E3 06: Gundam: Mobile Suit Hands-On

LOS ANGELES--One of the playable PlayStation 3 games on the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo show floor is Gundam: Mobile suit, a third-person giant robot sim from Namco Bandai. Featuring the unmistakable Gundam mobile suit designs, the demo seems intended to showcase the PS3's graphical muscle and give a sense of the type of mechanics the game will eventually bring to bear.

The brief timed demo is a no-nonsense mission to hunt down a half-dozen Zaku mobile suits, those green cyclopic enemies of Gundam. We immediately noticed that the controls are suggestive of Gundam's enormous size--it's fairly difficult to start moving around and turn from side to side, since the giant mobile suit is so massive. Gundam is armed with a high-powered automatic rifle, an energy sword, and a defensive shield. The suit also has a jetpack for quick maneuvering. (We tried jumping on a Zaku's head, but either it didn't work or we missed.) Enemies, meanwhile, seemed content to walk slowly around while firing away, though one of them used a jetpack. The game is only 20 percent complete at this time, making the relative lack of highly refined gameplay forgivable.

Apart from the purposely clunky feel of the controls, it seems as if Gundam: Mobile Suit will resemble a standard behind-the-back shooter. A mission-based campaign structure introduces open-ended environments, such as the desert setting we got to shoot around in. An onscreen minimap indicates nearby enemies, who can be shot apart piece by piece. Each time we managed to shoot down a Zaku, the game cut away to a slow-motion dramatic collapse of the defeated foe while a kill count flashed onto the screen.

Gundam: Mobile Suit is clearly still early in its development, despite the game-over screen's assurances that the game is "coming soon." The visuals do already look good, though, what with the realistically steely textures on the giant robots, and plenty of dust and debris on the battlefield, plus realistic physics and explosions. Of further note, the instruction card for how to play the game features what's probably the greatest typographical error on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo: The button for targeting the enemy is labeled "Rock On." Stay tuned to GameSpot for the latest on Gundam: Mobile Suit.