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Thoughts about Armored Core 4?

Spawn733Spawn733 Registered User regular
edited March 2007 in Games and Technology
Sup PA community, I'm just one of the many that've followed this site for YEARS and years. But I just registered today lol.

So the topic at hand is Armored Core 4 (my beloved game to be!):

http://www.sega.com/gamesite/armoredcore4/

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sim/armoredcore4/index.html?q=armored%20core%204

http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/772/772076.html

I was just wondering what Tycho and Gabe might have to say about the reinvention of this long-standing series? I'm really looking forward to its release a few days from now.

And of course, I'm curious to see if any of the PA community even KNOW about it ;) And perhaps to gauge a few members predictions of how they think it will be verses what they think of it after they've played it > : D

Spawn733 on
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    darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    just an FYI, they don't really read the forums or post (except on the topic of their game, it would seem).

    darleysam on
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    Spawn733Spawn733 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    That's fine, I'm satisfied with hearing what you guys think about it :)

    Spawn733 on
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    NDixonNDixon Registered User new member
    edited March 2007
    Well the AC4 demo is pretty cool, altough I couldn't beat that damn surfing mission or whatever it was called...and I couldn't customise the mech's in the demo but it was pretty sweet, the graphics were nice and it was very fast paced...specially that desert mission where you face the other AC pilot...ummm oh I hope you can re-map the controls in the full game cause I wanted to make a few changes...it felt kinda akward at times when switching weapons and shooting

    NDixon on
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    SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    It looks awesome. Some of the animation in the mechs seems off, but not as bad as I've seen in a few other games (MGS4 comes to mind).

    Sheep on
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    Spawn733Spawn733 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Well, I guess we'll see how it is when it ships tomorrow (and is thusly recieved by us in another day or 2!)

    Spawn733 on
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    SophismataSophismata Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Spawn733 wrote: »
    And of course, I'm curious to see if any of the PA community even KNOW about it ;) And perhaps to gauge a few members predictions of how they think it will be verses what they think of it after they've played it > : D

    Okay, I'll give you my opinions on AC4 after playing it, but keep in mind that I haven't actually played the previous AC games.

    First up, the mechs are awesome. The customisation is good (but not up to par with Chromehound's extreme level of detail) - but even better, the various mechs "feel" different. Weapons range from Uzi-style guns to precision high-powered rifles, to mortars, to swords (and a much cooler melee weapon, the exploding punch) and energy weapons (not to mention missles, oh the missles) and they are all useful, while being different in style and design. More importantly, the heavy weapons mechs have a feel altogether different from something like the (Carrion Crow? I believe it was called) light mech - the US designed mechs also have a strange, US Marines! feel to them.

    Unfortunately, I found the rest of the game a disspointment - not so much because it was or is a bad game, but because I feel that some things could have been done much better. The multiplayer arenas are varied, but all of them feel empty. The larger ones are too big, and much of the match was merely trying to find the other player (keep in mind that this is 1v1 splitscreen). The medium sized maps would be awesome for team battles, but when I mention the larger ones being big... they're huge. Huge, empty expanses, with little to landmark the terrain.

    The graphics, at least in SD (over S-Video) are lacking. Again, they are not bad... but the XBox 360 has constantly impressed me far more in the graphical department than anything on offer on the PS3. The explosions, of which you'll be seeing a lot (depending on playstyle ;p), did nothing to really "wow" me, and the animations and mech destruction sequence did not leap out at me.

    That said, actual combat was a blast, and the controls were, for the most part, comfortable. Activating the mines or extra missle launches or what-have-you was the only annoying part, but the controls are customisable... with the exception of inverted view, which was not an option. Of course, this is the Japanese version, and there may be changes before localisation.

    Three things to keep in mind - one, I did not and have not played single player, so no comment on the story or missions. My Japanese is not up to snuff to properly enjoy it, and I was having too much fun with the multi.

    Two, a lot of my "issues" with the game are issues with the PS3 and "next-gen" gameing in general. For all the touted power of the PS3, I haven't yet seen a game that even attempts to use the graphical and processing power at its disposal - this is also true for the XBox 360, but doubly so for the PS3 - especially since it is (supposedly) a more powerful machine. (Tangent: I feel the jump to HD is too early, and it would have been better if the majority of extra power was put towards making SD graphics and gameplay truly spectacular, expecially given the penetration rates of HD televisions and the recumbent nature of the techonolgy in the first place). It'd be nice to see some maps swarming with life, to be able to peer though the smoke and debri of missle fire instead of having your screen go orange, to have significant locational damage and have that determine what happens when a mech goes boom.

