An offshoot of Microsoft's MechWarrior series on the PC, which in turn is based on the FASA-licensed BattleTech universe, MechAssault is an action-oriented mech. MechAssault also Pilot the most powerful weapon of the 31st century-a 40-foot tall walking tank called a BattleMech. MechAssault is a third-person action shooter that features fully destructible environments, a powerful array of upgradeable BattleMechs, and dynamic mission-based gameplay.

Shadowgun legends discord. Mitch Gitelman, who previously worked as the head of FASA Studio, has shed a bit of light on why the Xbox-exclusive franchise didn't continue after the first sequel, subtitled Lone Wolf.MechAssault developer Day 1 Studios worked with FASA to create two games for Xbox set in the BattleTech universe, but after the sequel, Microsoft decided to pull the plug on the franchise. When asked on the latest episode of our monthly interview show if the franchise didn't continue because MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf didn't sell well enough, Gitelman replied: 'Yeah, exactly that.

It didn't turn into the franchise that Microsoft was looking for. Gitelman continued: 'At the time there was sort of a sales bar. You don't hit that sales bar and it's like, 'Okay, that was that.' ' It's a mentality the former FASA Studios head said he didn't agree with at the time, and one he still doesn't agree with today.

Flower images. Now, as the co-founder of Harebrained Schemes, Gitelman is reviving the BattleTech franchise for PC. Don't miss our full interview with Gitelman to learn more about his time at FASA Studio, including insight into the studio's 2007 Shadowrun first-person shooter, which was the first title to feature Xbox/PC crossplay.

Xbox Live launches in less than a week, with Test Drive kits set togo on sale from November 30th. That, and the extremely interestingfour-game-bundle keeping today's headline-writers busy, should seeXbox in a significantly more influential position after Christmas,and if MechAssault is an example of the quality of Xbox Live gamewe can expect, then perhaps it's no surprise.It's A Live! You're not himAll the best games are builton simple foundations, and MechAssault developer Day 1 Studiosknows better than to complicate matters. Anybody with more than afew minutes of stick-time in any number of dual-analogue actiongames will be a MechAssault master by midnight.

Lefty moves themech, righty aims the mech, left trigger cycles weapons, righttrigger fires guns. If you're in a multiplayer game, you can surveythe leaderboard by holding the white button, and anything else youmight want to do/know is conveniently available from the pausemenu. It should be noted for online multiplayer virgins, however,that the pause menu only pauses the action in the single playercampaign.Speaking of the lone gunman's prospects, we had expected a veryshort, curt one player mode along the lines of that found inDigital Extreme's Unreal Championship, but we were actuallypleasantly surprised to find a quite lengthy (and devilishly hard,if you opt for the upper echelons of the detailed, Halo-esquedifficulty selection) undertaking with plenty of story hiddenbehind the ominous Campaign button. Like Unreal, the basic gameplaydoesn't deviate too much from what you'll be doing online, apartfrom the overlay of reasonably well-spoken sci-fi dialogue, butit's very compelling.What you do is pick a mech (beginning with small, scout-classes andmoving up to hulking juggernauts before long, even unlocking somestupendously powerful monstrosities if you complete the campaign)and, quite simply, destroy everything - every enemy unit, everyenemy installation, every shack full of the planet's fanaticalHitler-esque regime's followers, every shred of evidence thatanything existed. You do this using a variety of weapons and tools,ranging from basic laser guns and miniguns to lightning-spouting,railgun-esque blasters and heat-seeking projectiles. You can alsouse a jetpack to reach elevated positions, which is quite usefulbecause the terrain in MechAssault is anything but level.Unique fixer-upper Mechs can of course go one way whilst shooting the otherThe landscape isn't so much dotted with buildings in amongstthe hordes of enemies as a little brother's vulnerable playset laidout in the path of your stompy new shoes. Huge, rolling hills,ridges and the planet's road and tunnel systems make for nicescenery, but anything with four walls and a roof is game fordestruction.

Pop a bullet into the average building and a littlewindow will smash, complete with shattering sound effect andcrumbling visuals. Fire a laser blast and half the wall is rippedaway, exposing the dark interior. Light it up with a heat-seekingmissile and a great gaping, smouldering hole will appear, and aftera number of blasts the building will lose its tensile strength andfall to the ground in a pillar of smoke. The effect is one of themost satisfyingly destructive in any game on any platform. And youoften have to beckon it out by ruining perfectly good masonry asmany as 50 times per level.However, although your orders are to purge the area, it's oftenadvantageous to keep the buildings around until you're donepolishing off the locals. Although foot soldiers won't cause muchtrouble (you can actually squish them simply by walking over them),mobile tanks can be an arse, and those stationary cannons on theoutside of installations are murder on a mech's paintwork. As thecampaign draws on though, the enemy wheels out mechs both great andsmall, individually and in great numbers, and they take an insaneamount of damage before they go off like a nuclear explosion(complete with mushroom cloud if you're lucky).Combat is very engaging, with lots of strafing and strategic use ofweaponry.

If you're fighting in amongst buildings, you can oftenget one to fall down damagingly on your prey, or better yet, youcan sneak inside one of them, Godzilla-like, and wait pensively forthe oblivious soon-to-be-scrap mech to round the corner.The 20 missions of the single player campaign basically rotatearound mech combat and city-clearing, with lots of armour and ammopick-ups strewn around and unearthed from the rubble ofpast-buildings. It only takes about five or six hours to complete,give or take a few hours of retrying levels, but it's veryenjoyable. If anything, the only criticisms to be levelled atMechAssault's single player are the understandably repetitivenature of the beast and the lack of mid-level save points, butneither is terminal, and my guess is that 90 per cent of you aremore interested in the multiplayer aspect anyway.A good thing, because multiplayer is the best way to playMechAssault.Going Live RedecoratingGetting online with MechAssault is abreeze (based on testing with the Xbox Live beta service, at anyrate).

Simply choose whether to join a game already in progress orhost your own, and play. Games consist of up to eight playersdashing around in deathmatch and last man standing modes, either infree-for-all (FFA) or team modes. Completely lag free over a cablemodem, the game seems to be doing very well online with severalthousand players dotted around. Chatter over Communicatoris quite fun (particularly with robotic voice masking) and nobody'sworked out any way to exploit it yet, something which will come asa great relief to anybody who's dabbled with console games onlinein the past.However, those of you without Microsoft's great online games dreamfirmly on your shopping list may want to reconsider. Fun thoughMechAssault's single player campaign most certainly is, it isn'tgoing to last you more than a couple of evenings. The split-screentwo player mode is a nice addition, and you'll be able to have lotsof fun with that, but it doesn't look as spectacular with thereduced viewing area, and in the absence of more than two playersregularly breaks down into mechs circling one another firingheat-seekers. Shame.Planning to pick up an Xbox Live Test Drive kit?

Then you shouldmake sure you get this too. Online play is definitely the way to gowith MechAssault, and coupled with an enjoyable single playercampaign (and incentives to actually play it, too), this is anabsolute must for Live players, and by all accounts behaves betterthan the reportedly lag-ridden Unreal Championship. The prospect ofdownloadable content (option on the menu) seals the deal -MechAssault is a beautiful, addictive, mechanised feast ofdestruction, ideally suited to online gamers both new and old.9/10.