Dude I’m just saying they remake this whole game in VR now I’m 100% betting that it would rock dude like it’s just awesome imo, the whole vibe/art style of it is cool and all the details in it are awesome. I’m probably bias after having been in a tin can tank for 3 years of my life but seriously I’d kill for this in VR
@@Zenn_Chan how much is too simulatory tho? the original steel battalion is obviously overkill and this one seems too simple but honestly aside from movement, aiming/shooting what more controls are can you add that would be actually useful?
I'm glad to see someone else who can actually get past the controls and see the good game shining beneath. I don't know what it is about Heavy Armor but it's probably my favorite vehicle simulation(ish) game to date. There's just something about the gritty tone and how you feel like just a grunt trying to survive the chaos that makes it great. I can still remember one mission where you're in a snowy French(?) town and Uncle ambushes your VT when you hear the sound of a crying baby. Sadly, I don't think a remaster will ever happen outside of fan-inspired VR titles, most of which will never get finished.
In my video I say that the game wasn't too difficult unless you try to keep everyone alive - the mission you describe is the one that I was thinking of. I could not on the life of me keep Natch alive long enough to save the baby, so I ended up not saving it just so Natch wouldn't die. Unfortunately you are likely right about the remaster, as FromSoftware is otherwise consumed by making Soulsborne games (which are good regardless), so thinking of them focusing on even something like a new Armored Core is like a fantasy.
I've always said, the only thing that held this game back WAS in fact the Kinect. If this was a VR game or a game with the traditional Steel Battalion control panel this game would have been a smash hit.
"let's take a game known for having a massive joystick with 30+ buttons that made you feel like you were piloting a real mech and make you touch air instead"
During the last part of the last level you don’t actually have to turn your mech to get the good ending! You could walk the mech in backwards and still do it. The secret is you can actually kill the guy by throwing a Grenade! That’s right! Once per level, you may stand up, and using your right hand, make a throwing motion, you’ll throw a grenade! I had no clue this existed until I actually read the manual! Only once during my several play through I heard a crew member yell “throw a grenade!” Why? I don’t know. I have no idea what this grenade could possibly been used for. But it’s actually kinda neat to see where you can try to use it! I believe you can use it when you get ambushed in France. Thank you for this review. I absolutely love this game. It’s good on many levels. I’ve played the original SB plenty of times and HA feels more immersive in a lot of ways. When I first started playing, I could only play during the day, because getting shot and seeing my friends die because I thought it’d give me nightmares. You have to play by the games rules. It’s a war sim. So many complaints are about cheap enemy placement or how the enemy always seems to hit you and you don’t get a break. Like that’s literally the point of war, they are supposed to be trying to kill you. I could honestly talk more about how well of the game does of making you “feel things” mentally. I love how the dialogue at the end level makes you wonder if you are really doing the right thing or if you’re just a pawn being told what to do
With the left bank, I actually found it super helpful to switch the camera to front, when I had to close the shutter. You can see exactly where you need to go! I still haven’t found a practical use for the rear Armaments. I gotta mess with the smoke screen one, the rear artillery is really hard to gage, since it shoots up and then down, there’s no indicator where it’s gonna land, so you just gotta hope for the best using your rear camera. I’m sure it’s decent if you’re being chased, but I normally just turn around in that case, granted, you don’t actually have to touch the left bank to use the button which is nice. I just really wish it would be like a “guaranteed one hit kill” or something like that.
Thanks for watching! I watched a lot of other people gameplay when making this video, and no one ever used a grenade, so I did not think it was even an option. Although you are correct, it is in the manual, but in borderline "fine print" almost like they did not want you to know to use the grenade. I would also agree, the story itself is meh, but the dialogue in the game between the crew members is significantly more interesting. I did not unlock all mech upgrades, but I found many of the ones I did unlock to be disappointing, like the rear mortar, smoke screen, shield windows, etc. The most interesting one was the large missiles you unlock from DLC. I did not like the original game (a hot take) outside of the controller itself, but the upgrades all seemed to useful in some way. Heavy Armor really is a unique experience, but everyone was really into hating the Kinect (I don't blame them) so FromSoftware was basically being setup to fail. It's a shame really, as when you have the correct space to play the game really doesn't play like anything else, other than the original.
