I love mech video games. I have since I played Armored Core for the first time at a friend of a friend’s house back in high school. Sometimes I try to pinpoint what exactly it is about mech games that draws me to them, but the truth is I don’t think it’s one thing. Maybe at the end of this cycle I can choose one thing that draws me the most.
So what makes a mech game a mech game?
Of course on a baseline level it would include… mechs. Robots of some sort, typically controlled by humans who are inside the robot as it functions. But wait, isn’t a robot supposed to be autonomous?..
robot /rō′bŏt″, -bət/
noun
- A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.
- A machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control.
- A person who works mechanically without original thought, especially one who responds automatically to the commands of others.
Ok, no we’re good. I think mechs can easily slot into definition 1 and 2.
Does a mech game have to be about mechs though?
This is a question that has come up in conversations I’ve had about mech games (which not nearly as often as I’d liked). And I think on some level a mech genre game might not need to include mechs, but then we quickly get into the minutia of grouping certain game mechanics into genres and it just gets messy ridiculous quickly. (Generally I dislike broad categorization, but while I have been convinced things like genres tend to help more than they hinder, obtusely assigning game mechanics into genres feels like an exercise in restricting creativity, but that’s just my opinion.)
So yeah, I’m going to say 90% of the time a mech game should include mechs.
Expectation #2, the mechs should be largely customizable. To me, this is the crux of a mech game. It begins to define the genre in a more clear way than just the presence of mechs and in my opinion is actually more important than the mechs. It’s also the expectation that I use to show the difference of a mech game and a game that has mechs. For instance, let’s take a look at the game Titanfall…
Look at that beautiful mech boi! From the image, Titanfall should be everything I want. But, it barely scratches the itch of a mech game for me.
While Titanfall has some amazing mech design, and they certainly serve the purpose of a mech: a science fictitious evolution enhancing a human task, a power fantasy fulfilled, etcetera – they are actually not customizable at all. You can choose between a handful of mechs, each with it’s own specialization or purpose, but you cannot swap any of the parts from one to another. They tend to serve a role similar to a vehicle in Battlefield more than what I think a mech game should offer. So yeah, Titanfall is a game with mechs, but I would say it is not a mech game.
Cycle complete, see you tomorrow.