Quality Control ? Xardion

Entry posted by Count_Zero April 21, 2010

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So, for this week’s Quality Control pick, I chose a mecha action game that had caught my eye earlier in my magazine recaps. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get past the second level, even with the use of save states. This isn’t due to difficulty, precisely, as much as it related to an obstacle in the level that I was supposed to destroy to progress, but the obstacle wouldn’t be destroyed, no matter how much I hit it. So, I really wasn’t able to progress enough in the game to give my opinion of it. Some other people were able to get past this, though, so I know it can be done.

That said, because of my lack of progress, I’m going to withhold judgment on this game for now. What I will do is give my concerns about what I’ve played so far. The game has 3 mechs you can play as. One is a Gundam style humanoid mech, one is more insectoid, and another is shaped like a panther. The panther has machine guns in the shoulders, and the insect has a short-ranged sonic wave attack it can do by whipping its antenna. Of those three types of unit you can pilot, only the humanoid one can attack in a different direction – it can attack straight up. However, the other ones have the advantages that they’re lower to the ground.

Frankly, though, it doesn’t really matter. There is no way to switch robots on the fly – you have to go to the sub-screen (accessed by pressing “Select) to switch mechs, so if an enemy comes on screen that you can’t hit with your current design, it takes quite some time to actually switch, which in turn slows down the pace of the game. The shots for most of the weapons are hard to see on the screen. Special attacks have a range that’s so close that they’re practically useless. Maybe if I had been able to make it further, I would have had more fun with it. However, I didn’t have fun with this game, so I’m not going to try to get further.

However, I was able to find a Let’s Play for Xardion which I’m going to embed so you can watch someone else play it, and they may be able to get past the section I got stuck on. Enjoy!