Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Battle Engine Aquila

Written by Chris Reiter on March 24, 2003

Full Review: The war a little closer to home...

You've got your flying, 2D or 3D space shooters; your behind the back third person shooters; your one man against an entire army of alien or human soldier shooters...and then there's Battle Engine Aquila: a shooter of a different breed. Infogrames has delved into the realm of mech combat before, but never quite like this. Battle Engine Aquila is the company's new mixture of formula when taking the brute strength and mobility components of a giant battle android machine, capable of carrying a passenger within its depths, and fitting the machine with weaponry, skills, and savvy enough to place you, the machine's pilot, right in the center of the futuristic war you're about to help beat.

Enter Hawk: pilot of the Battle Engine Aquila prototype. Hawk is your regular shipping crew guy who knows how to fly. Life is fast and mostly good for young Hawk, until the day of a new arises as Hawk is triggered by the Forseti military group to commandeer this relatively untested war machine of great power. But because he has no choice but to fight for his people against the Muspell army, Hawk is not just a meathead civilian...he's the trump card that's going to set this war's battle tactics up a notch.

Like or unlike other mecha releases, Battle Engine Aquila is a first person romp. Only, you're the one single giant robot out there. Nobody else. It's just you and the war ahead of you. Placed in the cockpit of the machine, facing forward, you've got to do your best to take out the enemy through multiple maneuvers using both air and land tactics. One of the most important parts to playing Battle Engine Aquila is in knowing how to use your mech's HUD display. On the very bottom of the screen lies your map functions -- showing on the left side which current weapon is in use next to the color coded dots on the map that represent enemies (red), allies (blue), and objectives (yellow). Whatever the mission order is, it's best to be glancing down at the map every now and then so you'll get an idea of how to approach each terrain you're covering. Over on the right bottom of the screen is an indicator for multiple uses, such as reeling in the location of where broadcasts during battle occur (if you're in need of protecting the area), or for the coloring of sound areas, where the blue spots are used for safety marks and the red for danger. Also on the bottom of the screen is your two weapon gauges -- one feeding specs on the remaining amount of power, and the other displaying if and when your weapon's overheating, the current amount of ammo, or how powerful your gun's blast status outcome is to become.

But, more importantly than what's under your nose is right in front of it. Remaining directly in the center of the screen is the Battle Engine's targeting reticle. Armor and energy stats, target pointer, compass, damage directives, and indicators for incoming missile fire are all received through this giant circle in the screen's core. If an enemy missile is headed your way or you're taking fire, spaces on the outer rim will flash an orange or red for location. If the rotating arrow around the outside barrier is facing one way, that's usually where the game's priority is in cycle. When the tiny middle circle is directly over a clean shot at the enemy and blinks red, this means you shoot -- and if your blue (energy) or green (armor) bars are sinking, this means you're sunk. As you can probably guess, there's a lot going on in the game besides the shooting. This is why all meters and all color-coded messages must not be taken too lightly, or otherwise you're toast.

Once you start getting the hang of playing the game and using each of the screen's many functions, the game isn't seriously that difficult as it may sound. Really. Primarily, the main directive of Battle Engine Aquila is always to shoot and kill. That's basically it. If you're not shooting at something, you're protecting it. When you're protecting areas, you're pretty much just shooting at stuff. After all, Battle Engine Aquila is a shooting game. Except it has a major twist on it. Unlike other types of shooters placed into a first person view, you're at war every second. In a war though, you've got support. Where some missions guide you into helping to guard or destroy certain objects (like keeping a fleet of ships afloat or wiping out a major enemy stronghold), or another has you vying against an entire mass of enemy across one island after the next, there'll always be others to aid you right by your side. And while some missions require you to follow linear orders, you really don't have to. Because you have allies in fighter planes, ground troops, giant warships, tanks, grounded warhead cannons, etc., all giving you a helping hand of their own, all you really ever have to do is kill and survive.

To live until the next stage though, you've got to always make sure you know where the healing pads are. Planted either around the Forseti's base of operations or even right on top of gigantic moving aircrafts or battle ships, your job is to trace down a glowing pod in every level so when the Battle Engine's energy (blue) or armor (green) gauges are at their lowest peak, that's when you yourself have to make sure you aren't taken out of line. Once on top of one, the energy pod restores everything momentarily -- including lost ammo. Then there's the fact that you need to know how to balance out your mission's success score through way of flight or feet. Knowing the difference between the two strategies is useful, in that while flying with the Battle Engine gets you closer to smaller flying crafts as is a way to travel faster rather than pacing your steps across ground (and easier to avoid being shot at), it's harder to hit targets at a steady rate while airborne when all you can do is move forward. This is why sometimes ground attacks are best suited when eliminating either enemy tanks, building masses, and sometimes slow piles of massive enemy ships. But in either mode the game is molasses, as moving the Battle Engine can cut across land on foot or soaring in the air feels too much like an ant on foot trying to race a hotrod a mile down the road.

