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Strategy & War


Metal Fatigue
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 best

By Mark Asher
(8/10/2000)

The good: Cinematic, animé-inspired giant robots clash in an RTS setting; innovative prebuild phase and multilevel battlefields. 
The bad: Lifeless single-player campaigns; one-dimensional multiplayer action; mediocre AI. 
The bottom line: A better-than-average RTS game with some compelling elements, marred by multiplayer game balance issues and a sometimes dull single-player game. 
Multiplayer: Up to eight players  
ESRB rating: T (Teen)

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Metal Fatigue is a real-time strategy game with a distinct animé flavor that includes some high drama in its publishing history. Developed by Zono, Metal Fatigue was a victim of unfortunate timing. As it neared completion, publisher Psygnosis decided to ditch the PC game market and focus on consoles. Eventually, TalonSoft decided to pick up the game for PC. And the game is actually good. It's innovative within the RTS genre, and the giant robots are spectacular to watch. However, Metal Fatigue is hampered by several flaws that keep it from standing with classic RTS games. Notably, the AI is mediocre, the single-player campaigns are dull, and the multiplayer tends to be one-dimensional.

Screen shots:  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10
Metal Fatigue is a game inspired by the Japanese animé cartoons. It delivers on its animé theme through the inclusion of Combots, the giant robots the game is built around. Three brothers, Diego, Jonus, and Stefan Angelus, work for the Rimtech CorpoNation. In the opening cut scene they argue, and before you know it, Jonus is working for rival CorpoNation Neuropa and Stefan is working for Milagro. The discovery of advanced alien artifacts has caused the CorpoNations to war with one another, so brother is pitted against brother.

Although the story explains the conflict, that's about all it does. The single-player campaigns, ten missions for each CorpoNation, never catch fire. The mission briefings are delivered via a single screen, with voice-over work that manages to drain any small bit of excitement the story might generate. The level designs tend to be unimaginative also. The single-player game is just dull.

The graphics for Metal Fatigue excel. The game uses a 3D engine that allows you to zoom in and out and rotate the camera. The Combots are a visual delight. They're extremely well animated. As they battle you can see them rock back from blows, grapple, kick, soar through the air, fire missiles that leave trailing smoke, smite one another with double-bladed axes, and more. They're awesome. However, the terrain and supporting units have a decided Total Annihilation look and feel about them--and that game is three years old. The sound effects are good when the Combots fight one another, but tanks and planes tend to have generic booms and laser beam noises. The music is interesting, ranging from symphonic scores to a techno-rock sound.

If Metal Fatigue seems like a game with high and low points, nowhere is this more evident than in its gameplay. The interface is well done, allowing you to stack build commands, but building Combots is a pain. They consist of a torso, legs, and two arms, and you can mix and match various parts. Although you can save designs, you still must manually build each Combot. It's irritating.

The Combots themselves create an imbalance problem. They're overpowered for their cost compared to the tanks, Missile Cars, artillery, and jet fighters you can build. In other words, there's very little reason to build anything besides the giant robots, except for in the subterranean level. One of Metal Fatigue's innovations is play on three different planes. You have orbital platforms, a ground level, and a subterranean level. Although Combots can travel to the orbital platforms, they cannot work underground, so you need tanks and other grunt units down there.


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