I've seen the Armored Core series before and heard bad things about Armored Core 4, but I wanted to give Armored Core 4A a try anyway since it sounded like they made your mechs more configurable and the gameplay more fun. I can't compare to the previous ones since I haven't seen them, but my hunch is they succeeded.

The game is fun and supports a variety of play styles (missiles or guns? Heavy or light?) with a wide variety of parts. There are even quite a bit of blades for melee combat and some ECM and counter-ECM gear. Configuration is fun and a huge part of the game.

The game features many large enemies such as naval vessels and quite a few huge arms forts. These forts are gargantuan in size and really fun to fight since they give you something to unleash loads of ordinance on that doesn't dodge out of the way rapidly and can blow you away with its immense firepower.

Although this is apparently a staple of the series, I didn't like the fact that I was limited to firing only three weapons at a time (left, right, and shoulder mounted weapons). You can swap between your arm weapons and back mounted weapons, but you can't fire your arm and back weapons simultaneously. This made me feel that perhaps the people who designed these awesome robots never thought of the idea that someone might want to actually fire everything.

I guess my last mech game was MechWarrior so I'm spoiled that way. Another staple of the MechWarrior series missing in Armored Core is the first person cockpit view. It seems like it'd be very easy to add (just move the camera forward a bit and hide your mech. Maybe add a crosshair), but you're limited to a third person view.

The parts have reams and reams of statistics associated with them, so designing a mech is not exactly simple, but this added to the richness of the game for me. I would have liked to have more money to spend early on so I'd have a little more variety in the parts I could stick on my mech when going up against a tricky mission.

Bottom line: Good game, lets you blow stuff up, supports a variety of styles of play, and seems to be an improvement from what I've seen of the series. I recommend this if you're into mechs or things that go boom.

I've played several of the previous AC games, and I gotta tell you that this one is fine tuned to the T. If you liked any of the previous titles at all, this will blow your mind. If you haven't played any of the previous titles, this one can also be enjoyed by itself. Though AC vets will find some really god nuggets of reference from past titles. But please, don't let it stop you if you haven't played the others...this one is great all by itself, and though huge mech fights may seem complex on the surface it is actually an easy game to get the hang of control-wise.