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The latest title from Talonsoft, Metal Fatigue, lives up to at
least one word in its name. Im
exhausted after this game. Mortally and
morally tired. The vagaries of CorpoNation
warfare, the pitfalls of fraternal conflicts, and the truly staggering complexity of
managing armies in this game have devolved me in a drooling ape who regularly wakes up at
his keyboard after yet another marathon session with a cramped back and keyboard indents
in his forehead. This is both this games
promise and its problem. Metal Fatigue
doesnt make any advances in storytelling. You
play one of three brothers, each working for a different CorpoNation (Diego of Rimtech,
Stefan of Mil-Agro, and Jonus or Neuropa) and battling for control of Hedoth, the alien
system of an older and apparently extinct civilization whose technology you are in the
processes of swiping. On the up side, the
narrative is advanced through the personal journals of each brother during mission
briefings. This adds a nice, if small,
narrative touch, but you didnt really come to across the galaxy to read novels or
become emotionally invested in the characters. You
came to kick a little ass with some fancy robots. Robots, or Combots,
are the best piece of the game. Anyone
familiar with MechWarrior style titles will feel at home.
Manufacturing two arms, a torso, and set of legs creates a Combot, and each
CorpoNation begins with a different set of Combot combinations. As you crush your enemies, you can steal parts
manufactured by the other side. For weapons,
you can equip a mechanical death machine with kinetic weapons (katanas, axes, big hammers)
or energy blasters (lasers, plasma canons) and part of the strategy is to build Combots
that best suit the style of your attackers. It
is particularly satisfying to watch a horde of robots, each with an ax-arm, plow through
orphanages, enemy depots, and any random housing developments that just happen to get in
their way. The rest of Metal
Fatigue, in terms of its RTS components, is uninspired.
Each CorpoNation has the same support units (tanks, artillery, missile
jeeps, useless and quick-to-die hoverjets, and a thing called the nemesis that injures
Combots) with are pretty much impotent against their hulking betters. Theyre also expensive. Watching a single Combot with a hammer make short
work of your tank battalion is depressing. With
so much work going into the big boys, its too bad that more time couldnt have
been spent individualizing each CorpoNations other combatants. As far as I can tell, they are only good for
exploring the subterranean levels of the game, which segues me into what will either make
the game worth buying or make you turn off your computer in frustration. Metal Fatigue is
set up in three different levels of play: the orbital level, surface, and underground. In almost every mission, each level must be
monitored and each must be fought for as well as successfully defended. Forcing a Mil-Agro force out of the orbital layer
is no guarantee that, once your back is turned, they wont take it all back. This simple addition enlarges each mission
immensely as well as placing huge demands on your ability to cope with multiple tasks on
several different maps. Frankly, I found this
tedious. Just when I began making headway on
the surface, something would drag my attention to another map, eliminating any gains
Id made. However, to hardcore RTS fans,
I think this feature will push Metal Fatigue into the worth-it category due to the
complexity of resource management and directing operations in multiple fields. The rest of the
game is unimaginative and unspectacular. The
soundtrack is what youd expect, the usual rehash of exciting
electronica, so turn it off at the first opportunity.
The 3D landscapes are plain and dont vary or make good use of
textures. There are only two resources,
people to be gotten from cryofarms, and metajoules that are easily extracted from large
lava pools. No surprises there, although
metajoule collection is made easy in that your collection vehicles (hover trucks) beam the
energy directly back to your base. However,
as lava pools gradually refill and since you can build solar panels to collect energy on
the orbital layer, the old ploy of taking out the enemys resource is difficult if
not obsolete. What makes Metal
Fatigue interesting, the Combots, doesnt make up for the at- times-stultifying game
play. However, I think it still deserves
four stars because that same play that turns me off will, in my opinion, jazz the hardcore
gamer. Winning, even completing a mission, in
Metal Fatigue is a challenge of logistics and attention.
If you are casual about RTS games, then Metal Fatigue is not for you. If you beaten all the other games on the market,
jonez for an RTS challenge, and like the idea of tromping around in a several ton robot,
then Metal Fatigue will give you a good time.
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