@@phlyingphalanges I recently discovered that the grenade can be used to kill the “man with gun” after the final boss! That’s super cool because that way you can enter the final area with your mech facing any direction, not just slightly to the left because you won’t need to even touch the turret!
btw if i remember correctly the veet you have on the mission has a machine gun that you can use too so you can just stand up and reach for it. its a little to the left i think.
This game would have been groundbreaking with vr controls or if they just released a hotas setup like they did with the original. I have been wanting a game like this for a decade, where you sit in a mech and actually have to interact with the switches inside and look out of a view port. I consider this game one of the greatest fuck ups of all time with their choice to go with a kinect. Christ it deserves a remaster with vr controls.
Good review! I'm not certain why I decided to randomly search this game on RU-vid, but I'm pleasantly surprised. I remember when this game was being advertised and, to this day, I am enthralled by the art style. Retro futuristic U.S. soldiers wearing WW2 field uniforms and wielding M16 rifles is a vibe
I thought the controlls would be so much worse after trying some kinect games, but honestly the game is soooo good, one of my new favorite games ever. Also I found the self destruct button useful as a revert to checkpoint button, since the pause menu only has a restart mission button. Sometimes I get unlucky and my window gets blown out or a crew member dies and I don't wanna start over the entire mission.
I wish they would remake this game without the motion controls. I knew there was a good game buried under the layers of poorly recognized hand gestures. I’m also one of the few people that liked the Kinect. Lol. Also, the first Steel Battalion did have a sequel. It was called Line of Contact or something like that. I believe it had online play.
You say that "you're tired of pretending the game isn't bad" but then you go on to explain how most of the UI is pointless and how all the levels are simple + short, and most of the gameplay is shallow, so I'm kinda confused on what you think of the game, especially with a 7/10 or 8/10 rating. If you want, I'd check out the overlooked sequel to the original game, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact. It is multiplayer only, so if that isn't your thing that's fine but honestly that game fixes almost all of the issues of the original game (and not just by being multiplayer, it legitimately fixes issues such as VT balance like you mentioned) and expands on the gameplay to the point where it's honestly my favorite game of all time, it takes a bunch of effort to learn though as the learning curve is quite high. That and it kinda makes this game look 10x more shallow than it already is lol, but that's just my opinion.
Thanks for the comment! I never really thought about the contradictions in my vid until you pointed them out. I originally made the video to point out that Heavy Armor isnt "bad" in an unplayable sense, as the reviews were all negative because of the controls. I wanted to show that the game was rather fine when you got the controls to work. However it seems I lost track of that halfway through and seemed to bash it more than anything in an attempt to be "funny". I guess the best way to show what I think of the game is the fact I made a video about it that starts with a claim that I liked it! As for LoC, its on my list, my Xbox is softmodded with HDD upgrade and all that, its just a matter of setting up Xlink Kai and and getting the game files. Only thing really holding me back is that I have so many games and so many more to play and learn. Ill certainly have to get around to LoC since I went out of my way to buy the controller and I gotta get my moneys worth!
@@phlyingphalanges All good! No rush to play LoC, I'm just a massive shill for it lol. Admittedly I am very biased against heavy armor, mostly because it was named steel battalion while having literally nothing to do with the previous two games besides the fact that you are technically controlling a mech, and any time you mention "steel battalion sequel" people are going to think you're talking about HA, or that they think HA is the only steel battalion, etc. If it was just called simply "Heavy Armor" I would be a lot less harsh on it, but then again I doubt I'd ever play it in that case lol. So sorry if I was a bit harsh in my comment. The script writing is honestly pretty good, and in terms of editing, the visual aspect is edited well in my opinion. However I'd recommend maybe putting in some music in the background or something as having the video with just the voice and nothing else makes the video feel "empty" if that makes any sense.
