{tag [Review]} {tag [X360]}

They say never judge a book by its cover, well the same goes for video games.

  When first looking at Zoids Assault, one might conjure images of mechs fighting in combat on the battle field.  While your thoughts might be imagining a shooter, Zoids Assault is actually a strategic game.  No need to fret because I was actually led down the same path when I first saw Zoids Assault as well.  It does not help that the trailer I saw strengthened the image of a fast first person battle. 

Graphics – 65% (Not Enough Variety)
The individual items, such as trees, mechs, etc., were done ok.  The real tragedy strikes when each item is copy and pasted across the map loosing the individual uniqueness that each had.  Animations were fairly ubiquitous as well.  Once you have seen it prepare to see it over and over again.  The spots they should have used their graphical skills were with the cut scenes of which I will discuss later.

Sound – 65% (Compares To Graphics)
Not to repeat what the last section said about graphics, but the sound felt too repetitive.  The same ho drum melodic fanfare that signaled the progression of the battle felt forced, and depressing.  It simple felt like the same tune was playing over and over again, and that gets annoying.  At least the voice acting was better, too bad it was limited mostly to the cut scenes and that caused me to ignore and skip over that work.

Gameplay – 65% (Repetitive, Un-engaging)
The game is played on a grid battlefield.  At the beginning of each turn a character of yours will be allowed to move and then perform an action if available.  Several key ingredients to battle are necessary to learn, even before the game teaches you about it.  Like the scan gauge, it allows you tell if you have enough friendly units nearby to lend support during your attack and likewise if the opponents are able to as well.  This is just something you will have to learn right away in order to win missions.  The real trick is to read your manual as there is no straight up tutorial in the game.  Instead, every so often you are told about something and asked if you want to learn more.  Yeah, where was that in my first battle?  It felt like the system cheats against me, if only because of reinforcements.  You would think you have almost won the battle when enemy reinforcements arrive.  Just expect this to happen and plan for it while you are fighting.  Four to five battles/missions into the game I felt like I was just trying to force myself to play; it was true, I was.  I had gotten sick of playing the same scenario over and over again, regardless of how it was portrayed by the game.  The maps all felt the same, the enemies the same and it resulted in me becomming disassociated from the game.  Simply put, the game was not engaging enough for me to continue to play it or, much more importantly, enjoy it. 

Cut scenes – 30% (Useless)
As much as I can understand trying to add a story line to a game, doing it all in the cut scenes is a poor idea.  What is worse is when those cut scenes are drab and boring.  They were done in a comic book style fashion, well almost.  All I was presented with was a drawn out visual accompanied by voice acting.  These should at least have been animated to make me want to watch them.  Instead, I skipped them, multiple times.  My favorite part?  The cut scene that I skipped in order to actually play the game.  Yeah, what was that doing there?

Controls / Interface – 75% (Well At Least It Was Easy To Use)
The controls are very limited, since all you need to do is place your troops across the screen.  Once done with that a nice pop up menu does give you options such at attacking or ending turn.  Lets not forget the scan gauge that hovers over yourself and enemies to give a clear indicator of support.  Certainly these can be called the few good things the game had to offer.  Others leave me scratching my head.  One is the counter menu that pops up, where one can counter an enemies attack.  Why does it pop up when there is no action to perform.  Surely it could have remained out of sight instead of tempting me with the thought that I could fire back.  Hey, at least it was easy to use and required very little thought as to which button did what.

Summary – 60% (Strategy Done Wrong)
Several things lacked in this game to make it an enjoyable experience.  The lack of a tutorial offered a the beginning really upset me since I was launched into a battle without proper knowledge of everything.  I really hated the opening cut scene and had then been animated, I might have actually watched them instead of trying to listen to voice actors drone about the story.  Gameplay might have been more fun if the battles would have been made short by not sending in enemy reinforcements, it really felt like the developer was trying to make me hate the game right away.  I would just avoid Zoids Assault all together and if you want some strategy, go play Risk or something.