Greeting fellow Gamercidists and random internet guests. Pretty much all of you know who I am and most of you have been subjected to my random and quite frequently repulsive/gross/strange/obscure postings around these forums.

But for those who don't know me here goes. My name is Chris, my avatar has always been a panda, and frequently I come across things that downright piss me off. Enter the Pejorative Panda.

This month saw the release of a game I was greatly looking forward to and yet at the same I was extremely concerned over the new direction the sequel was taking. The game in question was Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. Heavily relying on the use of Microsoft's motion sensing Kinect peripheral, Steel Battalion: HA is a follow up to a decade old release for the original Xbox which was bundled with an incredibly large and involved physical controller.

Capcom and FROM Software in their infinite wisdom (/sarcasm) thought it would be an a-freakin'-mazing idea to swap out this:

For this.....

Oh yes people. What could possibly go wrong? According to major media and a gross majority of supposed "games reviewers" apparently everything.

One. Positive. Review. That's it folks, and it comes straight from the folks at Official Xbox Magazine reviewing a title for their OWN system. OK! Game over. No need to even LOOK at this game. The "professionals" must be right.

G4 TV: "Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is completely broken and is so fundamentally flawed that it astounds me that it could have shipped like this in the first place."

IGN: "Heavy Armor’s Kinect functionality isn’t even the primary culprit of its numerous failings. If this were a controller-based game, it would still be atrocious."

GameRevolution: "Do not buy Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. If you do, don't play it."

But you know what? Most of those 32 negative reviewers can basically go give themselves a courtesy reacharound. I bought the game, I'm playing the game, and despite it's shortcomings I'm still enjoying the hell out of it. Negative reviews? Bah.

From my standpoint, and this has always been my standpoint, when I've reviewed games in the past I've tried to look at the complete picture. No game is perfect, and most games out there deserve to be praised for at least one reason or another. A lot of intelligent people, designers, artists, musicians and others put a hell of a lot of time into creating these games of us. To completely sh*t on a game as a whole because you couldn't figure something out or because it didn't behave properly is asinine and downright offensive to me and I'm sure it's offensive and heartbreaking to the people who put so much work and time into the game to begin with.

This isn't new though. There are plenty of games out there which have been awarded scores, too high AND too low, in what I feel was an unjust and rushed decision. I know you other ******* reviewers out there have deadlines to meet and other games to play, but at least TRY to give a game praise where praise is due. Hey IGN. Remember your review for Deadly Premonition? Yeah, I haven't forgotten that. Go **** yourselves and try playing a game for more than 20 minutes before you write your reviews.

Kinect is a new tool for gaming. It's a body sensor. It's not some waggle stick you use while sitting on the couch. It has kinks in the system and it doesn't always work but that doesn't mean ruling out almost every single game for it to be released (aside from Gunslinger and Child of Eden) as mostly pieces of crap and broken.

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor isn't perfect. It isn't close. What it does have though is potential, and if you have the patience to sit down with the game and give it an honest try then you'd learn as I have that it really isn't THAT difficult to play. Are you going to suffer cheap deaths due to wonky game mechanics that may make you want to break your controller? Of course you are. You've been dealing with that since games were invented though and nothing has changed.

Steel Battalion has pretty good graphics, the sounds of the large lumbering mechs and weapons fire are spot on and intense, the frenzy of battle is in full effect as you literally scramble inside the cockpit to save a crew member while taking incoming fire, and the attachment to crew members is reinforced with the idea that you can literally lose a squadmate for the whole rest of the game. It's actually a challenge to try to keep your whole squadron alive throughout the campaign (and a difficult challenge I welcome and enjoy!).

So answer me this, you incredibly ignorant reviewers across the web, why take a dump on this game because you're too lazy to be patient with the Kinect controls while ignoring the numerous positives within? I admit the controls don't ALWAYS behave properly but it most likely is because they're frantically flailing their limbs (see above Kinect picture). I admit it took me some getting used to, which was certainly NOT helped by the rising tension and apprehension inside of me as I was getting shelled from all angles, but when I slowed down my thoughts and attempted to execute actions within the vertical tank's cockpit with calm purpose instead of just slapping your arms around expecting it to work like mashing on a controller button it works almost all of the time.

Almost.

So while I'm not saying the game is without fault, it most certainly doesn't deserve the steaming bucket of diarrhea being drizzled over its head by moronic reviewers out there (seriously..... one even complained and bitched about the size of the targeting reticle!?). The large majority of the reviews for this game focus on one thing, the controls, and most of them fail to talk about anything else the game has to offer.

I'd like to rank this up there with the whole idea of "play it yourself, decide yourself". Is it worth a purchase at $60? I'd say no. Should it have been budget priced at $40? Absolutely. Is it still a hell of a lot of fun to play in my personal opinion? Hell yes.

Now excuse me, I have some bros to fist bump.

Did you mean Official Xbox Magazine? If so, that's a Future property and not owned or ran by Microsoft. They just licensed the name to use on their magazine and have been critical of bad games. I remember the fiasco with Jeff Minter and his game "Space Giraffe". Good times. lol

Good read, Chris. I liked it. I also believe some reviews are pushed out without significant gameplay. I believe Diablo 3 wouldn't have received all it's fine scores, if they had played past a few of the difficulty modes, or even after patch 1.0.3.

