Gundam: Side Story 0079
- May 03, 2000 00:00 AM PST
Before Macross there was Gundam, a giant robot anime in which mankind must fight for the fate of the Earth. In Gundam: Side Story 0079, Bandai has combined awesome anime-style action with cinematic presentation, but a clunky control scheme threatens the balance.
- GamePro Score
- User Score
- Write your review!
Colony Wars
In Gundam: Side Story 0079, the forces of Earth must fight against an invasion by a rebellious union of space colonies known as Zeon, which has just blown up the future city of Sydney, Australia. You and your small band of Mobile Suit pilots must rise to the challenge and help mankind fight off the Zeon attack. What follows is some of the most intense and involving giant robot action you've seen on your Dreamcast yet.
Gundam manages to pack fast action with tight squad-based strategy, as you command your small team of pilots through the game's nine difficult missions. Keeping your teammates busy is an integral part of surviving the richly presented Gundam world. Having trouble with a particular enemy? Command your wingmen to circle around and take the bad guy from behind. Want to play hero? Have them do the grunt work while you take on the enemy Mobile suits mano a mano. Gundam is a bit short on different levels, but its level of strategy and challenge should keep even veteran action gamers busy for some time.
Australian For Kick-Ass
The battle for Australia never looked so good. Side Story 0079 looks incredible across the board, with amazing cinemas and crisp, sharp in-game visuals. Mobile Suit battles pulse with action as machines and their missiles fly about and buildings crumble around them. The only true weakness in Gundam's look is a mundane fog that rolls in and conceals any draw-in. The fog also hides potential targets, and it generally adds a drab cloak to an otherwise intense visual feast.
Bandai went a long way to make sure that Gundam would sound great, and it shows. Professional voice acting mixes well with a movie-quality orchestral score to give Gundam an audio punch unmatched by any other giant robot title. Playing Side Story is almost like being in the Gundam anime, and the sound brings that across perfectly.
The only chink in Gundam's armor is its clunky control scheme. Unless you lock on to a target, your D-pad controls walking and turning, while the analog stick controls your aim and your upper body. There's no auto-center function, so you must manually center your view every time you want to walk straight ahead. Once you lock onto a target, though, you may fly, charge, strafe or run and keep that target centered at all times. The targeting feature rescues the game from control-scheme hell, and it makes robot battles that much faster and more fun.
A Gundam Good Game
Gundam: Side Story 0079 is an awesome robot combat game that brings all the flavor of the Gundam anime series to the Dreamcast. It's a bit short, and quite tough, but the action and presentation will keep action and anime fans coming back for more.
