Giant robots. You gotta love ‘em. Ever since video games moved beyond the simple graphics of Pong, they’ve been a regular staple. They’ve been in side-scrollers, fighting games, RPGs, strategy games, strategy RPGs, action games and even music/rhythm games. Seriously, there was one in Bust a Groove. While these games may have seen a broad range of successes and failures, it’s still fair to say that big robots will always have a place in quite a few gamers’ hearts. Mine included.

Front Mission Evolved gets a couple of gimmies right out of the gate: it features giant robots, you can customize said robots and it ties in to a very highly regarded strategy RPG series. Yes, it’s an action game this time around, but that doesn’t make the pedigree any less impressive. So here we have a game that’s already got a lot going in its favor. In fact, I don’t think anyone would hold it against you if you just assumed it would be awesome. I mean, unless they completely screwed the controls up (spoiler alert: the controls are fine), there’s no reason it wouldn’t be, right?

… right?

I’m going to be straight with you: I’ve never, ever played a game that’s tried so hard to make me hate it.

At first, everything seems fine. You control Dylan Ramsey (a name you’ll have to have surgically removed from your brain once you stop playing — more on that later) as he blasts his way through hostile wanzers (Front Mission’s term for giant mechs) and uncovers a “web of intrigue” throughout the game’s 10+ hour campaign. The voice acting is passable, save for the main bad guys and one particular character who talks about as fast as the Micro Machines guy. The script, however, is utter crap. So’s the plot, but what did you really expect from an action game?

So yeah, the script. That’s the first thing that got me gnashing my teeth. Front Mission Evolved‘s script isn’t bad in a funny way, it’s bad in a sad and pathetic way. Dylan Ramsey meets up with a tough-as-nails military woman and, surprise surprise, they end up falling for each other at some point. The issue with this is that there’s absolutely no chemistry or steady progression in their relationship. They go from zero to “OMG we love each other!” at about the halfway point or so, for no apparent reason. Plus Dylan Ramsey’s engineering friend is much cuter.

Then there are the bad guys. Calling them a pathetic attempt at copying Hideo Kojima’s special brand of flippant, psychopathic antagonists would be giving them way too much credit. The head of the mercenary group, with his overbearing and forced “edge,” is bad enough, but the trio of facepalm-inducing ladies that work for him are even worse. I honestly can’t decide which one I hated most: the Sex Kitten, Stoic Viking or Crazy Musician. But even they all pale in comparison to the main enemy, Cornelius Werner. From his cliched facial scar to his pious belief that he’s saving Mankind (by dooming it, of course), he’s just… just awful. And for some reason he always refers to the main character, Dylan Ramsey, by his full name: Dylan Ramsey. He’ll be on a first-name basis with everyone else, or occasionally refer to someone as “General” or “Captain” or whatever, but he always has to call him Dylan Ramsey. It drove me nuts.

The story itself involves political intrigue and warring factions, much like you’d expect from a Front Mission, but it’s much less focused than previous games in the series. Alliances change willy-nilly, you’re never entirely sure who you’re supposed to call “the bad guy” until roughly the last third of the game and most of the general exposition is given to you by way of a dull narration you’ll listen to while looking at a map. I kid you not.

Of course, you may think that this is the only hardship you’ll have to endure as you attempt to enjoy Front Mission Evolved. This is not so. The game is also filled with terrible design choices that really drag down what’s actually a very solid action game. These choices include things like the inability to save individual wanzer designs built for specific situations, a number of on-rails “shoot stuff from the helicopter” sections, the inability to use your wanzer on a mission until it meets a set of completely arbitrary and totally unadvertised standards (i.e., you have to equip a melee weapon), boss fights that stumble drunkenly between freaking boring and infuriatingly cheap, several on-foot missions that force you out of the cockpit and completely useless friendly AI characters. And when I say “useless,” I mean they started shooting at the ground in the middle of a firefight. Facing away from our attackers.

Hiding amongst all of that crap is the one reason you might enjoy playing this game: the non-boss fights. When you’re in the middle of a mission, facing off against a number of enemy wanzers, ducking in and out of cover, finding that configuration that suits your playstyle best and just running with it… it’s enough to make one wish there was a way to play Front Mission Evolved without all of the campaign bullshit and just get in there and blow up some evenly-matched robots with your carefully designed war machine. Oh wait, there’s a multiplayer mode that’s pretty much exactly that, isn’t there?

Well kind of. Front Mission Evolved‘s multiplayer mode is a good mix of Halo-style rank climbing, Call of Duty‘s earned upgrades and Chromehounds‘ class-based team play. You start off as a lowly recruit with only a handful of basic parts and weapons to choose from, then gain access to better and better gear as you gain levels/ranks. You can custom tailor your wanzer for a number of different roles and can even (*gasp*) save multiple configurations. Of course, setting up the most effective sniper or creating a speedy medic means squat if you can’t actually find any games to play. Likewise, having a handful of modes to choose from (deathmatch, team deathmatch, domination and supremacy) doesn’t make much of a difference when nobody’s online playing them.

This is, perhaps, the worst part about it all. No one really plays Front Mission Evolved online anymore. After spending many evenings searching for a pickup game, I finally managed to get into one. One. With a total of four people, counting myself. It doesn’t make gaining experience all that fun when you spend more time staring at an empty lobby screen than you do playing the game. It also doesn’t help that there doesn’t seem to be anything preventing much higher-ranked players from joining these games, resulting in an incredibly one-sided fight.

I went into Front Mission Evolved thinking I’d enjoy it. That I’d find something to love, even though a lot of other people seemed to find it lacking. Instead, I’ve discovered that I hate it. A lot. Which is really saying something coming from the guy who reserved and bought Robot Alchemic Drive on day one. I’m sure there are bound to be people who actually really like it, but if you’re unsure and haven’t played it yet, please do yourself a favor and try before you buy.

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Things We Liked: Combat is a lot of fun. The sound effects and feedback for the weapons are exquisite. Plays a lot like a current-gen Armored Core. Lots of customization options.

Things We Disliked: Crap story with crap characters in a crap script. Completely unreasonable setup limitations for missions. Hardly anyone plays online anymore, and those that do tend to far outrank newbies. Why the hell will it show my customized wanzer exactly how I built and colored it in cutscenes, but give it a completely different weapon loadout? “Dylan Ramsey.” Every. Fucking. Time.

Target Audience: Mech lovers who absolutely cannot go without. Front Mission fans with an extremely open mind and a bucketload of tolerance.

(Front Mission Evolved – Developer: Double Helix Games. Publisher: Square Enix. Available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – 360 version reviewed. A copy of the game was provided by the publishers for review purposes. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)