Did you mean Official Xbox Magazine? If so, that's a Future property and not owned or ran by Microsoft. They just licensed the name to use on their magazine and have been critical of bad games. I remember the fiasco with Jeff Minter and his game "Space Giraffe". Good times. lol

Good read, Chris. I liked it. I also believe some reviews are pushed out without significant gameplay. I believe Diablo 3 wouldn't have received all it's fine scores, if they had played past a few of the difficulty modes, or even after patch 1.0.3.

Stupid autocorrect changed that to "Original". I corrected it. While I realize they're not owned or ran by Microsoft I have to admit that there is a lot of bias towards many 360 games from them (they tend to score higher than other sources IMO). There is a Playstation site that does the same thing with PS3 games but I can't remember the name of it at the moment.

My biggest gripe with how Steel Battalion was treated was the complete and utter disregard for ANYTHING the game had to offer, instead focusing on how "broken" they felt the controls were (and again in my opinion they're not so broken to make the game unplayable as they say, it just takes patience and precision which can be difficult with how hectic the game can be).

Nice review, don't know how I feel about Kinect games but keep enjoying that game. I'm willing to wager some of those reviewers actually do enjoy the game, they're just not comfortable saying so in front of millions of hardcore gamers (because that's what gaming is all about right? how hardcore you are?)

I wouldn't really say it's a review, but moreso a rant. If I had to review the game, I personally wouldn't give it higher than an 6 (especially at the $60 entry price). There is a lot wrong with the game but it deserves much more than the average "3" it currently has with blame full and center solely on the motion controls (which I didn't think were THAT bad considering).

That's the problem these days. Everyone seems to think on a sucks/awesome scale without looking at the individual parts. There are so many things to a game: music, sound design, visuals, story, controls, gameplay, etc. It's damn near impossible for every aspect to come together perfectly, but there's always bound to be something good in a game amongst all those different aspects.

That's the problem these days. Everyone seems to think on a sucks/awesome scale without looking at the individual parts. There are so many things to a game: music, sound design, visuals, story, controls, gameplay, etc. It's damn near impossible for every aspect to come together perfectly, but there's always bound to be something good in a game amongst all those different aspects.

Thank you, thats the exact point I was trying to make.. There are very few games that I think are complete ****. I can only think of a couple lol.

There are also many, many people who never fine tuned their Kinect devices. Mine wasn't for the longest time, since I didn't know about it. I just came across the black and white card one day inside of a Kinect game and went from there.

There are also many, many people who never fine tuned their Kinect devices. Mine wasn't for the longest time, since I didn't know about it. I just came across the black and white card one day inside of a Kinect game and went from there.

So true. The Kinect is very sensitive. it needs to be calibrated, you need to make sure you have the proper distance (something I estimate 90% of people who have the device DON'T properly have), and not only that but there is a seperate calibration within Steel Battalion that needs to also be sorted out (and re-done quickly if you get up and walk away from the television it needs to be done again).

It's a touchy topic for sure.

...

Are you going to suffer cheap deaths due to wonky game mechanics that may make you want to break your controller? Of course you are.

...

I have to agree with the rant Chris. Too many reviewers jump on the one bad thing and don't give a game the proper chance. I for one have been almost guilty of it myself. The Darkness was pissing me off until I realized it wasn't a shooter, then it was awesome. Duke Nukem is another one not to be started on. There is also the flip side where they give high reviews to triple A titles for no reason.

Anyhow, the above quote made me laugh. I couldn't help but think about getting mad at my hands and arms and breaking them.

I ran into the same issues when I did my first review which was for the game darkest of days. It was a new developer's first game, and also the first game on a new game engine.

It got blasted with horrible reviews ranging from a 1 of 5 on xplay and a 3.6 on IGN. Sure it didnt have the best graphics of the day, and the biggest benefit of the marmoset engine, which was up to 300 different npc's on screen at once, was only used a few times. The thing most reviewers seem to forget, is the main reason we play games... To have fun. In that respect it was a great game. Being able to fight in some of the biggest battles in history was awesome, being able to use freakin lasers during the fall of pompeii was epic.

LOL Sky that's sick!

Hahahahaha. Amazing Sky and so true!!!!

@Dat: It seems like it's getting harder and harder for people to be objective about things when it comes to video games. Expectations are honestly way too high at this point IMO.

@LG: As long as you have fun with the game that is all that counts!! I really liked Star Trek: Legacy when it came out on the 360, despite it's problems and bad reviews, and remember writing up a positive review at the old ATC for it. It just comes down to individual taste, and should come down to individual taste, and not some arbitrary internet number. If I recall correctly, that is why we pretty much stopped giving reviews "scores" here at Gamercide.

Yup. When people started thinking a score of 8 was bad, it was time to stop using scores or rankings. I believe people skip right over the reviews, look for the score and then decide if they're going to read the review or not. If it's low, they'll read it so they can bash the reviewer. If high, they'll read it to prove that other site's lower scores are unfounded.

Yup. When people started thinking a score of 8 was bad, it was time to stop using scores or rankings. I believe people skip right over the reviews, look for the score and then decide if they're going to read the review or not. If it's low, they'll read it so they can bash the reviewer. If high, they'll read it to prove that other site's lower scores are unfounded.

That drove me absolutely insane to be honest Pkizzle. The "standard" scoring moving between an 8-10 really. It's asinine and counterproductive.

It was a lot more fun too to write articles and reviews and NOT give the game a score when we made the switch.