Thanks to Tecmo's desire to bring GunGriffon: Allied Strike over from Japan, North American mech-heavy gunners, metal heads, and old time Sega fans can play it all again in a 13-mission single-player campaign, or they can vie online or via System Link for multiplayer battles (with up to 12 players on screen simultaneously).
Taking place on a hostile futuristic Earth where humans are doomed to survive, players take on the militaristically insane role of a renegade soldier whose prime mission is to down armored tanks, flying mechs, enemy AWGS, and the like. You're renegade, but you work with others to settle um…domestic disputes and stuff, like blowing up enemy oil rigs and eliminating their mech armies. Using one of 12 total AWGS and pairing up with an AI partner, players romp across rolling hills, plains, and through high mountainsides to fend off fights fro power, oil, and territory across the landscape of a futuristic Burma.
GunGriffon: Allied Strike isn't all that different from the original game. It's got better graphics than before, though even using the powerful Xbox, GameArts has somehow managed to create a very plain, often wincingly unpretty game, and it's got more variation in crafts and mission types. There are a healthy assortment of AWGS, and a slew of basic missions ranging from defending moving escorts and protecting downed vehicles to raiding and power plant attacks.
In each mission, you'll choose the kind of AWGS you like best, a main weapon, sub weapon, rocket pod, and missile set. You'll also be able to choose what kind of AWGS you want to escort you. The setup menu gives very basic descriptions of each unit's strengths and hints at its weaknesses. You'll select the vehicle based on its armor, speed, radar range, rollerdash time, and flight time. The descriptions clarify which units are older, and which are new, so old-time fans can pick their sentimental favorites.
From the late-level preview version we have, all AWGS are available from the get-go, giving players a healthy choice of vehicles to experiment with while in the early levels. The designs are pretty far-fetched, but that's relative, given the subject of futuristic walking tanks -- that can fly. Most designs are two-legged mech-type units, but there are a few four-legged units that look like tanks with spider legs.
The basic two-legged designs include the Type 12 (second generation AWGS), Type 9 (an old design that's heavily armored), Type 20 (state-of-the-art AWG), VW1 (HIGH MAC (High-Mobility Armored Combat System) second gen (like the Type 12), the Jago Panther (excellent in close combat), the Valiant (good in ground and ground-to-air fighting), and the Super Autruche (basically a highly-mobile, long-range sniper AWGS with great radar range and long-range weapons). Each of these types enable you to rollerdash, fly/hover and switch to two perspectives (from the first-person cockpit to the third-person, over-the-shoulder views).
The four-legged class in interesting in its own way. You'll get a different viewpoint, a little closer to the ground, as well as the ability to use long rollerdashes across the countryside, either to escape enemy fire or rush into battle to save a downed craft. They are generally a little slower than the two-legged units, but they're usually better armored and they're very fun to pilot. The viewpoint, however, does get a little tricky when crawling over hills, making precision targeting more difficult. The other downside is that these spidery guys aren't able to fly/hover. This list features the M19A1 (a well-rounded attacker) and the Sturm Tiger (the M19A1's biggest rival with heavy armor and fire power).
Then there is the "class" of AWGS that leans more toward flight mobility. These guys are two-legged, and they usually possess less armor than the other standard units, but they're quick, they can fly for long distances, and they create a different dynamic for risk-taking gamers. The XVW-2 (a new design with heavy armor with excellent flight mobility) and the Mi-57 enable gamers to tweak their strategies by dropping behind enemy lines, taking the bad guys off-guard, spraying the surprised enemies with missiles and rockets, and then taking off. This is extremely fun, but risky. You might want to try this in the early levels first and master it before heading to the latter levels, where enemy forces grow thick and brutal.
The campaign mode offers up a pretty rough looking presentation, but at least it's thorough. Before each mission, you'll read through four briefings, accompanied by isometric 3D maps of the territory, and you'll see where you're supposed to go as well as the locations from which enemies might attack. The maps don't really matter all that much once you get into the action because you'll be highly focused on reacting quickly to oncoming forces, but it's nice to see the general scheme of things before the chaos begins.
During missions, the friend AI, your partner AWGS, handle their own fights. You have no control over them. In most missions, your buddies will probably get pasted in the first two-thirds of the mission. They do occasionally live, but it's hard to predict. It's not that the friendly AI is stupid, but depending on the unit (some hang back and some jump into battles), especially if you have an offensive-minded AI, they'll fly right into enemy territory and take instant brutal hits. In other missions, a handful of AWGS will join your fight (or you'll join them), and it's often smart to follow them around and cover them. That way, they'll last longer and so will you. But again, they don't always do the smartest things, so you'll have to find a balance in each of these vary trial-and-error missions.
I'll be honest, GunGriffon: Allied Strike is not a pretty game. It's got rough-looking visuals, low-res textures, and every object, texture, or location is dull and plainly rendered. The AWGS themselves look all right, as in their general designs are better than decent, but there is little attention to animation, just basic mechanics. The two hopeful spots are the trails of smoke from missiles and explosions of enemy craft. That's about it, I'm afraid. The sound is also a giant conglomeration of assaulting beeps, explosions, tickers, and every so often, there's a very important message that you'd better listen to and read the first time through or you'll miss it and have no way of seeing it again.
In all, GunGriffon: Allied Strike is a good game that builds on previous GunGriffon games, and adds in the all-essential online multiplayer modes and System Link -- which are fun as long as you like the single-player game. So despite the crude visuals, a rough set of menus, and the repetitive musical score, the gameplay is good, solid and action-packed. The key to this game is giving it a chance. If you really like mech games, this one is different enough from Microsoft's MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf that you'll like it. But if you're a picky graphics tart with a slant toward the coolest, newest and all that, then forget it. This one's for the old school, and somehow I think GameArts wants to keep it that way.