WARNING: REVIEW WAS WRITTEN BY A RETARD. SORRY FOR THAT.

Gundam fans rejoice; the Playstation 3 launch has brought gamers one of the best Mobile Suit games to date. Deviating from the norm, Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight goes for a more lifelike presentation than the classic anime style in both the visual and storytelling department. The result is a Mech based action game that is both long and satisfying if not a bit rough around the edges.


Melee location damage at its finest.
So do you want to destroy Earth or protect it? You’ll have to choose one or the other when you start this Gundam game as the Zeon are back to take on the Federation. Depending on which you choose, your single player campaign will be completely different. From a huge variety of unique Mechs to completely unique missions, the branching storyline has no overlap. What’s cool about this is that it’s like having two single player games in one as once you beat the 15 missions of your first side you can head back in and play through the second campaign with everything you’ve unlocked. You can even use the Mechs you’ve collected from the opposing side.


Standard issue water looking good.
When you start each mission you’ll have a standard mission briefing we’ve all seen before in the likes of Ace Combat and Front Mission. What’s actually missing from Gundam that both these titles offered is an engaging coherent storyline. For the most part in Gundam you’ll just get a mission briefing, tweak your Mech, and head out into the field to cause some mayhem and destruction. There are cutscenes from time to time but they deal mostly with what’s happening in the moment rather than strengthening the overall story. It’s Zeon vs. Federation and that’s about as deep as it gets.


The Mech design and variety is the high point.
There are several varieties to the missions in MSG, but they ultimately all boil down to endless killing. Your first missions will involve destroying everything in sight and will then graduate into other kinds such as taking control of a military base and seeking out hidden enemy Mechs. You’ll spend a lot of time guarding off enemy attacks and on some rare occasions you’ll encounter a sort of boss battle where you’ll take out a gigantic Mech type machine that isn’t quite a Mech and isn’t quite a giant tank. What keeps things interesting is that objectives can pop-up during missions that fall into the categories above but weren’t initially expected.

While traversing all 30 missions you’ll get a large helping of the new and incredibly awesome location damage model. Shoot at a Mech’s head long enough and it will blow off, killing its radar. Take out its legs and it won’t be able to move. Take out its gun arm and all it can do is kick you to death. Actually that’s not true; you can swap a weapon into the other arm if you’re in a bind. For both player and enemy this takes Mech combat to a whole other realm. It actually forces you into some strategy other than lock on and destroy. Due to the extreme difficulty of some of the missions you’ll need to take full advantage of this damage model to cripple your enemy. You can lock on constantly but to get the most out of the game and actually finish it you’ll need to cripple most before you swoop in for the kill.