    Three - and this is the important one - I had fun playing the game. Despite my agitations, it was great fun to play, probably moreso if you can manage to gather more players :).

    Sophismata on
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    XieflowXieflow Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=17890&type=mov
    PS3 versus 360 comparison. I happen to like look of the 360 version more, but I could see people liking either.

    Xieflow on
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    Vicious_GSRVicious_GSR Dude Principality of ZeonRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Just seems like a random shoot em' up... with mechs...

    Vicious_GSR on
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    corin7corin7 San Diego, CARegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Well the 360 version looked better. But it seemed like it was mostly due to brightness/contrast settings. I will probably pick this game up. I like giant stompy robots and got my moneys worth out of chromehounds.

    corin7 on
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    SophismataSophismata Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    As I said... despite my own criticisms with it, it is a very fun game. I would probably go with the 360 version though, even if solely for online matchups.

    Sophismata on
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    The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Xieflow wrote: »
    http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=17890&type=mov
    PS3 versus 360 comparison. I happen to like look of the 360 version more, but I could see people liking either.

    That's a terrible video, its too hard to tell anything. The PS3 version looks so washed out and flat, but looks like it runs cleaner, the 360 one looks like it has more detail in it but is so damn dark you can't see anything.

    It'd be nice to see a comparison that was done on similar gamma levels to really tell.

    The Dude With Herpes on
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    tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Mechs should lumber about the battlefield, firing vast and apocalyptic weapon systems like Titans in 40K. Ive never had much fondness for the whole japanese speedy ninja mech type concept. It seems forced and ridiculous. Although it did work in that game where you were in space and flew about in all those biodomes? So I will reserve judgement. It certainly looks cool, but I imagine playing it I will just think "If only they had used their time to make a proper mech game like mechwarrior"

    I really want a game based on 40K titans. Youd be the princeps, and manage weapon systems, damage control, close combat etc while this huge battle raged around you.

    tbloxham on
    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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    Guardian LegendGuardian Legend Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    From what I gathered from the Gamespot forums of AC4, the PS3 version will have no way to communicate with the other players in online play. There's no voice chat or text chat, and the possibility of a patch that will introduce it are slim. The 360 version will have voice chat out of the box.

    I was gonna get the PS3 version but without any communication method whatsoever in online, I dunno if I will anymore.

    Guardian Legend on
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    AoiAoi Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    So it's been out, and now I'm wanting to hear impressions damn it!!

    Seriously, I'm looking for impressions with regards to single player, how expansive is the parts customization, how well multiplayer works online... Just generally opinions from players, especially those with experience with the series.

    The thing that struck me from the few movies/trailers I've seen is that the missions actually look longer than the ones in the previous games in the series that I've played where they could literally go for a couple minutes.

    Anyway, post away?

    Aoi on
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    BaronVonSnakPakBaronVonSnakPak Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    it sounds like the missions are really short. and after watching a bunch of videos at ign and gamestop, it seems to be true. they practically complete an entire mission in every video, and they all last about a minute or 2.

    BaronVonSnakPak on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I've been playing single-player. Much to my disappointment, you can't even save the game if your x-box live account isn't connected to the interweb. What the fuck is up with that?

    Anywho. The game's a blast. Graphics and sound are beautiful in my eyes. I tend to have a boner for anything giant robot-related, but there ya go.

    Controls are freaking great. A bit odd at first if you're used to the rest of AC, they're a VAST, VAST improvement. At least with the beginning AC I chose, you can infinitely boost over the ground. The EN meter only depletes when you go airborne. This is something AC's been needing for a long time. Heat's been done away with. All you have to keep track now are your EN meter and a Primal Armor gauge which decreases when you hit Overboost.

    Weapon-wise, I find the change to be very streamlined. Extension parts are now considered Shoulder weapons, and the arm/back parts have to be switched in and out to be used. This means that you can only use your left arm weapon or your left back weapon, not both. Same goes for the right side. I for one welcome this change.

    Movement is done with both joysticks. Left joystick is like WASD in keyboards, right joystick makes you turn and look. When you lock on when getting close enough, you click the left joystick to, for the most part, automatically look and turn to keep up with your opponent. It works well enough and you can still move and turn as you wish with the right joystick.

