Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor was developed by From Software and published by Capcom. It was released on June 19, 2012 and retails for $59.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.
When Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor was announced for Kinect, a melody of excitement sung through the air, dancing on the hopes of many that Microsoft’s new toy would get its first heavy-hitting core game. After a teaser trailer hit the web, those enchanting hopes soared high as we received our first glimpse of something that felt truly amazing. After all, who wouldn’t want to pilot a mech tank, known as a VT (or Veet), through a seemingly post-apocalyptic cityscape peppered with a flair of beloved World War II themes? Rendered salivating children by such a promising experience, we let Capcom bamboozle us with something painfully haunting, a reminder of frustration that now collects dust behind the TV stand.
Thrown into the shoes of a mute re-enlisted tank commander, Heavy Armor asks players to coordinate between the Xbox 360 controller and Kinect. Using full-motion functions for button pressing and lever pulling around the tank is supposed to free gamers from the clunky console controller, which ran in the ballpark of $200, which the original Steel Battalion demanded. The Xbox 360 controller, on the other hand, is tasked with the duty of moving and firing the vertical tank. Heavy Armor is one of the first games to attempt to combine and simultaneously use both Kinect and a standard Xbox 360 controller, so new ground is being tread upon here.
