 |
Coming Soon > PlayStation Game Cheats > PlayStation Reviews > Staff Review | |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Setting
the Scene: We all know that the world in which we live is constantly changing and evolving. With the pace at which technology is moving, fifty years from now Earth will most certainly be an entirely unfamiliar place compared to how it is today…just imagine what things will look like 112 years from now… Well Square has ventured to guess how our planet would have evolved in that timeframe and has created a game that takes place in the year 2112. Well it seems that a whole lot has happened between now and then. In 2020 the North and South American continents become unified and are called the USN (The United States of the New Continent). Shortly afterwards in 2026, the Pacific Asian Provinces unite and become the OCU (Oceana Community Union). For years the USN is an unstable force with the North and South factions never quite coming together as they should have. The OCU continues to progress their alliances and begins to build new and powerful cities…some of which become research facilities for the development and construction of robotics. Let's fast forward now to the year 2112. A new nation is formed, calling themselves the People's Republic of Da Han Zhong and you are introduced to the games main character, Kazuki Takemura. Kazuki is 19 years old and was born in Japan under the OCU. He is a student of the Yokosuka Technical Institute and serves as a test pilot for Kirishima Industries. What Kazuki test pilots is giant robotic-like Mechs called Wanzers. These are military battle vehicles that you actually step inside of and control as if it was an outer shell of your body. Because of their flexibility and multiple designs they become extremely popular around the world and eventually begin to supplant the demand for other military ground vehicles. While testing one particularly powerful Wanzer at work one day, Kazuki hears an explosion coming from the Yokosuka Base where his sister Alisa just happens to attending school on that military base. You immediately decide to go there to see if she is alright…what happens next is something that you could never have anticipated though… It seems that a new type of bomb has been created and you have been thrown right into the middle of the controversy, intrigue and the powder keg that could become another World War! With your team of friends, allies and assembled Wanzers it's up to you to get to the bottom of this mess. Unfortunately finding the bomb, uncovering the various conspiracies and saving the planet may be the easy part…staying alive in the process is the hard part!! Sound and Vision: If you are familiar with Square games on the Playstation, then you know that they put a lot of effort into the musical compositions of each game and Front Mission 3 is no exception. The music fits in nicely with the action going on around and actually helps to build up the excitement during critical encounters. I am rarely disappointed in the scores in Square games and FM 3 is another winner for sure. The sound effects are typical and can actually become a bit annoying in parts. For instance, when multiple mechs are walking you get a metallic "echo" effect that sounds pretty cool the first few times but after awhile it can become grating. The missile and other various weapon sounds are appropriately done but there is nothing particularly memorable in the sound effects department, I am sorry to say. Except for the really wicked sounds that the menu systems make when entering into forums and email, or the wonderful crackling sounds the Wanzers make as they are destroyed. The graphics in FM3 are rather stylish and effective. The battles scenes feature a fully 3-D rotating screen that can be zoomed in or out as well. The actual character models and backgrounds appeared to me to be rather blocky and pixilated but thankfully did not detract away from the gameplay at all. The overall battle graphics just are not as cutting edge as some of the more recent games out there right for the Playstation but they certainly don't suck either. The menu system and forums that you can visit are really put together very realistically. The format is super stylish and futuristic looking with screens that pop up, rotate and scale. The whole presentation is awesome and really mimics the effects of logging into a high-tech system. Click HERE To read more of this Review... |