PRESS RELEASE:

STORY

It’s the Year 208X, Mars is in the process of terraformation with an expected timeline of 300 years till completion. Back on Earth a great war erupts and millions of migrants look to Mars to flee their home. The Planet Remodelling Project is accelerated with the aid of ANTS, a completely robotic automated system. Migrants build large dome-shaped colonies in regions with now stable climates and rush to construct cities within them to sustain the flow of refugees.

Time passes and the World Federation has set up military colonies on Deimos and Phobos, and the dwarf-planet Ceres is being moved to Mars’ orbit to help create an ocean for the planet. One day, communication is suddenly lost with the surface of Mars, a peace keeping force called DAT whom are currently training on Deimos are sent to investigate...

FEATURES

Key Features:

• 35 full-length battle-heavy campaign missions

• Pit your skills against waves of enemies in a horde gameplay mode known as 'Inferno Mode'

• Over 100 mech-customisation possibilities for yourself and your allies

ASSAULT GUNNERS HD - A REVIEW FOR PS4 BY TOM PARRY:

GAMEPLAY

Take your team, consisting of 3 other MECHS, into battle against wave upon wave of mechanical enemies. You have a variety of weapons at your disposal, each of which can be selected with one of the four controller face buttons.

The D-pad takes care of issuing your squad with orders, should you want your teammates to Attack, Standby, Defend or Hold Position.

Once defeated the enemies usually leave behind Development Points (to be used to upgrade your MECHS) and various recovery items.

Mission Objectives shake up the routine of blasting, these can range from securing all the points on a map to completing a mission under a certain time limit. Achieve the objective and it’s onto the next Mission.

REVIEW

Do you like MECHS? Do you like shooting stuff? If you answered yes to those two questions then you‘re probably the target audience for this game. Assault Gunners HD is a port of a PSVITA game that was released exclusively in Japan back in 2012, it’s taken 6 years for it to land on our shores and the question is, was it worth the wait?

Before going into this game, it’s best to lower your expectations. However, it mostly succeeds to deliver what it promises, namely plenty of missions, lots of blasting action and a large dose of customisation. 

First impressions aren’t great, the game manages to look blander than bland and the first few training missions don’t do much to persuade you that there’s much fun to be had here.

At first the gameplay appears to follow a similar template to the Dynasty Warriors series, only with Robots instead of the usual Japanese feudal heroes you may be used to in a game like this. Unfortunately destroying your enemies isn’t a particularly satisfying affair, you have a choice of which weapons you want to use to deal out the damage but I found myself sticking with the powerful homing missiles for the most part. Although, the flurry of rockets is reasonably exciting to behold at first, the enemies sadly just seem to disappear in a rather lacklustre way once taken out.

There’s a hint of some sort of strategy element to the gameplay, however for the early missions you don’t need to think too much about that, later however, as missions get steadily more difficult I couldn’t help thinking that I was missing the strategic edge that seemed to be needed to successfully complete the objectives.

I never quite got a handle on managing my units effectively and the parts I’d developed to customise my MECH and those of my team, didn’t seem to helping my progress. I tried in vain to to make proper progress in the game, perhaps I’m meant to fail the same mission over and over again for the sake of collecting more points and eventually levelling up enough to achieve the objective? I never quite worked out what I was doing wrong.

At least customising the MECHS is fun, despite their generic design at the beginning of the game you can unlock some cool alternative parts and at least make them aesthetically pleasing enough.

CONCLUSION

At first I thought I was going to really dislike this game, after all it doesn’t give the best first impressions but as I began to progress in the game and discovered the fun customisation options, I really felt that I was starting to get into it, zooming around blasting stuff was fun for a while, but I was soon faced with the realisation that the core gameplay just couldn’t hold my attention. The game eludes to having some sort of depth but this was either hidden deep behind the barrage of stats and numbers that the levelling up system throws at you, or Assault Gunners HD is just simply not the deep technical gaming experience it seems to be eluding to.

Unfortunately Assault Gunners HD doesn’t just suffer in the gameplay department. It’s story is nonsensical, it’s graphics are below par and the controls could be a little more intuitive, although not terrible by any means. The game’s music is is also instantly forgettable and while it does contain some spirited Japanese voice acting, none of it is subtitled.

This isn’t a bad game, you can have some fun with it, it’s just incredibly average in nearly every way. At least it’s reasonably priced at £7.99 for the basic game and £9.79 with some extra missions. If you like Dynasty Warriors type games and have a love of MECHS you may get a fair amount of enjoyment from of this game, especially when you factor in the customisation side of things, just don’t expect too much. Overall it’s just tough to recommend this over the ton of other more polished and enjoyable games available on PSN for the same money.

- TOM PARRY

OUT NOW: PS4 EU: https://store.playstation.com/#!/cid=...

PS4 NA: https://store.playstation.com/#!/cid=...

PC: http://store.steampowered.com/app/751...

ASSAULT GUNNERS HD EDITION is out now on both PlayStation®4 and PC with three purchase options available.

ASSAULT GUNNERS HD EDITION (Standalone Game) - £7.19, €9.99 or $9.99*

ASSAULT GUNNERS HD EDITION EXTRA PACK (DLC) - £3.99, €4.99 or $4.99*

ASSAULT GUNNERS HD EDITION COMPLETE SET (Standalone Game + DLC) - £9.29, €11.99 or $11.99*

*Prices may vary depending on region