A couple of months ago, I wrote up a huge preview of Steel Battalion: Line of Contact, as a follow-up to a couple of weeks of experience with the game's open beta. While this incredibly ambitious Xbox title was addictive and enticing, the beta suffered a number of technical flaws that drove the experience down a little, as well as a huge player shortage. Now that the final build of the game has been out for a good month, I have had the solid opportunity to give it a thorough workout, so here's the real low-down on SB: LoC and how it has turned out following a bit over a year of intensive development and a brief beta test period.

First of all, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact is an MMO (massively multiplayer online) game through and through. There is absolutely no singleplayer element (that includes bot support, of which there is none), and while the game does support System Link play, most of the game's content cannot be unlocked unless it is played online. That said, the core of the game is its community, as any online game completely relies upon a strong and healthy userbase to survive and evolve. So how has the community for this limited, niche title survived? Will newcomers to the series log in to the servers for the first time, only to find a complete void of active sessions and players? I'm proud to report a "hell no" in that department, as SB: LoC's community has actually taken off to a surprising degree, and the game's popularity makes setting up matches a fairly simple and direct affair - for the most part. There is a very active and very eager community that has a strong desire to see this game survive (the core of which is located at Steel Battalion Central - a site which is a must-visit if you want to have any hope of keeping up with the latest Steel Battalion-related developments), but at the same time, this very community has been grossly neglected by the very people who published the game.

Check Capcom USA's site and dig up their Line of Contact page, and be amazed by the complete lack of content offered on this title. Aside from a small amount of media, a teensy amount of game info, a couple of announcements, and some information on how to order, there is nearly nothing to educate new players on what kind of game this is or how it plays. Having seen numerous MMO titles take off and evolve over the years, I am totally astonished by Capcom's total lack of interest in keeping their own paying community alive. Where's the elaborate homepage with consistent news updates, information on the latest developments, detailed gameplay information, and all the other stuff one would expect to research before sinking $250US into this crazy online Mech sim? Well, uh, apparently over on the Japanese side of the market, whom actually get tossed a bone every now and then - even if it is still miniscule. Better brush up on those Babelfish translational skills. Suffice to say, third party community sites are pretty much the only promotional material this game has to keep itself alive and drawing new players. Why a company would release such an expensive, online-only title and expect players to pick it up based on a few scraps of information here and there is totally and completely beyond me, but there you have it. Of course, the pathetic official support doesn't stop there - digging into the manual that came with my game yielded one of the most poorly translated, inaccurate documents I've seen in a long time. When an official instructional manual repeatedly refers to giant walking robots as "aircraft", you know someone dropped the ball.

Okay, with that rant out of the way, let's get into some of the actual game details. As mentioned in my extensive preview, SB: LoC has two major gameplay modes; Campaign, and Free Mission. Campaign puts the player into a massive online war against up to four separate factions with a slant on logistical management and intensive competition, while Free Mission mode is a more relaxed form of play, but provides little avenue for advancement to unlock new content. Basically, in Campaign mode, players must fight in battles to secure supply points for their profile, which can then be used to purchase new VTs (Vertical Tanks) en-masse (say, three Deciders, or two Quasars) for use during a match. If a VT is destroyed during a session, then it is lost forever and a replacement must be purchased. Quite a neato concept on paper that really adds to the intensity of the game. Meanwhile, Free Mission mode offers pilots unlimited use of whatever VTs they desire, but only VTs which have been in contact with the player's inventory in Campaign mode (with the exception of a starting few low-end models) can be used.

