Posts tagged Steel Battalion Heavy Armor
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor available now!
Jun 22nd
Taking full advantage of Kinect for Xbox 360, Steel Battalion Heavy Armor is an Xbox 360 exclusive first person action game set to deliver a uniquely immersive experience and an evolution in warfare gaming.
Set in 2082, Steel Battalion Heavy Armor depicts a world devoid of semiconductors, where war is waged with rudimentary weapons as new superpowers struggle for dominance. In a twist of fate, the U.S. army has been forced to begin major landing operations on what was once its own soil. In this low-tech era, there is one weapon class that will determine the course of the war – the Vertical Tank (VT). Playing as pilot Lt. Powers players control one such VT as he embarks on a mission that will see the action shift from North America to battlefields and war-torn streets across the globe.Steel Battalion Heavy Armor delivers an unprecedented level of control and interaction. VT movement,aiming and firing of the main guns are undertaken using the Xbox 360 controller.
Legendary Filmmaker Releases Steel Battalion Short Film
Jun 18th
Here it is! The Steel Battalion Heavy Armor short film by Mamoru Oshii, Japanese filmmaker and legendary director of Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, and Jin-Roh. After the jump you can watch him in a very special retrospective video where he talks about his motivations with the short.
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor is out on 22 June for Xbox 360. More >
More Steel Battalion previews!
May 31st
With the Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor demo now on Xbox Live to download and enjoy with your Kinect, the game has been getting the preview treatment from lots of different websites. And it seems to be making quite the impression! Click the links to read the full previews.
wanderson75.net – “…instead of looking constantly from a third-person view (like the majority of mech games), you’ll actually feel like you’ve been placed in a real pilot seat. Should this feeling carry over to the main game, Capcom will have a winner on their hands for sure.”
diehardgamefan – “The graphics are also outstanding, as the two different battlegrounds you stomp across look excellent and are full of plenty of interesting details, and the other vehicles and mechs you’ll face look great in general and in motion.”
fronttowardsgamer – “They do a great job of giving the VT weight, as you move across the map you really feel how big and bulky this tanks are… I have really high hopes for this game. In fact, I will be playing this demo til the release of the retail game…”
Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is out for Xbox 360 on 22nd June!
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor interview!
May 30th
The Metro has an excellent interview with Steel Battalion Heavy Armor producer Kenji Kataoka, it’s pretty big and answers a heck of a lot of questions you might have about the game. Don’t forget that the demo is out now on Xbox Live right now! Here’s a snippet from the interview and you can read the whole article on the Metro.
GC: But it’s also the first game that combines the use of the joypad and Kinect. Was there ever any thought originally that it would use only Kinect?
KK: Never at any point in the course of designing or development did we think of doing this game just with Kinect. The reason being simple: for it to be a hardcore game it has to be playable over a long time and if you have to stand up and move as the vehicle moves you’ll be exhausted after 10 minutes. That’s unrealistic, but we also respect the fact that controllers have been around for 30 or 40 years and there’s a reason for that. There are some things controllers do better.
For example, if you wanted to pull down a periscope, if you did that with a controller you have to select and press a button, which isn’t very immersive. And for that sort of movement gesture is much better. So we went through all kinds of movements and controls and decided which should be done with controller and what should be done with gestures. And so I think the ratio is probably about 50/50.
Japanese Animation Legend Directs Steel Battalion Short Film
May 25th
Here is the teaser trailer for Gosha, the upcoming live action short film inspired by Steel Battalion Heavy Armor and directed by Japanese animation legend Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Jin-Roh). The film was filmed by Oshii and his crew in Poland, and will be released closer to the game’s launch in late June. Looking pretty damn good so far!
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor demo available now
May 24th
Today sees the playable demo for Steel Battalion Heavy Armor hit Xbox Live. Experience the true feeling of war by taking control of a Vertical Tank and getting introduced to your fellow crew members in the first two levels of the game. A Kinect for Xbox 360 exclusive, Steel Battalion Heavy Armor is set for release on June 19th in North America and on June 22nd across Europe.
Check out the training video above on how to pilot a Vertical Tank using the unique combination of Microsoft’s Kinect and standard controller and experience war like never before without losing the precision demanded of a first person shooter.
Set in 2082, Steel Battalion Heavy Armor depicts a world devoid of computers, where war is waged with rudimentary weapons as new superpowers struggle for dominance. In this low-tech era there is one weapon class that will determine the course of the war – the Vertical Tank. Players take on the role of VT pilot Sgt. Powers as the battle to regain the United States from Chinese occupation begins. Also worth checking out is this preview from Hooked Gamers to see why Steel Battalion Heavy Armor will be the greatest use of Kinect ever.
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor from Destructoid
May 14th
Destructoid has a really interesting preview of Steel Battalion Heavy Armor to read. It goes into great detail about how the game controls with innovative simultaneous use of the controller and Kinect. Here’s a snippet from the preview: “If you own a Kinect (and I know some of you do), then there’s little doubt it’s experienced a bit of neglect. Or perhaps you love it do death and play it regularly, I don’t know. If you are one of those people who slightly regrets their purchase, however — I know plenty of you exist — then you’re definitely going to want to keep an eye on Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor.”
And head over to Destructoid to read the rest!
Steel Battalion Heavy Armor interview with Tatsuya Kitabayashi
May 3rd
GamesTM caught up with Steel Battalion Heavy Armor producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi to talk about how you go from having a controller with 108 buttons to making the player themselves the controller with Kinect. As well as discussing why other developers using Kinect always leave you standing:
GamesTM: I can’t think of many other Kinect games, if any, that you can play sitting down and with a controller. Why do you think so few other publishers have tried that?
Kitabayashi: I think people might have been cursed with preconceptions. So they’ve got it in mind that you play Kinect standing up, when the truth is that you don’t actually have to. Maybe they went through the process of making a hardcore game where you have to stand up and found that it doesn’t work. But in fact you can play sitting down and with a controller so I just think they didn’t have that mindset in the first place.
Read the rest of the interview here.
In case you missed it
Apr 30th
Watch live video from Capcom-Unity on TwitchTV
Last week Capcom Unity held a live stream of Steel Battalion Heavy Armor, featuring a guest appearance from Producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi! Definitely worth a watch if you want to see how Steel Battalion controls on the Kinect and it’ll give you a good long look at the games itself.