Post by MilesMcSmiles on Apr 22, 2024 21:56:47 GMT -5
Howdy all, I said I would make this thread to infodump about SB like about a month ago after I played it at PAX so here it finally is! Making this might also make me want post more about my PAX experience in that thread, hopefully I get around to that soon as well.
Steel Battalion is a game that came out for the original Xbox and it's a very in-depth and realistic simulator game for mechs and it rocks. It also has this insane custom controller I'll get into later that's literally like a twin stick flightstick. All the people I talked to at PAX said that it's the best and really the only mech simulator out there with this much realism and depth put into it, and it came out for the original Xbox! Both the game and the controller are from 2002, it's kind of crazy that this game is really the only one of it's kind. Despite it's age and obscurity there is a small but very active community for it today! There's a discord that holds regular events for people to play online together, and there was a room at PAX for it.
I discovered it on Saturday and I became like, addicted to it for the rest of the con lol. I discovered it at like 7pm and I didn't leave until they closed at 11:30. I also spent a good amount of time playing it on Sunday, the final day of the con. They held a tournament for it each day, and I competed in both the Saturday and Sunday ones! I didn't get very far on Saturday, but I made it to finals on Sunday! The final round for Sunday was very unique, they said it was the most special one that they have ever done. Instead of a deathmatch, the format of the final round was a race. They put us in a type of mech that was built for speed and it's intended use is for scouting, but they had us all racing in it and it was so much fun. Like I said earlier the game is a simulator with a bunch of in depth mechanics, so you had to worry about stuff like not falling over if you took corners too fast, and there is a gear shift so you had to worry about what gear you were in and you have to look at your RPM dial to know when to switch gears, it was so much fun.
And speaking of the controller and game mechanics lets get into that!
This is a pic of the controller I took at PAX and as you can see its really something. Also not pictured are three pedals, the gas, the brake, and a boost/dodge pedal. It looks super complicated but the basic controls for moving/shooting weren't so hard to get the hang of, at least for me. How it worked at PAX is they had a 5 minute training speech for the controls, and then 10 mins of deathmatch gameplay. The most important thing they told us to be aware of was to please press the eject button when your mech gets destroyed! Because if you don't press it your pilot will die, and when you die your pilot profile gets completely wiped from the Xbox. It doesn't matter if your profile is like 20 years old and you have a bunch of achievements and stats and stuff, if you forget to eject once that is all gone. So they asked everyone please eject or else you wont be able to play for the rest of that match because your profile will have been deleted from the server lmao. There's also a whole startup sequence you have to go through and its dope. First you have to press "cockpit hatch open/close" then you press "ignition" then you flick on 5 toggle switches, and then there's a little QTE type thing you do and you press "start" at the right time. There are also some weapons that turn off your mech, and when that happens you have to go through all that again (minus closing the cockpit) mid battle. I remember it happened to me during the second tournament and I just had to go through it as quick as I could and pray that nobody was coming to blow me up. And like I said it has a gear shift, and if you turn to fast in to high of a gear you will fall over and you have to get back up. Also when you fall over your camera gets a little dirty and there's a "washing" button that cleans your view lol. And if you want to go backwards you have to shift into reverse like a car. I remember the first time I used it I went down a corridor between to buildings that turned out to be a dead end and I got myself into a semi-austin powers situation and I had to brake and shift into reverse a few times lol.
Needless to say I had tons of fun playing this, I'll definitely be visiting that room more often next PAX and I wanna compete in the tournaments on all 4 days.
Okay it's late and that was a lot so that's all I'll post for now, hopefully I end of posting more in the future. Hoped you like what you read!
Steel Battalion is a game that came out for the original Xbox and it's a very in-depth and realistic simulator game for mechs and it rocks. It also has this insane custom controller I'll get into later that's literally like a twin stick flightstick. All the people I talked to at PAX said that it's the best and really the only mech simulator out there with this much realism and depth put into it, and it came out for the original Xbox! Both the game and the controller are from 2002, it's kind of crazy that this game is really the only one of it's kind. Despite it's age and obscurity there is a small but very active community for it today! There's a discord that holds regular events for people to play online together, and there was a room at PAX for it.
I discovered it on Saturday and I became like, addicted to it for the rest of the con lol. I discovered it at like 7pm and I didn't leave until they closed at 11:30. I also spent a good amount of time playing it on Sunday, the final day of the con. They held a tournament for it each day, and I competed in both the Saturday and Sunday ones! I didn't get very far on Saturday, but I made it to finals on Sunday! The final round for Sunday was very unique, they said it was the most special one that they have ever done. Instead of a deathmatch, the format of the final round was a race. They put us in a type of mech that was built for speed and it's intended use is for scouting, but they had us all racing in it and it was so much fun. Like I said earlier the game is a simulator with a bunch of in depth mechanics, so you had to worry about stuff like not falling over if you took corners too fast, and there is a gear shift so you had to worry about what gear you were in and you have to look at your RPM dial to know when to switch gears, it was so much fun.
And speaking of the controller and game mechanics lets get into that!
This is a pic of the controller I took at PAX and as you can see its really something. Also not pictured are three pedals, the gas, the brake, and a boost/dodge pedal. It looks super complicated but the basic controls for moving/shooting weren't so hard to get the hang of, at least for me. How it worked at PAX is they had a 5 minute training speech for the controls, and then 10 mins of deathmatch gameplay. The most important thing they told us to be aware of was to please press the eject button when your mech gets destroyed! Because if you don't press it your pilot will die, and when you die your pilot profile gets completely wiped from the Xbox. It doesn't matter if your profile is like 20 years old and you have a bunch of achievements and stats and stuff, if you forget to eject once that is all gone. So they asked everyone please eject or else you wont be able to play for the rest of that match because your profile will have been deleted from the server lmao. There's also a whole startup sequence you have to go through and its dope. First you have to press "cockpit hatch open/close" then you press "ignition" then you flick on 5 toggle switches, and then there's a little QTE type thing you do and you press "start" at the right time. There are also some weapons that turn off your mech, and when that happens you have to go through all that again (minus closing the cockpit) mid battle. I remember it happened to me during the second tournament and I just had to go through it as quick as I could and pray that nobody was coming to blow me up. And like I said it has a gear shift, and if you turn to fast in to high of a gear you will fall over and you have to get back up. Also when you fall over your camera gets a little dirty and there's a "washing" button that cleans your view lol. And if you want to go backwards you have to shift into reverse like a car. I remember the first time I used it I went down a corridor between to buildings that turned out to be a dead end and I got myself into a semi-austin powers situation and I had to brake and shift into reverse a few times lol.
Needless to say I had tons of fun playing this, I'll definitely be visiting that room more often next PAX and I wanna compete in the tournaments on all 4 days.
Okay it's late and that was a lot so that's all I'll post for now, hopefully I end of posting more in the future. Hoped you like what you read!
HALLOWEEN FOREVER