Phantom Crash

It's the year 2031; and how are parents keeping their children entertained after school? How else, they're giving them giant heavily armed mechs and telling them to play nice with the other kids in a deserted Tokyo. Hey, here's an idea! Let's organize these pint sized Green Berets and televise their fights so we can make a ton of money from marketing. Enter the world of Phantom Crash Xbox fans; the only mech game that looks goofier than it sounds!

The Game- Phantom Crash is the first Xbox game from Japanese developer Genki, and if the introduction didn't tip you off, this is not your average mech game. Structured as a cross between Virtual-On and Armored Core you will play a character as male or female pilots in "Scoobee" mechs (yes, Scoobee Mechs) into this crazy game show called "Rumble".



Besides the games zany look there are two things that differentiates Phantom Crash from the competition. One is the INSANE level of customization you can perform...

THE GOOD:
Nice intro Video.

THE BAD:
everything I encountered for the first hour, before shutting it off.

SUMMARY:
Phantom crash would have been a mediocre game if they removed 80% of the text dialog. There is way too much dialog for gameplay, and it's silly garble. The use of chips for Bot abilities is nice, but the controls are ackward, and the cam angles are terrible. In fact even by customizing the controls the game was terrible. I paid $10.00 new, and traded it for $3.00 (i felt i was ripping them off). I cannot stress enough to rent this first. It's not worth the DVD its printed on. The game is too dependant on telling a story, and less devoted to entertaining the player. This game as I have said before is a "renter", and only if "Bargain dollar rental day". buyer beware.

THE GOOD:
the gameplay mechanics seem confuseing but you can customize your controls, you have an ulimited amount of setups, hidden mechs and hidden fmv sequences. whatever you do get this game, the inplay graphics are the best of any game to date includeing halo, its smoothe r and runs faster although you sometimes get lag, it can be overlooked.

THE BAD:
lag sometimes comes up but is very little when it does, the story is short but sweet, the character models have some work to be done on them, but the female characters are hot, but not scantily clthed.

SUMMARY:
look above, and get this game, but this reveiw is still to small, but its an awsome game that no xbox player should go without. just rent it if you are not sure, but you can get hooked, ive destroyed 23 xboxs by playing marathons and now im running my 24 with water cooling just to keep it alive.

THE GOOD:
tons of setups and matches, and enemies

THE BAD:
very little story

SUMMARY:
you can do many things in this game, i recomend it, and its fairly cheap, great and easy gameplay,easy to pick up, even for newbies. this has a lot of mech building depth, you devolop alot of skills, and i need to fill the rest so this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!

this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
this is a great game!
you get the idea.... this is a great game!

THE GOOD:
-Tons of ways to customize your own mech, making your own style of fighting along the way
-Accumulate NY (New Yen) by winning to get all new scoobees and modules
-Plenty of CHIP types to choose your iwn special type, and they are all upgradeable

THE BAD:
-Only three courses
-Not online, but would be great

SUMMARY:
WHile there are a whole ton of great qualities about this game, the fact that there are only three playable courses really puts a damper on the total amount of fun you can have playing. Also, the levels aren't really interactive. THe most you can do is blow up cars and debris and such. Doing that does earn you cash, though. It is also nice to create your own playing type with all of the weapons. Also, the overweight issue is realistic. A mech wouldn't be totally trashed just because it's overweight, it just can't move around much. Despite its shortcomings, this game is too good to miss. Especially if it...

THE GOOD:
- Very addictive gameplay, always a good thing!
- The graphics suit the environment the game is set in - the designers blurred the graphics slightly to make the game look more 'dreary'. Since the battles take place in the abandoned ruins of Old Tokyo, this works well.
- You can make and modify your own mechs - everything from the legs and body to the guns to the paintjob.

THE BAD:
- The character graphics are very bad...
- The character interactions are long and boring.

SUMMARY:
Overall, the game is great! Although the character graphics and interactions make the pause between battles quite boring, the battles themselves more than make up for it. I enjoy coming back from a frantic fight to modify my mechs with the money that I've earnt...

THE GOOD:
Everything! The "Scoobee" graphics are perfect. The weapons are devastating, and the action is WAY more intense and fast-moving than MechAssault. Its much like Armored Core 2 for the PS2.

THE BAD:
The character models are terrible! This is worsened by the fact that conversations are long and unneccessary, and the characters talk about their crappy lives too much. Also there is no way to change the controls.

SUMMARY:
Overall the game is really good. The bad character models are canceled out by the great gameplay and a really addictive Vs Mode. Unfortunatly there is no way to turn the auto-aim feature off, and the controls will take awhile to get used to.