Shogo: Mobile Armor Division

Anime in the USA

Remember Face/Off, where we had John Travolta acting as Nicholas Cage acting as John Travolta? Not many people could've pulled it off, and the overall effect was marvelous and even humorous, if a little creepy at times. The same could be said of Monolith's Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, a first-person paean to the wonky worlds of Japanese anime; it's a slightly Americanized spin on a Japanese genre.

Monolith nailed it-they even got the quintessential Bad Japanese Pop Band to do the shrill, cheesy music for the opening movie. The idea was to let every Mech-head, otaku, and science-fantasy fan in the creative ranks of Monolith go nuts. They filled a class-A shooter with Macross/Evengelion transformations, neon cityscapes from Blade Runner, and the kinds of story elements that only the Japanese have hitherto had the nerve to employ-the fact, for example, that you've lost your girlfriend in the war, and now you're dating her sister, and your commanding officer is their father, and that this all somehow becomes a plot point. As the protagonist notes in the game's prelude, "It's kind of complicated."

The lengthy plot of Shogo's single-player game alternates between two broad styles of mission: those where you're on foot, and those in which you command several-stories-tall mecha-er, excuse me, "MCAs." The play styles have functional similarities. Both, for example, have a nifty zoom-in sniper feature that trades rate of fire for accuracy.

Within these two general mission types is everything from open-wasteland, powered-armor brawls to inner-city, try-not-to-step-on-the-explosive-parked-cars MCA clashes to desperate, squad-level base infiltrations. One mission set in a martial-law slum has you rooting through a rotting warehouse with a squeak-toy (I'm not kidding), looking for (I'm still not kidding) some old lady's cat.

This game's packed with those elusive, golden Nice Touches that make good games great: In open-terrain combat zones, clouds overhead cast shadows that creep and warp across the ground, and a well-timed look into the sky will reveal troop-transport ships descending into view through the haze; key points in various missions trigger bits of personality from your character (a hotel manager's macho "Hey, don't make me call security!" is immediately countered with your annoyed "Hey, don't make me shoot you!"); and the urban environments, while a tad angular, have an awe-inspiring sense of size and are dotted with all manner of signs, in-gags, and visual references.

Not to imply that Shogo's realistic, because it's not. Like the best anime, it's joyfully ludicrous. Your lumbering, four-story, heavy MCA can, on the run, transform into a nimble hovercraft before you can say "Beta Capsule." There's a formal anime rule that Bigger is Better, and laws pertaining to mass and inertia have been cheerily chucked out the window. The same sort of enemy MCA that just did a sprightly little soft-shoe between two buildings will later tote a gun the length of six Mac trucks end to end, with no apparent weight-distribution difficulties.

Of course, your MCA has an appropriately huge sword (in case that TOW rocket-launcher you've been schlepping doesn't do the trick). And for some bizarre reason, scoring a "critical hit" on enemies instantly increases your capacity to take damage. Dramatic as hell, but ludicrous. Shogo should bring a smile to any anime fan's face, but even the Japanimationally challenged will find a solid, slick shooter with tons of replayability.

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