
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Action Publisher Namco/Bandai Developer Namco/Bandai ESRB T (Teen) Released Q3 2007

- Finally a game that properly portrays the battles of Gundam - English and Japanese voice acting? Kawaii!

- Extremely short game, little replay value - No online multiplayer

Review: Armored Core 4 (PS3) Review: Dynasty Warriors 4 (360) Review: Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3) Review: Spider-Man 3 (PS3)
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Dynasty Warriors: Gundam

Score: 8.0 / 10

Anyone who has ever built a Gundam plastic model knows the attention to detail and the love which the developers have over the myriad of series of Gundam and all their products. So when you consider the games that have been produced up to this point, it’s a bit of a vacuum – very few strong games... one could go so far as to say, no good games form this franchise. What’s to screw up? You have young people with ideological differences establishing their point of views with collateral damage while piloting giant robot suits. Should be pretty simple to recreate, in theory at least.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam takes the formula of massive-scale battles and instead of generals leading from the front – you play as a Mobile Suit Ace, as any one of a variety of pilots from the Gundam, Zeta, Double Zeta, Turn-A, G, and Wing Eras. As you lead your army of suits in battle, you fight for positional dominance on the map in a delicious 3rd person perspective. Areas you control will spawn allies,

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enemy controlled areas conversely spawn targets, and you are perpetually fighting both for dominance of the battlefield but responding to situational reports as they come out. Flying across the battle to aid an ally or repulse an attack on a critical position quickly become par the course as you progress through the campaigns. Defeating enemies nets

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you experience, which in turn you use to level up in two categories – suit and pilot. Suit levels give you better mobility, attacks, response, and Musou attacks (super attacks that you build up by defeating enemies) while pilot levels increase your ability to pilot and give additional skills in fighting or other hidden abilities.

A typical battle will take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes depending on your character levels and proficiency in fighting, and you will probably get to destroy up to 1,500 enemies in a single battle (my personal record was 1,812 on one mission). The point is to finally re-establish the power difference between the aces and the mainline forces in Gundam – there is a reason that these suits are so bloody important, they can change a battle in moments. You will work on conquering both enemy territory and eliminating enemy aces as they appear before they can damage your zones. Needless to say you finally get to experience the carnage that a motivated Gundam pilot can inflict upon an enemy (great for stress relief).

There are three modes of play available: Official, Original, and Versus. Official mode grants you control of one of our major players: Amuro Ray (from original Gundam), Kamille Bidan (from Zeta Gundam), or Judau Ashta (from Double Zeta Gundam) in missions from their respective series. As you complete their campaigns, their adversaries are unlocked (Char Aznable and Haman Karn). Original Mode provides a story – a mysterious planet appears heading towards Earth and all of the different eras of mobile suit pilots head their with their respective armies to investigate. As you could imagine, misunderstandings break out (much like an episode of Three’s Company) and everyone ends up fighting. As you defeat people, they ally with you against other groups until the eventual climax battle. Characters who complete Official mode are available for Original mode, but you start off with Heero Yuy (Gundam Wing), Domon Kasshu (G-Gundam), and Loran Cehack (Turn-A Gundam, aforementioned as the mustachioed Gundam). As before, complete the campaigns to unlock additional characters to repeat the exact same campaign... from a different perspective. This would be a clever idea, if there was more to the campaigns than just grinding through them. No campaign is longer than 5 missions long, so people don’t get to spend an abundance of time with their favorites. Versus mode, pretty much what you’ve been playing but against a friend - it is more fun playing Official or Original mode with your friend as an ally.

The game’s graphics are definitely serviceable and the in-game clips will make any Gundam-otaku drool. Sound effects are pretty much what one would expect from the original tv-series and the inclusion of both Japanese and English original voice acting makes a huge difference for those of us who watch our anime subtitled (see Bandai? You can do it for Gundam, now let’s see Naruto in something other than the horrific english dub). The game play does tend to drone on in some of the longer missions... you will press the X and Triangle button often and the variety of missions certainly doesn’t boggle the mind. But the game is fun, mindless fun at that.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam was a lot of fun to play, not a particularly deep game with extensive replay value, but fun nonetheless. Highly recommended for Gundam fanatics, people looking to blow stuff up, and those who remember the ole’ punch-em-ups of the 90’s with misty eyes.

- Tazman

(October 17, 2007)

“Are you here with your kids?”

“Yeah, they're called Screw and You.”

- Teenager and Moe (Simpsons)