Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight review

Yes, Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight is one of those Japanese mech releases that only a few outside of the Far East will appreciate. Gamestyle counts itself amongst that few, as we've thoroughly enjoyed Steel Battalion, Virtual On, Phantom Crash, Armored Core, Front Mission and their ilk. While each of these centres around a mech and combat, their experiences and approaches could not be more different, and the same is true with Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight.While the Gundam series is huge in Japan, for us this entrant lacks the options and balanced difficulty of the Armored Core series, especially evident in this release. It is frankly a lightweight in a heavyweight genre; although BEC have tried to inject some Front Mission RPG elements, you're still left with the impression this is a half-hearted exercise in making a launch day release. Objectively, perhaps the aim was to entice more players to the genre by making such a pick-up-and-play experience. While it is fairly straightforward to achieve initial success and upgrade your mobile suit, there is a degree of confusion about what Target In Sight actually wants to be. In the end, it proves too bland and generic for mech enthusiasts and just a poor game for the uninitiated.So what about the setting this time around? No prizes for guessing it involves another epic encounter between the opposing sides of The Federation and Zeon - these two forces have been battling for supremacy for as long as we can recall. This title marks a new stage in the ongoing war; set nine months after the Zeon invasion of Earth, the Federation have brought together their remaining forces for one last strike, and you can join in on the offensive.For all the press release bravado about Target In Sight utilising the power of the PlayStation 3, Gamestyle asks what has gone wrong? This would have easily run on the PlayStation 2, and the only positive thing is the option to dump the game on the PS3 hard drive to quash those excessive loading times. Textures and environments are sparse, bland and lifeless, the frame rate stutters, and the ultimate triumph are those invisible walls. Yes, even with all that processing power, your suit is limited to a rectangle area on the game map. All the more fun when your opponent has no such boundaries and will run out of your confined space, targeting you from afar just to rub your face in such a fact.In retrospect, the same can be said of Mobile Suit Gundam Federation Vs Zeon, which was an average visual exponent of the PlayStation 2. However it was underpinned by some enjoyable skirmishes, but the combat in Target In Sight is wrong, all wrong. At first sight, you would expect battles to be slow bouts of attrition, but normally a mobile suit moves with the air and grace of a panther. Combat here is clunky and ungraceful, with the camera proving to be a real pain to keep in line - often leaving you firing blindly as it changes direction once again.Progress in the game it pitted against the clock as you only have an allocated time to defeat whatever opposition you chose to go up against. By completing available missions, you receive reward points that can be spent upgrading your own mech or that of your two supporting officers. The range of options here for the genre is disappointing, as they allow little room for experimentation or freedom. What reward points you do have are best invested in those two supporting mechs who will on occasion tip the balance in your favour on the battlefield. The ability to upgrade your colleagues is one of the few areas of enjoyment in this release, despite the whole procedure being achieved through static screens and menus.The option exists to play through the game as either a member of the Zeon or Federation forces. This allows you to see the conflict from both sides and turns the tables on an earlier mission you may have experienced. If well executed, this would have been an enjoyable inclusion, instead a short voice over provides an outline before you jump into the arena to destroy everything. Overall the presentation is woeful, as there is no character development or enhancement of the storyline through cut sequences. Target in Sight should have been renamed Search & Destroy, as that's all the game offers in terms of variety. As for the ability to play on either side: it's there just to double the woeful mission content.Until now, Gamestyle had been pleasantly surprised by the quality of releases available from launch for the PlayStation 3. Unfortunately, Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight fills that launch day niche - the title everyone will pass over - and this time around it is the correct thing to do.