reason. Unless he's doing a comedy in which his main character will end up in a Harem... Seriously... Don't look at me Like that!

Also props to Kabuto Kouji for headshotting Duke Gorgon through his tiger head and human head in one shot.

in most mecha games they also treat loss as death. save a select few.
Gundam Deaths from 0079-87

I agree that Gundam at least older Gundam took war and combat more seriously then most anime and manga does and in major battles pilots would die. Still with anything mecha related there is always that option to eject when your losing and live on to fight another day. Many game and anime and book used that plot devise of the enemy getting shot out of his mech only to return in a bigger mech. Same with the main character. The reason Gundam was so ground breaking was the fact that the mech had limitation and people could die. Gundam the original is one of the few mech series I can think of where the main character keeps his whole Gundam through out the whole series only to lose it at the end. It also doesn't have unlocked stages or different modes. New weapon and an armor upgrade that's all it got. Unheard of in any anime before it. With mech games treating loss as death some do and some don't. Still the amount of damage one has to do to kill a mech is alot. To kill a man even a great warrior one shot does it. To kill a mech one shot almost never does it.

Now I don't want to sound harsh on mecha at all. I freakin love Mechs. If the army had a mech I would reenlist this moment and become it's damn pilot. I just feel that with mech you get to romantic something that is dirty and awful and make it less dirty and awful.

 

[Ollie Barder]

New Gundam game announced on PS3:

http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002617.html

 

[sketchesofpayne]

I always say: "If you're not using the entire keyboard to play the game it's not a real mecha simulator."

That's stupid, some mecha are controlled by simply two controllers, a steering wheel with pedells and levers, the brain etc.

In fact there could be no perfect simulator for every mecha, seeing as even in Gundam the cockpit changes each generation or so, becoming more simplified.

What I really mean is using just WASD and the mouse isn't a 'simulator', that's an action game.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I always say: "If you're not using the entire keyboard to play the game it's not a real mecha simulator."

That's stupid, some mecha are controlled by simply two controllers, a steering wheel with pedells and levers, the brain etc.

In fact there could be no perfect simulator for every mecha, seeing as even in Gundam the cockpit changes each generation or so, becoming more simplified.

What I really mean is using just WASD and the mouse isn't a 'simulator', that's an action game.

I know that, but have you SEEN the inside of some of the older robots, thats more like the inside of an aircraft, a REALISTIC mecha simulator would have various Vernier control, read-outs on vernier, weapon energy, suit energy, damaged sections, you should be able to reroute power increase your beam saber, then thats not going into all the complex hand movements and arm movements.

TO be fair you need about 3 keyboards for the more advanced Real Robots.

If it's a super-robot then we start getting into "Why are there 6 peddles if there are only 4 directions?!?" territory.

Which is why a person wearing powered infantry armour would do a curbstomp on them. The very issue was addressed by Heinlein in one of the earliest description of powered armour. You'd be spending so long reading all of the screens that somebody would just have the time to elaborately pull your needlessly complicated mecha down to the ground.

And why he's wrong their is because that may work on a rookie, an experianced pilot would KNOW his machine, so before the moment the powered armour comes within kilometers of the mecha it would turn it's 120 MM Cannon and have blown it to bits. Remember the guns LOOK like simple machine guns, but each shell would be the equivilent of an Anti-Tank shell at least, we are talking crush your car size here.

Not to mention that leverage and size play a difference, sure he could attemptto pull one to the ground, but what stops it from using it's verniers to go skyward dragging the helpless Powered Armor along, and if it lets go then I believe LANDING on it would do the dirty.

Powered Armor Infantry could be effective vs a Gundam in the same way Infantry can be effective vs a tank. Gundams are pretty much Bidepel tanks.