    I spit on EGM. They gave this game a bad score. Then again, they're always biased gainst AC. :D

    OtakuD00D on
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    BaronVonSnakPakBaronVonSnakPak Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    OtakuD00D wrote: »
    I've been playing single-player. Much to my disappointment, you can't even save the game if your x-box live account isn't connected to the interweb.

    seriously?

    what the fuck.

    goodbye purchase.

    BaronVonSnakPak on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Dunno, maybe they might fix this. You can save it on other Gamertags, but you can't save it on your X-Box Live -registered one if you're not connected.

    OtakuD00D on
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    BaronVonSnakPakBaronVonSnakPak Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    how about mission length? are they all only a couple of minutes at best?

    BaronVonSnakPak on
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    DasUberEdwardDasUberEdward Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Needs more PS2 or Wii support.

    DasUberEdward on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Some are. The boss fight at the end of Chapter 2 though, is VERY awesome.
    You fight a lightweight AC piloted by the hero of the anti-establishment rebellion. Forgive the Gundam lingo, but he's practically a Newtype. The guy's touted to have really crazy reflexes and such. Of course, the main hero's a match for him.

    Also. Is it possible to draw an emblem on the PC and load it onto the 360 to import? That would ROCK!

    OtakuD00D on
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    arcatharcath Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Whats the release date on this?

    arcath on
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    BaronVonSnakPakBaronVonSnakPak Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    today

    BaronVonSnakPak on
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    arcatharcath Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    great.....another $60 to spend that I dont have....

    arcath on
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    SilpheedSilpheed Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    How is the single player story? Is it as impersonal as all the other AC's?

    Silpheed on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    A Patrick Stewart-like narrator talks about stuff. Defending some.. place.. or something. Corporations rule the world. Your dude is special and the narrator is glad he picked you. Or something.

    OtakuD00D on
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    SilpheedSilpheed Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    OtakuD00D wrote: »
    A Patrick Stewart-like narrator talks about stuff. Defending some.. place.. or something. Corporations rule the world. Your dude is special and the narrator is glad he picked you. Or something.
    Sounds like an epic in the making :D

    Silpheed on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Silpheed wrote: »
    OtakuD00D wrote: »
    A Patrick Stewart-like narrator talks about stuff. Defending some.. place.. or something. Corporations rule the world. Your dude is special and the narrator is glad he picked you. Or something.
    Sounds like an epic in the making :D

    Oh, totally. You blow plenty of shit up!

    OtakuD00D on
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    XieflowXieflow Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    does this offer the usual single player arena mode?

    Xieflow on
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    Spawn733Spawn733 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    OtakuD00D wrote: »
    I've been playing single-player. Much to my disappointment, you can't even save the game if your x-box live account isn't connected to the interweb.

    seriously?

    what the fuck.

    goodbye purchase.

    No goodbye purchase, because at no point did it ask me to log in or choose what Gamertag to use, or anything remotely similar.

    You're on the net now so it doesn't even matter for you it seems, but I really don't think what he said about that was true.

    So GET IT!! Or rent it at least :D

    Spawn733 on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    It is. I couldn't save the game with my X-Box Live Gamertag when unplugged. With the others, I could, though. Maybe the update fixed that already? Dunno.

    OtakuD00D on
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    ScosglenScosglen Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Having not played an armored core game since AC1 on the PSX maaany years ago, I was curious to try this out when my friend bought it earlier today.

    Frankly I think the series has taken a step backwards, or at least needs a total revision for AC5. Sure the controls are smoothed out and everything is slick but the gameplay itself and game modes are just so uninspired. I was disappointed at not being able to compete with other Ravens like in AC1 arenas for cash, the story seems to be totally linear and the mission design is at times bafflingly awful. (One mission involves standing on a small island shooting down what looks like embers but are apparently missiles; you shoot down clouds of these things for 5 minutes). The nighttime maps are also absurdly dark. Mission rank varies from stupidly short (fly by a bunch of bad guys and laser sword one enemy in 20 seconds) to needlessly long because you can't figure out what to do. Online seems pretty worthless as well (only deathmatch or team deathmatch)

    I honestly can't recommend the game unless you are a total AC freak.

    Scosglen on
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    Zen VulgarityZen Vulgarity What a lovely day for tea Secret British ThreadRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Scosglen:
    You can compete in an arena later on on special data things. I forget the name.

