Utakus (geeks) unite! Immerse yourself in the Cosmic Era and battle it out with enemy mechs. Don't know what this is all about? Fans of Japanese animated sci-fi empire Gundam will.
A new era has arrived for the Gundam mech - or giant robot - combat game franchise on the Sony PlayStation Portable. Namco Bandai's Gundam Seed: Federation vs ZAFT is based on TV series Gundam Seed and its sequel, Gundam Seed Destiny, which are set in an advanced age of space exploration known as the Cosmic Era. The two previous Gundam games for the PSP, Gundam Battle Tactics and Gundam Battle Royale, were set in the Universal Century era, a period in the near future when 80 per cent of people live in space colonies orbiting the Earth.
The original Gundam, for the uninitiated, was a TV series that started in 1979. The show turned the tables on Japanese good-versus-evil struggles by portraying anime's traditional superheroes - giant robots - as war machines. Its popularity spawned nine TV series, 10 movies and four original video series as well as countless novels and video-game adventures.
The protagonists of the game are the Earth Alliance, which consists of four federations or super-states, and the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty, a political, military and economic grouping of space colonies. Players get into the action as pilots of mechs used as armoured fighting vehicles. The job is simple: fight and beat enemy mechs.
The choice of game modes includes Free Battle, Campaign, Arcade and Multiplayer. Players will spend most of their time in Campaign mode, playing an auxiliary character from the TV show, the storyline of which is loosely followed by the game. Players start with a simple, slow mech; to upgrade to a better mech, they must earn skill points and trade up.
Each battle in this mode lasts about five minutes.
