Genre: Action
Publisher: Bandai America
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: June 28, 2005

Stop an American on the street and ask them about the word "Gundam." Chances are, if you stopped a teenager or young adult, they'll start to talk about Gundam Wing, the series that introduced the popular anime to the widespread western world. Now go to Japan (I'll wait here) and ask a Japanese person the same thing. There's about a 50-50 chance that they'll either talk about the newest show, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed (a series irrelevant to this review), or they'll bring up Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Zeta Gundam came out back in the '80s and is pretty well regarded overseas, enough so that several games have been made, which contain the characters and giant robots from the show. Most of them didn't come out over here in the US.

One of these games, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: AUEG Versus Titans, is a sequel to a game that did show up in the US, Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation Versus Zeon. MSZG: AVT never did get a release here but we're about to get the sequel to that, Gundam Versus Zeta Gundam.

The One Year War is over, the Federation has won, and a new threat is rising. The Federation military forces formed a group called the Titans to hunt down pockets of Zeon resistance, but the Titans are fairly out of control. They're using brute-force tactics and crude methods to hunt down "resistance," their actions cumulating in a poison gas attack on a dissenting colony. Accordingly, the Anti-Earth Union Group (AUEG) forms to combat them. What this means is, of course, all-out giant robot war.

If you're familiar with the previous game, the major thing about Gundam Versus Zeta that you should know is that they fixed it. Federation Versus Zeon had a number of issues that made it feel like less of a game and more of a chore, from the slow-to-react controls to the awkward motion of the mobile suits to the somewhat-lacking variety of the MS designs to choose from.

Nearly every flaw I can think of from Federation Versus Zeon is gone in this new game. Controls have been tightened, the mobile suit choices include every unit from both of the previous games plus several unlockable suits and pilots, and graphics are less muddy and more crisp and clean.

The addition of the new Awaken system allows you to select one of three powers at the start of a match, usable when your Awaken bar fills up to full: increased mobility, increased attack power, or the ability to get a slight boost in health - lose a limb and keep fighting when your armor hits zero. Of these, the last is my personal favorite. There's something about watching your mech get its arm torn off and get back up to keep fighting that just sends a thrill up the spine.

If you're not familiar at all with the previous game, you should know that it isn't Mechwarrior. Heck, it isn't even Armored Core. The series was developed by Capcom under the care of Bandai as an arcade game, and it's a really good arcade game. This means that it's not going to have the same sorts of depth as some other mecha games, but it will keep you coming back for more. (This is how I define "really good arcade game.")

The gameplay is rather straightforward: first, you pick your mecha and tweak your choice of weapon if variable weapons are available for that suit, then enter a large arena-style level either set on Earth (normal gravity and movement), the lunar surface (low gravity and somewhat faster movement) or space (free-floating 360-degree combat). After that, you find your opponents and blow them up. There's a nice variety of attacks, between dash attacks, melee weapons, and your long-range firing abilities, you could probably take out each enemy in a different way and still look stylishly cool.

In a way, you look a little too cool. Each mech has a variety of animations for melee and shooting attacks, from laying a beam rifle over its shoulder to pegging an enemy behind it to doing beam sword moves straight out of a wuxia movie. I don't remember these suits being agile enough to spinning-flip-kick an enemy in the anime, but y'know what? It looks pretty cool anyway. Chalk it up to the same kind of artistic license that gave us Lucas' new style of lightsaber dueling. In addition to your main melee and ranged weapons, you also have a secondary for each, which range from extremely useful (the Quebely's fin funnels) to being a useful novelty (the Hyaku-Shiki's beam sword parry) to just being kind of useless (anyone's head vulcans).

In addition to Arcade mode, you also get an updating of the Universal Century mode, which I suspect will be of the greatest help to people who want to know what's going on here. It takes the shape of a timeline, with key events marked off. You can play as each character, from major players to little bit parts, and help shape the timeline as it proceeds from the start of the war to the inevitable conclusion. Notice I say, "shape the timeline." You don't just watch events unfold, but you play through each mission, and in several cases, your actions have an effect on the outcome. What would have happened if certain characters had lived beyond their canonical deaths? What if one of the principal lynchpins of the AUEG were playing for the other side? These are fun questions to toy around with if you're a series buff, and even if you're not, you'll still have to play through those missions to score 100% in the Collection Mode.

Graphics are sharp and crisply detailed, as is easily seen in the Gallery mode, where you can take a look at the mobile suits outside of combat. Additionally, the game's audio sounds pretty much like the show. Beam sabers and rifles make their distinctive sounds, explosions detonate with big boomy noises, and the English-dubbed voice acting gets the point across with all of the voices from the dubbed version of the show itself. Interestingly, the theme songs from Zeta and First Gundam do not make an appearance here due to licensing issues, but the theme music from the sequel series, ZZ Gundam, does.

Gosh, could that mean it's an unlockable suit? Naaah….

Gundam Versus Zeta Gundam is the definitive arcade game to cover the events of the Zeta Gundam anime. It really doesn't get more simple than that. Each and every feature, mobile suit, weapon, and plot event that you'd expect shows up here, and the Gallery mode acts as a handy reference to the characters and events of the show. For fast-paced giant robot arcade action, this is simply the game to have, hands down.