Recent reviews by Mallurn

This game is visually very limited, but the core game-play loop is phenomenal. Being played in a top down view, it does elicit a feeling of playing D&D. you play as a solo adventurer in a procedurally generated universe. it is so much fun to lose, the rogue like system allows for you to retain as much or as little of your previous lives. The mechanics for combat and building are intertwined forcing you to specialise your character while amassing your wealth to create your own settlement and family. the future game-play loops have so much promise with civilisation building.

Gundam Battle Operations 2 is for me, an enjoyable game that shows how giving the bare minimum in the development undermines the joy of an IP that I personally love. As such, recommending while also indicating all of the issues with the game would be in poor taste.

The background is that you are a mercenary; your job is to get in the mobile suit you have, go kill other mercenaries and then gamble to get new mobile suits to repeat the process. These include mobile suits ranging from the One Year War in UC 0079 up until the UC 105. The breath and diversity of mobile suits is truthfully incredible. Because of your mercenary lifestyle you are mobile suit agnostic, access to ALL mobile suits no matter the faction, be it Zeon, EFF, AEUG, AXIS, Sleeves and… ZAFT? The recent January patch added the ZGMF-10A Freedom Gundam from Gundam Seed, an Alternative universe Gundam Franchise, setting the stage for a massively growing potential roster of mobile suits. As such thematically, this game works within the game loop that they have created to a moderate extent.

The good

-The incredible and memorable portion is hearing the mono-eye of a Zaku II turning on, and getting into an RX-79[G] while it is powering up. It is so incredibly immersive for someone like me who loves Gundam as a franchise.
-The Main Game lobby where you hang out in between battles is itself an incredibly immersive area. You can walk around the ‘base’.
-The mercenary gameplay loop, it lends itself well to a Gamble system as it has currently. For your gambling is what you as a mercenary focuses on. There is no larger goal than simply to gamble, be it through the free system which allows for someone to play just enough on the daily to get tokens to gamble immediately, or to play for 10 days and get enough tokens to do larger pulls with bonuses. Coupled with the paid aspect of tokens, the game is fair for a Gambling system without incentivizing whale levels of spending.
The bad
-The lack of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and typing in-game (battle) means there is ZERO communication between your teammates.
-There is a sum total of 22 maps. You will not see most of them. The map variety is Small both in numbers but also in their size in general. For the game is built around small groups 5v5 in the tiniest arenas possible. This means that fights are quick, dirty and utterly devoid of context in the larger battle. While this allows for a 15 minute fight to have many kills, but no winner outside of a fancy number at the top of your screen.
-The maps themselves do not have the ability to be destroyed; little pieces of I-beam from a building can stop high end particle beam cannons from shooting the mobile suit that is using it for cover.
-In most of the maps, though accurate to the UC franchise theme, do not really allow for players who have no knowledge of the maps to enjoy the context of those maps, and instead they just focus on the meagre fighting.
-The fundamental rule of this game is that Gravity exists in both space and ground battles. This means that the movement scheme is simplified and it bleeds over into fighting. You will focus on everything around you up and down to about 45 degrees. Anything above that it is unable to be shot or attacked due to the game’s limitations.
-The range of the fighting in incredibly short and melee is a joke where unless you stunlock the enemy mobile suit. They will counter your melee attack and you will kiss the floor. The hard counter leaves things like parries and blocks at the wayside. There are no tools to reduce the abilities of beam weapons or INCOM systems. Ranged weapons have infinite reloads. Your mobile suit has no need to manage or even reload properly or to simply load your weapon.
-Shield Blocks are not properly set up as base standard. Instead it only goes to specific special mobile suits. It makes blocking with shields only possible when you strafe right since your mobile suit positions its shield to protect your chassis on your left side.
This combat system feels stripped down, primitive and leads to a feeling that this systems was made with the bare minimum of effort instead of making it interesting. It takes away from the fight and makes the game more about fighting against the system instead of being an extension of you as a player fighting with your mobile suit.
The matchmaking system needs to be fixed. It should not take me more than 5 minutes to get a match.
The Graphics are hodgepodge and in several instances I have sortied into battles and mobile suits are invisible. There is no rhyme or reason to this stupidity.

