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One of the most prevalent traits of the BattleTech multimedia franchise, which has spanned board games, magazines, hundreds of tie-in novels, and yes, video games, is its attention to detail and options for customization. As a series that debuted in the famously modular medium of tabletop RPGs, it's practically expected that each of the spin-off video game titles—usually under the title of MechWarrior—will allow you a wealth of options when it comes to building your mech and strategizing to defeat your rivals.

This made them quite popular on mouse-and-keyboard-controlled personal computers in the 1990s, but the few titles that reached consoles failed to make the same impression. MechWarrior never quite caught on in the home market, but in 2002, Day 1 Studios and Microsoft were looking to change that with their Xbox exclusive title, MechAssault. Designed from the ground up specifically for console play and a marketing arm of the newly introduced Xbox Live online service, MechAssault was a moderate success on the console, but its goal of trying to placate both PC MechSim players and console action fans mostly leaves it falling short on both accounts.

Take, for example, the game's mech customization options. Well, you can't, because there aren't any. You'll be able to select only from a list of pre-built mechs, each with their own weapon and accessory set-ups. And while it makes sense that a console title pushing for a more general audience might not have quite the amount of options as its PC counterpart, a lot of the main series DNA is lost in MechAssault's fixed loadouts.

And due to a rather unbalanced weapon system in this game, a mech's ability to perform is highly correlated to if it can equip PPCs or not—as a result, most mechs feel like almost second-class options compared to the Mad Cat or the Uziel. Some of the game's missions limit your mech choices to one or two chassis, which adds some much-needed variety to the game's combat, but in missions where your selection isn't restricted, a mech's speed or abilities never feel like something you have to take into consideration.

But as much as it lacks some of the more traditional MechWarrior aspects, MechAssault certainly understands the appeal of controlling a big mech and blowing up everything in sight. In spite of its simplification, it still controls fairly well, and MechAssault makes for one of the best uses of the rumble feature of its generation; leveling buildings and taking down enemy mechs has an extremely satisfying degree of tactility.

Its campaign doesn't quite measure up to previous entries in terms of lore or depth, but it provides a fine enough framework for destroying enemies—especially in the first half. The problem is that there's just not enough gameplay depth here to justify the game's length, relatively short as it is—since the goal and gameplay don't vary much from mission to mission, it's easy to feel like MechAssault starts great and gets worse quickly, even if the levels in a vacuum are probably all very close in quality.

The game has a lot more to enjoy in multiplayer, which offers a healthy variety of split-screen options, as well as—as mentioned previously—being one of the poster children for Xbox's online gaming service. This has long since been obsolete, but local multiplayer remains MechAssault's most attractive feature. This is where the game gets the action game balance mostly correct; taking the time for each player to select their own mech loadout would probably end up taking longer than the match itself, and if there was ever a time for a more simplistic action game philosophy, this was it.

While those issues with mech balance are just as present here as they are in the single-player campaign, the combat and game modes are solid enough to make this a worthy adversary to some of the console's other split-screen fare, at least for the variety it brings to the typical action/shooter landscape. Or at least, that would have normally been the case—the Xbox was actually inundated with mech games in the first few years of its life—probably a result of its reputation as a more "hardcore" console with a focus on an Americanized audience.

But if you were looking for a game on the Xbox where you pilot a giant hunk of deadly metal, MechAssault is probably the one you'd gravitate towards—its production by Microsoft and its part of the BattleTech franchise went a long way to making it the most popular of its kind on the console. But it could hardly live up to the expectations of a fanbase who wished for a proper MechWarrior title on home consoles, nor does it provide enough variety in gameplay to compete with the Xbox's favorite sci-fi series.

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