Metalion

.: By: Mike :: Device used: iPAQ H3650 :: January 24, 2001 :: Buy this game :.

Metalion is a game that's been highly anticipated for some time now; after all, gorgeous graphics and giant robots is a mixture that surely can't go wrong. ZIO Interactive have a history of producing some great-looking games - this is the company behind titles such as ZIOGolf and Pow Wow. If nothing else, when playing a ZIO game, you're virtually assured of a visual feast.

Their latest offering, Metalion, does nothing to change this stereotype. From the opening screens, to the menus, to the in-game sequences, the graphics are of superlative quality. It's hard to see how things can possibly get much better than this, especially allowing for the fact that this is a fast-paced, 3D action game. For a veritable fleet of screenshots, take a look at this review on Pocketnow.com, which gives you an indication of just what to expect. Now picture everything in motion, and you get an idea of just how beautiful a creation this game is.

The plot is, as seems to be required with this type of game, hardly to be taken seriously. Set in the distant future, the situation on Earth has become intolerable and, as a result, other planets in the Solar System have been terraformed to accommodate the suffering population. Unfortunately, the terraforming of Jupiter didn't quite go as smoothly as it might and, consequently, the unhappy Jovians decided to form their own evil empire. As if that wasn't ungrateful enough, they then decided to terrorize the rest of the Solar System into the bargain, culminating in an attack on Earth. Things are looking desperate...

Fortunately, scientists have come up with a huge, robotic weapon by the name of Metalion. Trouble is, it needs pilots to operate. As luck would have it, you've volunteered and have been chosen to fly. You are Earth's last chance...!

Just as the plot includes more than a few clichés, so does the gameplay. The basic premise, as you might have guessed, is basically to shoot anything that moves. There's very little subtlety here; Metalion is pretty much your average shoot-em-up.

One novel aspect of the game, at least as far as Pocket PC games go, is the viewpoint. Unlike your average top-down shooter like Turjah, Metalion is closer to a 3D first-person perspective game. You view your character from behind, with the enemies flying directly towards you. This can cause problems - when your Metalion is in, or close to, the middle of the screen, it's often hard to see approaching enemies. The same is true of power-ups, which approach you in the same way as enemies (in fact, power-ups appear as a result of the destruction of an enemy), although having said that, there seemed to be a fairly generous margin of error allowed for.

Another problem caused by the viewpoint is that it's hard to judge just where the enemies are actually flying towards and, more importantly, where their shots are going to end up. A good tactic is to be constantly on the move - in fact, that's the only means of success.

As promised, this review is designed to be from the perspective of an iPAQ owner; any Cassiopeia users might want to check out the Pocketnow.com review for an alternative viewpoint. The main differences between playing the game on the iPAQ and on a Cassiopeia are the graphics and control.

Graphics-wise, the iPAQ is inferior to the Casio devices, although depending on your colour perception, this isn't major. However, what is a major issue is the difference in the control methods. Because of the now-infamous button problem, you can't control your Metalion with the joypad. Or rather, you can, but it will mean that you'll have to take your hand off the joypad button every time you want to hit the fire key, which would be inconvenient to say the least.

Fortunately, ZIO included means a using the stylus. With this method, you simply drag the stylus on-screen to indicate where you want your Metalion to move to. It works well; there's no sluggishness in the response time, and it means you can keep one hand on the fire button at all times.

In terms of fire buttons, there a just the two. One fires your standard complement of fireballs/missiles (which can be improved upon by collecting power-ups), whilst the other produces a rather spectacular huge, screen-encompassing explosion, useful for those tricky situations you'll encounter on an alarming regular basis. Needless to say, you only have a limited number of the latter. Holding down the standard fire button turns on auto-fire.

This leads me on to my biggest complaint regarding the game. It just isn't varied enough; effectively, apart from scenery changes, it's the same all the way through. Whilst the beautiful graphics go some way to alleviating the sameness, I found the gameplay to be far too repetitive for my liking.

At the moment, I'm beginning to recall the early CD-ROM era. When CD-ROM's first arrived on the scene, games concentrated on the glitzy, glamorous multimedia side - wonderful graphics and CD-quality soundtracks - whilst skimping on the gameplay. For me, quite a few recent Pocket PC releases seem to be following this trend. Metalion is a wonderful demonstration of what the Pocket PC is capable of. I'm just not convinced that it's a wonderful game.

Having said all that, Metalion is a more than worthy purchase if you are a fan of action games, especially shoot-em-ups. Make no mistake about it; it's undoubtedly one of the finest action games you can get for the Pocket PC at the moment. Had it been released before the likes of Pocket Quake and the various new emulators, it would have been regarded as an instant classic. As it is, Metalion is a game whose stunning looks can only enhance the feeling of slight disappointment with regards to the less-than-stunning gameplay.

.: Game category: Action & Arcade Games :: Reviews Index :: Buy this game :.