Up until now, nobody do list of all parts yet.... I'm curious about this as if there were some custom parts that make the game easier or even change the gameplay Edit: Nevermind, found it now, it's from JP site
Please note that the biggest reason that the Kinect was used was because the original game required something along the lines of a 40+ USD controller... which made the game a financial flop (though the Battletech community, specifically those of the PC series Mechwarrior, would buy these controllers for several Mechwarrior games...).
The kinect literally felt like they marketed it that hard to be used as a game console, while its better used for health and technological establishments
I've always been a huge fan of the original Xbox game since finding a good deal on the controller, so after hearing repeatedly how much of a horrible failure this was I bought a kinect at the local goodwill and the game for about $10 on amazon. Everything you said is true- you have to find the sweet spot for your chair, exact gestures etc. and when you do, the game WORKS!! What a shame the gaming "experts" slammed it so hard. They killed off the franchise. OK, it's not Steel Battalion, no 40 button controller-get over it. Capcom should have simply made a WWII tank game, no VT's. Imagine what could have been done on the Xbone with the Kinect v2, if they hadn't tore up this game so bad. Question- does anyone know where that last antenna is located? I kept running out of time.
Having experience with the PS2's eye toy I did not have major problems with the game, sure to the standard it may be considered unplayable. But the gameplay, universe, design and challenging mission kept me going strong. Given VR or even a more streamlined version for modern consoles/pc would be amazing, if Heavy Armor managed to immerse me despite the kinect, a lack of a 100% accurate (and expensive)controller would not block my enjoyment of the simulation.
It seems like it would be like trying to pilot a Gundam with an Evangelion's psychic control system and also you're as drunk as you've ever been But I learned to git gud at Star Fox Zero and now really like it, so maybe the same can happen with this one?
You can learn to play Starfox Zero, but you being able to play Heavy Armor depends on a variety of minute factors depending on where you game. I had a friend try to play a few months after I made this video, and he was too tall for the Kinect to see the top of his head while standing, and if we moved farther back, the Kinect could not see him properly at all.
Hey man decent video. First off I wanna say turn your voice audio up when editing. You speak quietly and you can boost the audio a little bit in post and it will be much easier to hear you. I shouldnt have to turn the sound up real high when wearin headphones. An editing tip, pull up something like an eddy burback video and try to match your audio levels before exporting. This was my favorite game on kinect, but I definitely hated a lot of aspects of it. The choice to make missions timed was silly but a standard choice for Capcom. Incredibly frustrating though. I would love if they'd re release or remake this in VR as others said. More reliable motion controls making the game actually playable would be wonderful. The other crew are definitely stereotypes, just saying "i dont think they are" isnt a rebuttal. Stereotype isnt necessarily a bad thing, but holy fuck the guy the fucking curses every fuckin 3rd fuckin word was just plain annoying even as a teenager. I did like the aspect of if your crew dies they're replaced by wholly new characters who have different lines (from what I remember) and react to things differently.
Microsoft still produces the Kinect for the medical and robotics industry. It uses a high level A.I. system for it's vision detection. It's called the "Azure Kinect".
We will never know, since it was never back compat. But the X1 Kinect did have better motion tracking than the 360 Kinect, so theoretically it would be less frustrating to play. Again, we will never know...
Motion tracking accuracy is a problem but not the problem. The problem is that motion tracking has zero haptic feedback. Have you ever driven a car with all touch screen controls vs buttons and knobs? Similar issue. Really, I think the solution to not needing an expensive, custom controller is to support flight sim hardware. Or just design a game that can be controlled with a regular controller, which is what most developers do. Including Fromsoft, usually.
