As an elite member of the merc company of the Wolf's Dragoons, you've been contracted to land on the planet Helios in advance of a dragoon regimental strike force. The planet has been taken over by technological zealots known as "The Word Of Blake". Despite their rather crap name, this lot have taken control of all sorts of military bases and heavy artillery. It's your job to create as much havoc as possible before the main invasion force arrives to back you up.

Mechassault plays like most other first or third person adventures on the Xbox; Sadly there is no first person cockpit view though, so the view is fixed behind the mech and the left stick controls movement whilst the left stick points the mech's turret (head) in the right direction.

   

The Mechs you get to drive throughout the game vary in size, handling, armament and special capabilities (like jumpjets). At the start, the Icarus (your dropship) is damaged, and the only mechs available are lightweight ones with piddling weapons. These walking tanks are nimble however, and using jumpjets during combat (or just to traverse the scenery) is great fun. It's a shame that simply selecting your mech and getting into a mission is such a pain: - The selection screens are clunky and slow to load, and the cursor resets to the first mech on the list every time, which feels clunky and shoddy.

Mechassault literally assaults you eyes and ears with its amazing sound and explosions. Almost everything you come across, every house, building, installation, tunnel, bridge, vehicle, mech and even a lot of the topography can be destroyed. You can squish infantry undermechfoot, and boot smaller vehicles out of the way. Not knowing much about the game before we played it, we were staggered when strafing a towering skyscraper with our cannons and missiles not only punched realistic looking holes in the mirror-like exterior and set the interior ablaze, but after a lengthy bombardment the whole thing collapsed in a terrifyingly convincing way, dust cloud and all...

As far as scenery goes, Mechassault is a solid and pleasing rather than amazing game to look at, enemy soldiers, buildings and ground vehicles are all scaled correctly and look suitably small and detailed (you'll be amazed how much damaged a troop of rocket launcher-wielding soldiers can cause you).

Combat is pleasingly simple - Even aiming at a moving target while your mech is moving is accurate and easy, although most of the more advanced weapons lock-on if you keep the sight aimed at the target for a second or two, and then you can just fire and forget. Battles range from long-distance missile salvos to up close and personal shoot-outs with infantry, tanks, turret guns and of course, other mechs.

   

The AI of the other mechs is very believable, they stalk you in pairs and stagger when damaged. Whilst small buildings and smaller vehicles can pleasingly be taken out with one shot (depending on the weapon), some mechs and buildings seem to take a ridiculous amount of damage before succumbing - and to be honest, we found that it makes some missions become tiresome and repetitive.

Multiplayer modes include split screen, system link and of course Xbox Live. We haven't experienced the "Live" mode in to any great extent yet, so wouldn't want to pass judgement, but we found the one and two Xbox modes a little disappointing as battles tend to deteriorate into little more than strafing around each other until one or the other explodes - it suffers from the same problems as the main game, the mechs are simply too tough. Only six levels and 3 or 4 game modes mean that these modes are a little disappointing, although new levels etc. are promised for download via Xbox Live. This is game that would have been brilliant if a Halo style co-op mode had been included, what a shame it wasn't.

Mechassault is certainly an impressively destructive mech game that'll supply fans of the genre with a lot of mechfun, but it required softer armour or more destructive weapons to make it truly satisfying. Some longer ranged (the equivalent of a mech sniper rifle perhaps?) or some remote controlled missiles may have made the action more varied and pleasing.