Unfortunately, after taking into account a few technical problems, the gameplay in this regard begins to see a few cracks. In Campaign mode, there are two major types of VTs - Unlimited, and Limited models. The unlimited ones can, obviously, be purchased at any time (providing adequate points are available), but Limited VTs are only released in small numbers at erratic periods (primarily on the hour, of every hour), and players will commonly have to compete with each other to try and secure these limited models before they are all scooped up. Problems with this begin to appear when the hourly restock rolls around and thousands of gamers all cram into the "Supply Battalion" screen to try and snatch up some Limited-model VTs before they're all gone. This sudden strain on the servers appears to cause some really odd gameplay quirks, which will commonly either disconnect players completely from Xbox Live with an error, simply offer a "Purchased Failed" message, or actually take a victim player's cash but provide no VT. The occurrences of this latter issue have been slowly diminishing since the game was released, but they still occur commonly enough to be annoying, if not downright disastrous (some high-end VTs are very expensive). While the entire concept behind "Limited" VTs is really neat and keeps the game economy balanced to some degree, these aforementioned issues really bog the experience down.

So how about the whole "global war" experience - does it really live up to the hype? Does one really feel like getting into the groove and fighting for the honor of the Pacific Rim Forces, the defense of the Hai Shi Dao regime, the survival of the Right Brothers rebels, or the economy of the Jaralaccs mercenaries (whom don't actually own any territory on the map, but can participate in battles for any faction in a given session and reap the profits)? Well, yes and no. The global war map is updated each week by the progression of the round through "turns" - a single round consists of eight turns, and each turn takes, as was just said, one week. With each turn, players have three specific maps available to play upon repeatedly to gain (or lose) victory points for their respective faction. Winning a match will sway the percentages slightly in your faction's favor, while losing will do just the opposite. When creating a session, players can check how each faction is stacking up in victory percentages for the current turn and determine which map should be played more in an attempt to sway the odds in their favor. Sounds simple enough, but some annoying exploits have appeared which effectively skew the results of this system and almost render the entire spirit of Campaign play meaningless. Most notably is the process of creating "money matches", which are pre-organized games set up between a private, select group of players who set up Campaign games with the intent of not fighting to advance the glory of their specific faction, but instead simply "leg" each other's VTs (which results in a capture, as mentioned in my preview). The new VT owners then claim victory in the match, return to a chat room with their wacky crew of exploiters, trade the captured VTs back to their original owners, and go back to repeat the process. Not only does this give the pilots in question a crazy amount of free points (since the matches are set up between friends whom are not really fighting each other), but the resulting victories/losses incurred by these repeated matches causes the actual faction-related Campaign results to be affected when the end-of-turn tally rolls around. Wonderful.

Cheating, exploitation, griefing, and all around jackass behavior is something I honestly was not expecting with the release of Line of Contact, given its expensive price tag and complex nature, yet it has arrived in a pathetic and enraging manner nonetheless. "Clip-dumping", the process of repeatedly reloading a main weapon's magazine to fire it off like a machinegun (sort of akin to taking down an M1A1 tank on foot with a magical LAW launcher that can fire several rockets very rapidly) is still in the game, despite my concerns over it's existence during the beta phase and hopes that it would be removed - and much to the American community's frustration, Capcom Japan has all but officially declared it to be an endorsed "feature". Players have even found ways to exploit the otherwise solid trade system to rob players blind. And where are the game masters - the designated volunteers to go around, keep the peace, and punish morons? Probably in the same place as Capcom USA's P.R. division, out on vacation in Hawaii or something. I'm going to truly feel sorry for the newbie who eagerly picks up this game in anticipation, hops online, makes contact with a few "buddies", and is then promptly backstabbed by some jackass with several stolen 3rd-Generation VTs. Lack of official community support is, once again, a major impediment to this game's enjoyment level.

