Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Silent Line: Armored Core

Written by Chris Reiter on February 17, 2003

First Impressions: Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

A little history lesson for the uninitiated: Armored Core is a most surprising perennial franchise that has endured since the early days on Sony's PlayStation. How it's possible when there have only been three Armored Core games in the series yet you might ask is relatively simple. Rather than directly replicating sequels, its developer, From Software, prides Armored Core on its ability to render one extension after the next. And so, the franchise lives on through many upgrades, many additions of parts, and many different ways of playing a whole new experience each and every year.

With the destruction of a super power known as "The Controller," Armored Core 3 came to a close. Once the ultimate force that kept humanity on Earth from retaining peace, humans thrived on the termination of one another for their own money, power, and greedy desire to overpower everyone else, with the help of you and your mercenary robot tactics of course. But now with the erasing of The Controller, people are once again coming to realize that they don't need to survive solely through corruptive means. That is until it's discovered that a nameless human colony has settled around a crater of massive proportions. Eventually humanity began to furnish itself to the point of where business conflicts lead to topple each other, and that state of mind for the lust of greed have made a recovery. Raven: it's time once again to make a killing.

More parts. More missions. More "bigger than life" robots to jump in and take out the competition with are making a come back in the Armored Core expansion. As the series branches into its further stages, it needs new ideas and experiences those gamers never felt or seen before. Some of Silent Line's pristine touches are based on the ability to now pick apart yours or an enemy's Raven (the robot you'll command) through intense mechanical warfare. Different elements of a Raven's body, namely its weaponry or extension modules, will detach from its structure as the battle ensues. This in effect will make the game even more similar to the authenticity of life.

Including over 200 parts this time around, Silent Line will have the biggest selection of parts you can process into the mech you want to create. One of the biggest aspects to the Armored Core lineup has been the tuning and toning of your very own machine of mass destruction. Whatever color you want it to be, whatever weapons you want it to use, whatever body type you want it to function with, it can be yours (as long as you measure it up without the excess of weight and energy limits). Introduced in Armored Core 3 were Exceed Orbit parts; floating upgrades to the Raven that remained floating outside the proximity of wherever your metallic design went. Players will see in Silent Line Exceed Orbit parts that can now use either solid or energy ammo types, instead of just the energy like was done before.

From the beginning, Armored Core stayed true its third person perspective in going against other robot manifestations. Not anymore. Armored Core 3: Silent Line will feature an optional first person view, letting you now envision the heat of battle through the Raven's cockpit (like Steel Battalion). To add to that, Silent Line's helping you adjust yourself into an experienced player you can become. Now with an A.I. Core, you can fight a computer that will actually study your techniques. From it, it will discover your weaknesses further teaching you to know what you're capable of and what you're not. Also, From Software is tweaking the game's enemy system. Robots working against you will form groups, following a team's leader. Whatever it commands, the team will do. Take out the head honcho though, and the rest of them will be useless.

Unfortunately, once again it looks as though Armored Core 3: Silent Line will be without its online connectivity. But, to make up for that, Silent Line will feature a host of four player match-ups via the PlayStation 2's i.Link hookup. Through the previously established multiplayer installments, players can go one on one with each other, two on two like in Armored Core 3, or now for a four "one for all" deathmatch tournament. In time, I hope that From Software will realize there's a whole other online world waiting out there in which to be tapped.

Defining the Armored Core series as a contender for a modern marvel of technological art isn't necessarily true, albeit that each year an Armored Core expansion pack or sequel is presented, that the game does continue to impress. Armored Core 3: Silent Line, being the next in kin of the Armored Core franchise, should be another example of how far video games have come in terms of robot anatomy. Like its predecessors, Silent Line will make true of forming better-looking robot models, battlegrounds, and of course the astonishing explosive special effects that stay true to the game's roots.