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Battle Engine Aquila Preview
Richard Amos
01/11/2002
Take control of a deadly mech in this futuristic fighter from Infogrames.
Not a lot was known about Battle Engine Aquila before preview code appeared in the TVG office, however the fact that its remained firmly rooted in the Xbox whilst the likes of colin McRae 3 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2 are about, should say something about its quality.
Set in a fictional future where land is a rarity, players take the role of Hawk an adolescent misfit thrusted into a global and heroic battle for survival. Due to the years of human abuse to the environment, the World now consists of a number of small islands. With land at a premium, tensions have built between the surviving nations, as each tries to stake claim to the precious dry land.
The result is two major factions warring against each other and somehow you end up in the middle of the conflict, entitled to pilot the new Battle Engine Aquila ā“ a towering mech that has flight and ground capabilities and armed to the teeth with the latest in high-tech weaponry.
Taking on the single player mode, the gameās missions are structured in a similar way to Nintendoās StarFox/Lylat Wars, whereby your actions on the field dictate which path you choose through the game. At the end of each mission youāre given a rank, which will then open up new paths and linked to a cut-scene. This non-linear approach to game design is a refreshing change to the traditional approach and results in the player feeling as if theyāre in control.
The actual gameplay is an excellent and highly satisfying mixture of arcade action and strategy akin to an RTS title. Controlling your Battle Engine is wonderfully intuitive, using the left-trigger to switch between weapons and the right-trigger to fire. A combination of the two analogue sticks gives you full freedom to look and move, whilst the x button switches your Battle Engine between land and air modes. Whilst in flight youāll have a certain amount of energy, with which you can use to stay airborne, once youāve run out youāll have to return to the ground to top it back up, remembering to use the A button to hover and avoid any nasty impacts. Controlling your craft and switching between the different modes is very accessible, a feature not often attributed to mech-games. Your choice of weapons differ depending on your set-up and whether youāre in the air or on the ground, however thereās a great variety of them allowing you to employ a variety of strategies and each of them are very satisfying to use, particularly the charged up ion cannon.
If the game had just have been about arcade action and accessibility it would have generated a fair interest, however thereās a great amount of depth to the action that unfolds in the battlefield around you. The missions have a fair amount of variety, from escorting ships to invading and seizing control of a beachfront. However itās the epic battles that are the star of the game, typically youāll have control of the south, whilst the opposition is banked up in the north. As the forces come to blow in the middle you canāt help but marvel at whatās going on, battles are taking place in the air, whilst troops run around like ants on the ground below, all the while tanks and other ships are making tactical movements. From your view high up in the Battle Engine it does look like an RTS game unfolding around you, this isnāt just arcade blasting, strategy is definitely required if you want to win the war and gain a good ranking. For example war factories produce tanks and other vehicles, so to stem the production youāll want to take down those factories as quickly as possible, whilst radar stations give the enemy important information about your whereabouts. One mission sees you going to war with the opposition, however a super-weapon is located to the top and raining warheads down on your troops, itās only by flying up over to it that you realise the weapon has only one weakness, shooting in its eye where a rain of laser fire comes from.
Visually Battle Engine Aquila will make you gasp for air, thereās just so much going on and all without any signs of slowdown. Hundreds of troops scatter around the ground, whilst you can see missiles chasing after their targets in the air. However itās the little details that grabbed us, throw a charged pulse cannon into a pack of troops and watch as they fly through the air with their arms flailing around, trees crash down as you walk through them and missiles leave wonderfully realistic vapour trails. Despite all thatās going on, the graphics do look good; most objects have a high polygon count, textures sport an impressive amount of variety and detail, whilst the Xbox is really put to the test with an abundance of special effects such as real-time shadows on everything in the game, bump-mapped floors and some very nice particle effects on the weapons. You simply canāt help but be amazed every time you see Battle Engine Aquila in action, thereās always something new to grab your attention it looks remarkable.
Despite not being in the build that we received, weāve been assured that the game will feature a split-screen two-player mode. Quite how Lost Toys manage to incorporate this has left us guessing, however we expect the game will have to make some visual compromises to accommodate this. Thereās no denying that the mode will add greatly to the game though, as we were left wanting a multiplayer mode, hopefully the game will incorporate a link-up feature as well, so no compromises have to be made.