What to make it better

- First is to add VoIP into the game. It would allow for people to meet new players and to forester a community. Communication between players helps organize groups, it allows for people to actually have plans for how they will play a battle in this game.
- Add factions. For now EFF and Zeon is a fine starting point that can add all the other factions of UC and even CE. It would foster camaraderie that the mercenary world that the PMU currently does not foster.
-The system needs to be rebuilt so that there is full 6 degrees of freedom instead of the 4+2 system that we currently have
-Add in transportation. Make one teammate be in charge of a moving supporting ship, vehicle, or have a mobile suit that carries the supplies for the team, all the while adding various levels of fire support and other support abilities to the group. These can include Musai, Pegasus, Salamis, Nazca, Archangel, Mad Angler, Vosgulov, VolPHAU, Medea, etc…
Add individual mobile suit support craft such as Guuru, Dodais, and Base Jabbers for non-flight capable mobile suits.
-Make the Maps MUCH larger and make them procedural to how the group wants to approach the fight, if they are coming from space, a really high ceiling. If they are coming from the sea, then water would be added.
-The Maps need to be destructible to create a less static map that leads to a dull and uninspired fight.
-Make infantry battles far more engaging. Not all areas have to be accessible to mobile suits. For example control points do not have to be out in the open, but instead could be underground.
-Make weapons have limited ammo and energy; mobile suits need to have incentive to fall back and reload. This can also be done by mobile suits having parts be damaged and or broken, where they need to fall back due to lack of ammo or the broken parts of the mobile suit. this would incentivize them to withdraw and get repairs for their suit.
-while getting rid of the Raid, general, support triad, consolidate the mobile suits that you can get to the base units, and then add in the add-on armors and equipment as optional items instead of having them made as separate units.
-Add goals to missions. If you are taking over a base, then eliminating all the enemy mobile suits and infantry would be a reasonable goal. But if you are the defenders, maybe the goal is to hold out long enough for a Kusanagi or Kergren to launch. In a Gundam jacking scenario, the goal might be to protect the mobile suit carrier carrying the prototype mobile suit(s) to the carrier versus getting a person inside the carrier to steal the mobile suit and then get it back to the Nazca Class ship waiting outside the Colony. Capturing land, protecting a VIP, stopping the nuclear tipped weapons from being deployed might make for more interesting battles for people playing this game.
-add AI units into the game as either mass unit mobile suits, tanks, turrets, missile launchers and infantry to make it possible for both PvP and PvE in the same game, allowing for more creativity in combat.
- Rebuilt whatever the matchmaking system is into something that actually works instead of the mess that is currently in game.
In Essence, the context of Gundam needs to be added to GBO2 for it to be a fun gundam game, instead of just a poor game with a veneer of gundam overtop to cover the flaws.

Executive assault 2 is an evolution of its predecessor. instead of being completely on land. Executive assault 2 is a space based version of the game with Spaceships and fleet battles being the focus while still retaining the majority of the ground based combat from the previous title.

The main Focus of the game is Real-time strategy while allowing for individuals to join as automatons who function as individual units in game. This means that it is best played with friends, either going into a PvP between friends, or fighting coop against the AI.

It is a fun 1-2 hour game to go play with your friends as either a RTS or an FPS player.

Game is a disappointment, The grind makes playing boring to say the least. Map variety is limited which leads to dullness.

A graphical evolution of Wargame: Red Dragon while adding in the ease of use from Steel Division.

The part that makes it different from both of the aforementioned titles is that the music in the game is INCREDIBLE. The synth-wave vibe they are going for is so much fun to listen to while the turbine engine of a t-80 rolls on by. It is such a gem even in this early stage of development.

Should you get it? if you want a beautiful game with incredible music it is for you. If you want a lot of factions, then either wait a few years or play Wargame.