The Playstation family of systems has been home to numerous franchises. One of those franchises is the cult hit, Armored Core. To those unfamiliar with the series, Armored Core takes place in the future where disputes are settled in giant customizable mechs. The PSP version called Armored Core: Formula Front and there are significant improvements over the Japanese verion of the game. While the mission modes from the console Playstation games isn't included there is still more mech, which are called AC (Armored Cores) in the game, action than you can shake a stick at.

One of the biggest changes over the Japanese version is that it lets players actually control the AC units. In the Japanese version of the game, players would fine tune their AC and let the computer take over and watch battles from a spectators point of view. Agetec, wisely, knew that this type of gameplay would not fly with an American audience so they retooled the game and made it so that “manual” battles can take place. It was a good thing too because no matter how fun customization is on the AC units, battling is the meat and potatoes. Let's break down the game.

Graphics

Wow. That will be your first reaction to game. A sweet techy opening followed by slick menus will dazzle you. When you get into the battles, the AC units are impressively high detailed. When the plasma and lead start flying, you'll be convinced it is a PS2 game. It's not a PS2 game and that shows when framerates drop where the battle gets intense. The bland fighting environments are also unfortunate. Rocks and square buildings litter the landscape and become one in the same after awhile, there are different level “themes” but in all seriousness, they fail to razzle dazzle. Still, there is no shortage of eye candy and the framerate issue is minor.


Don't let the picture fool you, the graphics are crystal clear.

Sound

True to the robotic nature of the game, “bleeps” and “boops” are abundant. Thats the soundtrack in a nutshell. The Drum & Bass feel of the music gives you some sense of urgency but it grates on the nerves and, thankfully, there is a slider to turn down the music in the options. The sound FX don't fare much better. The sound of pistons and machine guns can only be entertaining for so long. While the quality of sound samples are high, they are just so frequent that it could be Bach and it would get annoying.

Control

There is no middle ground with the way Armored Core games, you learn the controls or hate it. The learning curve to masting the controls is a long but rewarding road. At first, the controls are chaos, the AC units don't turn around fast enough and locking on seems to be finicky. In time all will be clear and a few parts swapped out here and a new part there as well as learning the “sweet” spots for targeting will become second nature. Until that magical moment, there will be plenty of frustration at the controls and many deaths will occur. To vets of the series, you'll be right at home and the controls work surprisingly well on the PSP.