There's a saying that slow and steady wins the race...well, for Battle Engine Aquila that method is usually the only method, while the slow moving craft is set into motion. Where there is a lot going on in the game, controlling the mech isn't really all that difficult after about an hour of playtime. Simply pressing the square button gives this war bird its flight ticket; and pressing square again sets it up for a landing, with a punch of the X button to reduce the machine's mass from dropping too readily. Just like a First Person Shooter, Aquila's shooting functions apply to the R1 button, where changing the weapon selection comes with a tap of L1. If positioned on land, pressing up on the directional pad zooms the camera in so that when you're distanced well enough from the enemy, you can fire easily without being touched. As simple as anything else, the controls of the ship utilize the two analog sticks. Moving the left analog stick pushes you forward, and a turn of the right one pivots which direction you're heading. So as tricky as there is much to learn, what you'll learn is compiled all into a fairly natural setup.

Additionally, Battle Engine isn't just for any one person. Two players can go head to head or even put their heads together for a fight for freedom. Three different multiplayer gameplay modes exist in this battle ready world: Skirmish, Versus, and Cooperative. Much like the single player game, you or a friend can select your team, be it the Forseti or the Muspell forces. Whatever team you're on, you'll use your Battle Engine Aquila and the rest of the army to conquer and defeat your other half. Versus is like Skirmish, only this fight pits one Battle Engine against another. Last of all is the Cooperative setting, where if you're not up for taking on a friend, why not join him or her? Teaming up with one another, two players can take on the entire Muspell army together for the chance to gain victory.

Battle Engine Aquila's visual layout is about as limited as they come. Not to say there isn't much to see, but the gameplay system works across isolated islands surrounded by water. What you'll be seeing most of the time through the game is the land, sea, and air that encloses the battle scene between you, your allies, and groups of relentless enemies to destroy. Unfortunately, every land area isn't too visually exciting. Trees, grass, rocks, dirt, and destructible building structures line these shores. Moderate modeling pieces these items as a whole; however, the texture across these specific areas oozes all together in a blur of ugly. Models of the friend and foe sort are of better quality, though still tend to lack in a graphics state of anything that'll blow you away.

In their roving form, enemy or allied ships of different patterns are each animated in a way that fit to their persona. Tanks roam the ground slowly, fighter jets swerve the skies rapidly, bomber planes flow in a slithering motion releasing sets of explosives, and even tons of tiny little human figurines squirm in such a way that you can tell each of the game's different characteristic aspects are doing their part. Still though, Battle Engine Aquila appears to move at a slow pace a lot of the time, and there really isn't a whole lot to see in the field of animation. Special effects on the other hand are a whole other story. Where you're placed into a first person perspective the whole ride through, you'll catch a glimpse of fiery action the likes of which will give you a good enough thrill to write home about. From giant plasma beam blasts, plasma grenades, plasma machineguns, and plasma everything, there's plenty of cool looking laser weapons you'll use to your advantage to cause bursts of flames in dozens of futuristic vehicles on the opposite side of the track.

Even as the game's visuals are staged at a mediocre level, nothing is worse or as bad as Battle Engine's plethora of sound elements. Provided that the game's sound functions aren't terrible or anything to that extent, it's just that none of the varying effects seem to ever really smooth over one another nicely enough so that you receive your share of what could be an enticing experience. A large cast of unknown actors stands in for the characters of Battle Engine. Through both movie clip cut scenes and in-game mission orders, the voice actors carry on the endearing plot of the intensity of war. And though none of the actors are really that bad (some being American men, others British, and one woman who's Russian), the extent of their talent is nothing that special either. Whatever good or bad of a job they bring to your eardrums though, during the game where important mission orders are spoken through their rambling, it's difficult at times to even hear the conversation with the shooting and the blasting of the in-game audio effects.

Energy blasts, explosions, the roar of the Battle Engine Aquila in gear...all are segments of the game to make the whir of war work. Only, while each of the audio effects are in play, they tend to overshadow all else that's occurring through the duration of the gameplay. Because it's hard to stop blowing up stuff, or even predict when you'll be given a mission objective next, it's much easier to just ignore all else and do whatever you think is best for your team -- which isn't necessarily always a good thing. Also hidden behind the cloak of the noisy battle sounds is Battle Engine's music soundtrack. Since it's there and almost absent from reachable ears most of the time, it's hard to tell if it's anything but the same orchestrated rhythm that's actually a quite forgettable run-of-the-mill tune anyway.