    And you don't remember AC1 if you can't remember retarded missions. The one level where you're endlessly running around a lab? Yeah. Fuck that. Fuck that hard.

    I've played the demo and a friend of mine who was watching me play Nexus is going to buy it Friday. I've also played it on another friend's 360. Quick comments:

    -Controls are hella nice, even if you've never played a game.
    -Missions can really be retardedly short.
    -Missions, as per par for AC, are not incredibly varied.
    -No more bullshit can't-boost-on-the-ground-heat anymore.
    -You really feel like a walking death machine in this game sometimes- something that didn't really come out in previous installments (see: possibly too easy)
    -Stabilizers! <3
    -No PLUS, but meh.

    Overall I think it's a fun game. It may not be a purchase for non-AC faithful, but the much needed control improvements are great.

    However.

    This is on the PS3/360. God damnit, I want to see the environments feel alive for once. I want little itty bitty people running for shelter, little shitty tanks not being able to do anything, yadda yadda. Get creative for once in ten years, you fuckers.

    Zen Vulgarity on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    @Scosglen
    What in the hell are you talking about? The Simulator option in the garage is the same thing as the arena. It's now non-linearly structured. You pick a squad and fight each of its members to get cash, schematics, and emblems. The red eyes mission was awesome, dunno about you. As for night time, what the hell's wrong with you? Night time's supposed to be dark. It drives the point home that your enemy really planned their shit out, and without support actually lighting things up and helping you out, the attackers would have succeeded in attacking under the cover of darkness. If it was simply mood-lit like most other past-gen games, you probably would have bitched about it not being dark enough, especially after what Chromehounds showed us night-time battles were all about.

    Of course, it makes me wonder why Nightvision or Heatvision weren't available, but whatever.

    Can someone explain how stabilizers work? All I see are pretty fins and blocks that appear to affect a yellow box and green box that somehow change my center of mass or some shit.

    Anyway, if anyone wants to take my Trombe on or check out its schematic, feel free to reach me on XBL.

    OtakuD00D on
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    Spawn733Spawn733 Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Havent gotten into stabelizers n that stuff yet

    And yes, another vote for completely disagree with scosglen :)

    But I have a Q: What do those Flares do?? Do they just light up the area around you? Havent gotten the $ to buy em and i dont know if i should yet

    Spawn733 on
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    brynstarbrynstar Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I picked up the PS3 version today and I'm loving it so far. Having never played the series, I feel now like I've missed out and should try some of the older games. I've always had an interest in these games, just never got around to them.

    I love the level of destruction in the game though, and having the option to choose to destroy the platform an enemy cannon is on rather than the cannon itself has had me giddy all evening. Haven't checked out the online yet, I'd probably get destroyed.

    Chromehounds was fun, played it with some friends a bit last year, but it wasn't really my thing. This feels great though. Reminds me a little of the Virtual On Games, but much more technical. The only thing I dislike is the extreme shortness of some of the missions.

    brynstar on
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    JJJJ DailyStormer Registered User regular
    edited March 2007

    This is on the PS3/360. God damnit, I want to see the environments feel alive for once. I want little itty bitty people running for shelter, little shitty tanks not being able to do anything, yadda yadda. Get creative for once in ten years, you fuckers.

    Eh it's a lunch window game.

    It looks nice but you won't see stuff that amazing for another year or 2.

    It's going to be very exciting to see what comes out of the PS3 a few years from now after all the ugly first year games are up.

    JJ on
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    OtakuD00DOtakuD00D Can I hit the exploding rocks? San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    So I can say I'm pretty adept at dodging all sorts of things now that Heat and ground-dashing are no longer an issue. Thank god for the Quick-boost.

    One thing I can't, for the love of anything, dodge however. I've run into it twice. It's this... rapid-firing twin beam plasma... thing. Dunno if it's a gun, or gun-arm. It's deadly shit.

    OtakuD00D on
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    smeejsmeej Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    And you don't remember AC1 if you can't remember retarded missions.
    <3



    I was on a stupid vacation when this was released. I can't get it until later today... I'm gonna feel so behinnndddd.

    smeej on
    IT'S A SAD THING THAT YOUR ADVENTURES HAVE ENDED HERE!!
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    BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Well it looks purdy

    It might convince me to pick up a 360

    Probably not

    BahamutZERO on
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