Of course, maybe it doesn’t even matter, because the missions aren’t exactly expansive anyways. In fact, Armored Core: Nexus has employed a “quantity over quality” approach for the campaign design; make the missions really brief, but generate a lot of them. Most missions are concluded in a maximum of about five minutes (usually less), and aside from the occasional ambush or surprise attack from an opposing Raven pilot who happened to pick the other side of the contract, usually go out in a very predictable and linear manner. In fact, most of the missions focus on either “go in and blow everything up”, or “protect this object by going in and blowing everything up”. Maybe I’m going on a tangent here, but I really feel it would help my immersion and enjoyment of the game if I finally had some thorough briefings and better mission scripting. This also results into another problem, difficulty. I was given absolutely no indication on how huge of an enemy force I’d be encountering, and since most of the weapons in Nexus are very ammo-limited, I was commonly forced to either take a wild guess at what kind of AC setup would let me actually complete the mission without running out of ammunition, or play through the level multiple times until I settled on something. Eventually I came up with a satisfactory configuration that prepared me for all kinds of extended mission circumstances with enough onboard supplies to level a good-sized city, but then I promptly ran into an enemy that demanded a fast, quick VT to effectively counter it, and ended up going all the way back to the drawing board. Fortunately, the game allows you to maintain up to three separate AC configurations (which actually slows the “Garage” interface down initially, as you can’t really do anything until all three of the spinning background AC models load) which lessens the blow a little. Speaking of replaying missions, another curious change has been invoked in Nexus. Saving games is now done a little differently, as going to the System menu and saving in the conventional manner only executes a “partial” save, which incurs a penalty on players if they try to load it. The only way to get a full save is to use the “Quit Game” option – and likewise, the only way to load a game is also from the main menu. I’m not quite sure why this was done (perhaps to cut down on players immediately loading their saves to try again if they failed a mission), but to be honest, I just found it annoying and a little counter-intuitive at first.

While my primary beefs with the game are the incredibly vague / brief mission designs, a still-problematic AC design interface, and an erratic difficulty curve that makes the game either much too hard or much too easy from one moment to the next, there’s still an underlying charm with Armored Core: Nexus that makes the game very hard to put down, and causes your brain to subscribe to the infamous “just one more mission” train of thought as the sun starts to come up and you realize that you’ve been playing for just a bit too long. Once I got over the interface problems and developed a basic understanding for terms like “linear gun”, I found myself incredibly attracted to customizing the hell out of my personal AC and seeing it get a thorough workout during a mission. Because paint jobs and even the customary emblems can be added, there’s tons of room for pride when an in-game cutscene shows off your AC. And even though the missions are indeed limited and somewhat repetitive (some missions even take place in the exact same area), the action is intense and exciting enough that I found myself not minding all that much once I got warmed up. Perhaps this is because the AC modification plays such a heavy role in the game, making the sheer act of spending half an hour customizing your ride almost as much fun as playing the game itself – until you realize that you’ve been spending more time trying to decide which radiator would work better in your AC than actually enjoying the game and progressing in the missions. The fact that the outcome of a battle is practically decided in the AC hangar before you ever accept the contract contributes to this too. This isn’t anything really new or different over previous games in the series, but I thought it worth mentioning that nothing’s really changed in this regard either. Obviously those who want to get going right into the action will find themselves severely turned off from the game (you can’t just spend thirty seconds throwing random parts together to make an AC, you really have to think about what you want and understand the different components), but for those of us out there who whine about how “nobody makes games like Mechwarrior 2 anymore” and own a Steel Battalion controller, this game can be pretty damn cool.

