Shogo: Mobile Armor Division

I loved the game, the story is fun, your missions are exciting. It's a bit of comic, it's a bit of rpg, it's a bit of managing your weapons, it's "human" levels and "Mech" levels!!! And as a bonus: your Mech can transform to a floating vehicle! And your Mech comes with a tracker-beam!!!! Too bad they never got to making a sequel, while the plans where there. The game engine in my eyes was fantastic at the time and the action is at least great like Quake or Unreal. (But I like Shogo better) However, this game has both! You can do the story (with several outcomes by the way), but the real fun starts if you have a friend or 3 over for a LAN game. You only need 4 old pc's or a minimum windows7 machine and here you go! hours of fun with friends. You can really make something out of the multi player function! You might need a little bit of LAN knowledge, but he you are here on GOG so I reckon you have that! My absolute favorite game for multi player and a good refreshed alternative for unreal and Quake.

Shogo: Mobile Armor division may be a mech simulator, but there really isn't anything to seperate it from traditional shooters besides a change in weapons and camera angles. The plot doesn't have any real depth to it, and while the gameplay is fun, there's nothing that really sets this game apart. VISUALS 3/5: "Tacky" is the first thing that comes into my mind when I look at this game. I supposed I shouldn't complain about the graphics in a game that came out ten years ago, but it can be really jarring to look at all the people who don't look like people except in the most cursory way. My guess is that they spent all of the visual budget on the mechs (which look a lot nicer than than the humans, mostly), on the weapon's special effects (the way that explosions cover an area in smoke is a nice touch), and on the exploding people (apparently your enemies are nothing more than blood-balloons who carry firearms). SOUNDS 3/5: I've heard worse, but I've also heard better. The music, when there's any to hear, is unmemorable, and the sounds your firearms make is fairly standard. I think Shattered Steel did a much better sounds effects job than this game. The character voice-acting for the main character always sounds far too flippant for the situation. STORY 2/5: It's an anime-style plot, and completely predictable. The characters are all outrageous stereotypes of one kind or another (cocksure hero, nice girl, naughty girl, mechanic, suspicious dude, over-serious authority figure...), and there's only one point at which you can make any difference in how the game's story progresses. At least it makes sense... mostly... GAMEPLAY 4/5: The gameplay is the only area in which this game shines, or at least glimmers a bit. The game is split up into "vehicle" sections where you pilot your mech and normal sections where you run around on the ground shooting people. When you're in your mech, you really do get to act like a massive walking tank and lay waste to everything in your path. Ammo is generally plentiful, so you need never fear the consequences of taking the time to blow up each and every single car on each and every single street in each and every single level. Each weapon has its own distinct use in this mode.There are different types of mechs, too, but the difference between them aren't big enough to actually change the gameplay. When you're on foot, you need to be a lot more careful. The old combat adage "Kill them before they kill you" is very literally true when you fight on foot; a careless move could easily result in your painful demise, and you may find yourself reloading the game a lot to make sure that YOU make that first fatal shot. Generally, this is easy enough to do as long as you have an automatic weapon and decent reflexes. The distinction between weapons is a bit weaker in this mode; generally, the time difference you have between killing someone with your pistols and killing someone with your SMG is one of microseconds, and with the exception of the shotgun and the assorted explosive launchers, there isn't much of a difference between one gun and another. It's all good fun, but there are a number of things that grate on me. Firstly, you can only open doors and push buttons by slamming your face into them with the movement keys. Secondly, your mech will carry over health and armor from mission to mission, but your actual character generally will not. Thirdly, pretty much every game level is completely linear, and whenever it ISN'T linear you're not given clear directions on where to go or what to do. Fourthly, there are a few glitches and problems in the game that evidently weren't picked up in beta testing; one example of these is a particular suction tube which will supposedly draw you up when you're underneath it. Unfortunately, this tube is suspended over a bottomless pit, and it is VERY finicky about the precise position you have to be in in order to get sucked up. I died many times trying to get that thing to work.... PRICE FOR VALUE/OVERALL 3/5: If what you want is a mindless shooter game, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division will certainly fill that role. If you're looking for anything deeper, look elsewhere.

When I first played this game years ago, I didn't give it a chance, I think I stopped playing after the second map. This time, I bought it and just as I was about to give up on it, I found myself wanted to play a little more little more. Next thing I knew, I ate up most of the Saturday. It was a good time! I liked the story, anime sound effects, voice over acting, and the weapons. It was the right mix of challenge and butt kicking. The two modes you'll play in- mecha and human are different enough that you can appreciate the variety. Graphics-wise, it's obviously not cutting edge, but that's the whole point of the games on GOG.com You can appreciate this title for the era for the came from (circa 1998) and the gameplay. Does it hold up after 14 years? I'd say so! Of course, I can see why Half-Life, which came out around the same time, stole the show. It is still far better than stuff you'd see in the Build engine of the same timeframe (Duke Nuk'em, Redneck Rampage, etc). In fact, it looks perfectly lovely in 1920x1080. (GOG.com video update perhaps?) It's not without some flaws of course- most notably the AI. As you'll see in other reviews, don't expect to be wow'd by the opponent's tactics, which run the gambit of: 1) 'stand here and fight' 2) 'close the distance and fight' 3) 'Hmmm, my partner died- I feel like I should be doing *something*.' 4) "When I shoot my rocketlauncher, it hurts myself. I wonder what will happen if I do it again..." But despite that, the gameplay is still fun. Glitches- there are a few- for me, most noteably in the "Belly of the Best" map, there's a huge spinning barrel room. There's an elevator platform to the right, but my elevator seemed to be stuck. I have to use a cheat to float up to the top and resume the game. It blew the mood, but I wanted to finish the game. Another one- in what was supposed to be a boss matchup between you and Uziekel(spelling?) ends up being anticlimatic because he injures himself shooting his rocketlauncher down at you. (and he never makes good on his promise to get me another time) Still, all in all, the game left me wanting more- I really like it, which is all you can really ask of a game. It ends hinting at a sequel that will clearly never come. Bummer.

Note to Prospective Buyers: The game can be finnicky to run on modern systems. If you have issues look up tools like dgVoodoo. Some minor freezes will occur, especially when moving to new environments, but it is not too bad. Review: Yes, an in-game map would be really helpful. Yep, enemies will repeatedly 1 shot you so quickly that not even blindly firing around a corner will hlep. Oh, and yes, some fights pretty much require you to cheat or stun lock your foe(s). All that said, loved the characters. The world leaves me begging for me. The gunplay between both your mech and human forms is simple but effective. The levels do a good job balancing feeling like a real place and enabling good gameplay (decisions). Hopefully a spiritual successor is made one day, until then I am very happy to have picked Shogo up on sale.

I bought Shogo: MAD since I played it as a kid back in 2002 or something. I wondered if the game will be as good as I remembered it, since I know nostalgia factor can play a big role in player's experience. Well I was pleasently surprised. The game was as much fun as the first time I played it. It is still hard, enemy NPC can one shot you many times, but I like that kind of challenge. Now it has some problems, first I couldn't run it in fullscreen, so used dgVoodoo2 wrapper, and it solved the problem. There were some crashes here and there, that also messed up my UI font in Windows 10. But I quickly fixed the problem. Despite those flaws, I really enjoyed the gameplay so much I can't rate it lower than 5 stars. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but if you've played it in the past or are a new player you will enjoy it, just have some patience. :)