Top Secret Magazine SHOGO

Among PC game developers these days, everyone and their grandmother seems to be making first person shooters. These are games where a machine gun or a rocket launcher take up the lower third of your monitor screen as you play.

For any individual game in this genre to be noticed amongst the throng of the competition, it has to add a little extra something not seen anywhere else, and that is precisely what Shogo: Mobile Armor Division does. This game has a well-developed backstory, which is rare, and a definite sense of style.

The story has you playing as Sanjuro Makabe, a member of the UCA security force. The UCA ( United Corporate Authority) is the dominant military power on the planet Cronus, where this game takes place, and is charged with keeping the peace.

Cronus is the only source in the universe of a powerful biological energy called Kato and control of this energy is being threatened by a group of terrorists called "The Fallen". It is Sanjuro's job to climb into his Mobile Combat Armor(MCA) and thwart the terrorists' plan.

Complicating matters slightly is that Sanjuro is dating his superior officer's daughter Kathryn, and, he used to keep Kathryn's sister Kura warm at night until she disappeared during a combat mission. This love triangle has no effect on your battle skills, but it does add some tension to the in-game dialogue, especially once Kura reappears later in the game.

It also serves to flesh out the story with some detail and make the world of Shogo more real. Battle-hardened veteran players may cringe at the thought of a romance angle in this game, but they needn't worry. Plot developments aren't the focus of Shogo.

The focus is on action and it comes in a variety of different forms. You play through most of the game from the seat of your MCA. It's a bipedal robot that stands around 2-3 stories tall, is armed to the teeth and will be familiar to anyone who has played Mechwarriors or Heavy Gear.

The familiarity ends once this mechanized beast starts moving, however, because the speed and agility of the mecha in this game are comparable to that of a human being.

Fights against opposing teams of robots are very exciting affairs that have you dodging enemy fire by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and running through city streets while trying not to step on any cars that may explode and cause you damage.

Everybody into the pool!

Now that's a big gun!

You start the game as the leader of a squad of three MCAs and you and your fellow mechs work as a team. Later on you have to face your enemies by yourself with only your own skills to depend on. However, you're so heavily armed that there isn't much challenge even on the hardest difficulty setting.

In fact, fighting against simple tanks and ground troops is laughably easy. Just as you're thinking that this game is a cakewalk and that you can coast through the missions with ease, it becomes time for something completely different. Your mobile combat armor is taken away from you and you have to proceed on foot.

The transition from 30 foot tall mechanical warrior to 6 foot tall lightly armed human is a jarring one and gives you a definite sense of vulnerability. Instead of blindly running into areas full of enemies and proceeding to massacre them, you find yourself tip-toeing around, carefully opening doors, peering around corners and looking for objects that you can hide behind.

It's this kind of abrupt change of pace that makes Shogo:MAD such a fun game. There are play elements here that you haven't experienced before and that make you wonder what's around the next corner. Even a matter as simple as opening a locked door has been expanded.

At one stage in the game you cannot get past an electronic door unless a woman opens it for you. The woman will only open the door after you've found her pet cat that is missing and you can only find the cat if you can find its squeeky toy. This creates a situation where you're skulking around in a dark warehouse full of hostile enemies that are trying to kill you, while you look behind crates, squeezing a stuffed animal. Definitely a first for shooters.

Also setting Shogo apart from other games is its graphic and audio style which are pulled straight from the world of anime and manga (Japanese cartoons and comic books.) The graphics are no where near as refined or beautiful as in Unreal, but they accurately depict what they're supposed to and they do so with flair.

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is an exciting game to play, and adds a welcome addition of storyline and style for shooter fans. At the time of its release, there were some problems with the online multiplayer aspect of this game but a patch is in the works and should be available from Monolith's website shortly. It you're a shooter game fan or a fan of Japanese animation, I recommend that you take this game for a spin.

Company:
Monolith Productions
www.shogo-mad.com

Category:
First-person shooter

NOTES:

Interest: 80%
Control : 90%
Graphics: 80%
Sound : 80%
Originality : 90%

TOTAL : 84%

Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95/98

Processor:
Pentium 166MHz or better

Memory:
32 MB of RAM

Hard Drive:
100 MB minimum

Sound Card:
DirectSound compatible sound card

Video:
4MB D3D compatible 3D card

Stefan Lister

DEMO