Despite everything I just said, I also must state that I wish to refrain from reflecting Line of Contact in a totally negative light. This is easily one of the most insanely ambitious console titles I have ever encountered, and claiming that it is totally unworthy of the wait or cost would make me a liar. Despite repeated attempts to ruin this game's good name through sheer lack of effort by its own publisher, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact remains an awesome online experience. Spending a small amount of effort on my part to search online for some decent sessions and familiar faces will yield some of the most satisfying online gaming I've experienced since the horrible death of my Everquest addiction. Again, I've already (extensively) gone into detail on how exactly the gameplay works in my previous article, but actually seeing it in motion with other players who know what they're doing is an experience all in itself. Organizing with friendly players in the pre-mission phase to set up a well-rounded assault package, and then planning how the mission will play out through the map screen (which annoyingly enough is non-interactive - the ability to use some manner of crude drawing applet to actually make diagrams and mark locations out to other players during the planning phase would have been awesome) is just icing on the cake. Actually launching into a mission, booting up your personalized custom-configured (and colored, if you went to the effort) ass-kicking machine and moving out to go assault an enemy stronghold or run a patrol is a very intensive, very immersive experience, especially taking into account the huge controller and foot pedals being used. Using your VT's various sensors and other systems to gain an advantage over the enemy team, managing fuel and ammunition levels, trying to squeeze around a corner in fifth gear without tipping over, and co-ordinating with your team mates over the radio system for a combined assault is so god damned cool, I can barely find words to describe the experience. So why must this experience be sullied by flaws, both in the design and in the game engine? Because the universe is a cruel, cruel thing, determined to endlessly torment us Mech sim fans for as long as humanly possible. It happened with the shutting down of MPBT 3025, it happened with the death of the Mechwarrior license, and it's happening again with SB: Line of Contact.

Issues like the inability to manually mark waypoints for other team mates to give them a clearer idea on where you want them to be, or a limitation of the radio system that only lets you communicate with one team mate at a time (when one factors in that the game "supports" matches as big as five on five, I have to seriously wonder why this was never addressed) cause headaches on the gameplay side of things, but when you realize that, on top of sinking a hefty cover charge to get into the game itself (game + controller, broadband, Xbox, Xbox Live account, etc), you're effectively playing a huge gamble on if you'll actually be able to participate or not, things start to get iffy again, the "OH SHIT MECHS ARE COOL" part of the experience begins to slip away, and headaches ensue. My personal experience upon the launch of LoC was that of total unplayability, as despite my Shaw cable connection being able to function in the beta version of the game, it refused to allow me to play at all in the final due to numerous connection errors. This apparently is the case for many broadband players around the globe, whom are either restricted to very small matches (4 player games, or even smaller), or cannot even play. I was eventually able to resolve this issue by actually going out of my way to hook up with a second ISP for my Xbox Live service (yay Telus DSL), but this is not an option for many of the players suffering connection problems. I can understand not everyone being able to participate in huge, large-scale matches, but not being able to play at all is something totally different, and quite unacceptable given the currently available information Capcom has released - players who assume by the information posted on Capcom's official site that their bandwidth easily meets the requirements for even a lowly 1 on 1 match may very well be unpleasantly surprised when the game refuses to let them play, especially if other Xbox Live titles work run great in much larger capacities.

Sadly enough, things aren't a picnic for those who are able to play either. While most of the sessions I have played online are fairly problem-free, there were also numerous attempts at playing that ended in misery. The manual states that the game has a built-in facility that automatically measures a player's connection quality and will reject connections based on what it thinks is a good or bad level of latency, yet I have seen repeatedly that this system is flawed and ineffective. One shining example of why is in the game lobby phase, where a host is trying to round up players for his game. When a person joins, his current level of latency is measured and indicated as a marker to the right of his name on the roster, but past experience has proven to me that this indicator is only partially useful at gauging how a match with a given player will go - I've seen perfectly fine players be marked as having a terrible connection, and incredibly poor, drop-happy players be marked as "Good", or even "Superior". But that's not the worst of it, oh lord no. Because the game is Peer-to-Peer, one bad apple can sully the experience for all others involved, but the game's famed auto-rejection code seems to sit by and do nothing when these players join. On top of that, problematic players can actually sit in a lobby and force other players out with connection errors, as well as prevent new people from joining until they are forcefully removed by the host because their shoddy connection is wreaking havoc with the game's network code. Utterly astonishing. On the chance that these problematic people do happen to launch with a game, the resulting match will suffer from severe input latency for all involved, with constant stops as the game tries to synchronize the connection. These sessions will usually terminate themselves after a period of time - not by kicking the problematic player, but by simply randomly dumping other people out to a "Connection Error" screen.