Sadly, while there are a great deal of missions to play through, the ending still felt like it came all too soon, and it was hardly satisfying at that. As some manner of comfort, once the game is beaten a “Free Mission” mode is unlocked on your save profile, allowing the option of going back and repeating any previous mission for more money (as well as accessing new ones you might’ve missed the firs time around), and there’s also a “Free Arena” mode to duel off against any other Raven you choose (the game normally adopts a slightly different approach to the Arena compared to previous games, randomly introducing Arena matches throughout the campaign based on the player’s progress rather than making them available at any time), but even this is only entertaining for a limited amount of time. Of course, it was by this point that I suddenly remembered the cool “Revolution” disc that is included with every copy of the game, and hastily booted it up to see what goodies were offered. Game data between the “Evolution” and “Revolution” discs is interchangeable, so you can effortlessly use the same save file for both discs and have all the same AC parts and stored mission data. As for the actual included content, Evolution provides a remake of some of the missions from the original Armored Core PSX titles, including Project Phantasma, spread over fifteen chapters. Sadly, not each and every mission has been remade under the new game engine, but some of the more significant and memorable levels are there. Once the original (albeit, slightly modified) remakes have been completed, the player is given a ranking based on his performance, and a new mission under that chapter is unlocked. Up to two possible missions for a chapter can be unlocked; “Extend Side”, which is basically a new secondary mission played in relation to the first, and “Reverse Side”, which is the original mission played again as if you were from the opposing team. There’re a huge number of (somewhat useless, at least as far as I found) hidden parts to unlock or find in these missions based on the score received (“E” being the worst, and “S” being the best), but the main appeal are the illustrations, posters, soundtracks, and intro movies from all the different games in the series that can be accessed. Truly the Revolution disc is something AC fanboys will absolutely love to have, and is probably what will ultimately make AC: Nexus a selling point, but I find myself wishing the team had spent more time remaking my favorite missions with the graphics engine rather than modifying the crap out of a select few. Still, all in all, a worthwhile experience.

The graphical engine used in Nexus is, sadly, really starting to show its age. The development team has spruced things up with a few new effects (including a cool little motion blur gig for when the mighty “Overboost” mode is engaged), and the environments don’t look too shabby at first, but things seemed to rapidly take a dive the more I played. Textures and environmental prefabs are repeated a lot during missions indoors, and there was even some occasional slowdown under heavy action (with some weird flicker that made my HUD go all funny). Another problem I have is with the game’s animation system. While it does its job admirably for the most part (I especially like how the in-game cutscenes have really been improved since the early days of the series), sometimes the movement of the AC’s just looks a little awkward, and I especially noticed some weird sliding effects – and I’m not just referring to the inertial effect from a particularly heavy AC changing direction, but the way that the feet seemed to sometimes slide noticeably on the ground while walking forward or moving sideways in a way that made me notice how the animations didn’t really match up with the speed at which the AC was moving.

Okay, that might be a nitpicky complaint, but here’s one that isn’t. From Software’s usage of the PS2 hardware has been mostly impressive so far, but I think they’re getting to the point where they’re pushing the limit, and it shows. As I said, the game’s environments just don’t seem very detailed, and the AC’s in particular, while looking better than the previous games, are starting to suffer from a noteworthy lack of texture detail in comparison to other modern games. To be honest, this is an ongoing problem I’m starting to notice in many PS2 games these days (as well as with some titles for other consoles), and I’m betting the developers are very eagerly awaiting the release of the next-gen set of consoles so that they don’t have to cut back so severely on graphical detail. That said, I was really hoping for a major improvement with the overhauled graphics engine of the latest, much-hyped game in the series, and I’m pretty disappointed ultimately at the presentation. The game certainly looks well enough, no argument, but I’m just annoyed at how easily it could look a lot better in this day and age with either a bit more time spent on optimizations / improvements, or better / different hardware. Will the game make your eyes bleed? No, and the detail is sufficient enough that seeing your own, personal AC kicking ass in all it’s glory. Just don’t expect anything resembling the Doom 3 of mech sims here.

The audio, in contrast, kicks quite a bit of ass. All the old sound effects are still in (and I still hate the firing noise for the basic rifle with a passion), but each of the weapons, new and old alike, makes a distinguishing enough noise that you can really tell when somebody is ripping loose with a swarm of missiles or a hefty shoulder-mounted railgun. Sadly, I had a hard time noticing any kind of general environment ambience, but the background music is really, really good (with the exception of one of the early Arena themes, which made me want to stab things), and it was especially awesome digging through the available tracks on the Revolution disc from past games. Voice acting ranged from decent to so-so, but it wasn’t anything terrible. The only thing I really disliked (aside from that one damn Arena track) was the AC computer voiceovers – Nexus only sports two, and they didn’t really sound as cool or robotic as the old ones I remembered. Ah well, perhaps I’m just nitpicking once again.

Ultimately, Armored Core: Nexus is a novel and refreshing experience that any fan of the series will definitely want to pick up – but if you hate the series, then this probably won’t help much unless your only complaint involves the awkward controls Armored Core is infamous for, as the new control scheme in AC: Nexus really kicks ass and finally makes the game playable for those of us without immensely twitchy fingers. Despite the gameplay being repetitive, the interface continuing to show some flaws, and an aging graphics engine, AC: Nexus is definitely not a game I would classify as “terrible”, but merely “above- average”. I’d at least give this a cautious recommendation due to it being tons of fun when the mood is right, but don’t expect any anti-mecha gamers to jump for joy over this release.