Shogo: Mobile Armor Division

First off, a disclaimer. I have not played the game which is being sold here. I played what MAY have been the same game from another source. So I may be mistaken in some of my assumptions. THAT said. Reviews are just all over the place with this one! This MAY be for a reason I allude to above. My understanding was that this game was released essentially unfinished -- that is, without all the slick graphics which were due it, and looking at some of the complaints here, maybe the gameplay was less than finished as well. Random enemies popping up, etc. So all that said -- yeah, the alternating between playing as a regular foot soldier and a mech pilot was quite interesting. Although again, another review mentioned this -- at first I didn't quite understand why my weapons were changing. There isn't really a big distinction between playing between the one mode and the other. I remember thinking at one point, Oh I guess I'm piloting the robot now. I do NOT recall what others have said about it being ridiculously difficult. Except the last sequence. At least I think it was the final sequence. This was all a while ago, and I never finished it. But I think it was the final battle. Now THAT was hard! I think the computer I had it on died, and I never got back to it, one way or another. All in all -- it was OK. I don't have any great urge to play it again, I admit. It had its points, but for completely addicted shootemup action, play over and over, I have the Half Life games. Actually, you know what I remember hooking my interest was a screenshot of your character carrying a shotgun, and I thought it resembled Half Life. But don't be discouraged or dissuaded just by me. It's a good price for a good game. Although I will repeat what my original point was -- this is an unfinished effort, and the plasterboard shows through the thin coats of paint in places, so to speak. But put those couple of weaknesses aside, and you may find some vintage gold at your fingertips.

I bought this game when it came in a two game pack years ago. I bought the pack for the other game but I can't even remember what it was because Shogun was so good it made me completely forget about it.

The ambiance of the game tries its best to look like an anime and is successful at it, but only at the beginning of the game. The graphics, well, it's a bit complicated to talk about them. Robot models are well made, human models are simply horrible and uncreative. Definitely the worst human models I've ever seen in a '98 game and enemy models are not good either, weapon models are cool but generic. It has an interesting soundtrack that fits well in the game. The scenarios have good textures and lighting effects (visible in night scenes) however the design is horrible, you will find several rooms empty and useless, dead ends and always seem to be the same places. A map would help a lot but the game does not have it. The gameplay is simple and accurate, you basically will run, jump and shoot all the time. Weapons have no recoil, so you will not have too many problems in battle. Unfortunately the game has many, many bugs that almost made me give up playing. You will often hang on doors, stairs, fall from something that is apparently a platform but it is not, inadvertently entering a place that should not and getting stuck and many other problems that I do not remember very well. It is also a very badly optimized game for modern computers, constantly you will have fps drops. In my opinion, the game starts very well and ends up getting very bad as you advance in the game, it is very buggy and this is very annoying. The generic story of the game will not hold you for too long and the lousy levels will not either. Running around killing robots and soldiers gets dizzy quickly in this game. It is not a very difficult game, but it has an awful AI. One time the enemies will kill you as soon as you put your face in the corridor, another time they will have your back to you, waiting to be killed. Do not recommend, buy only if you have played before and want to play again

After playing Blood & FEAR, I was excited to see what else was in Monolith's back catalog. The mecha concept is pretty unique, but ultimately shallow - all it really means is some levels play with a different set of weapons & some environmental details are scaled down (tiny cars, etc) Especially disappointing is the AI, which is very passive and poses no real challenge. The only real threat is from enemies placed in corners next to entryways who shoot you in the back as soon as you enter the room. It's made worse by the baffling critical hit system - sometimes you'll shoot an enemy and you'll randomly do more damage to them. Unfortunately, enemies can do this to you to, often 1-shotting you before you can do anything about it. Level design is pretty weak too, as if they forgot to fully populate the levels with items or secrets, and they're over within minutes. I ended up beating the game within 5 hours. Audiovisually, it's decent for the era. Graphics are comparable to the Quake 2 engine, and the soundtrack has a nice futuristic feel. The story tries to evoke an anime but is totally nonsensical. Mostly it's used for a vehicle for really bad jokes. Ultimately, there's way better games out there, both from Monolith and from the era.

I play the heck out of this back in the day and this was my first purchase on GOG. Thank you.