Official MechAssault:Phantom War DS thread

**SpoDaddy** · 18 Feb 2006, 03:24 AM

It's official, Microsoft is using Majesco to publish another one of their franchises on the Nintendo DS. MechAssault: Phantom War is in development by the Age Of Empires DS team (apparently it has been for a while) and is scheduled to hit US shelves in early May. With two of their biggest franchises hitting the DS in a span of 3 months, it looks as though Microsoft is fully supporting the DS. I take two things from this:

1) Microsoft is planning on entering the handheld market in a few years (using the DS to get their feet wet, ala Dreamcast).

2) Microsoft sees the PSP as a way to severely tarnish the Playstation brand name and weaken Sony's revenues in it's only healthy department (videogames).

How far will Microsoft go? Will we see Halo DS? Right now all we can do is speculate, the bottom line is that AoE DS is awesome and this game looks really promising (I wish it was online though). Here's the story:

http://ds.ign.com/articles/689/689233p1.html

"MechAssault: Phantom War
Microsoft's game will hit the DS from Majesco. A first look at the giant robot experience.
by Craig Harris

February 16, 2006 - It's only been a few days since one of Microsoft's products hit the Nintendo DS. Age of Empires: Age of Kings, despite going turn-based, has been successfully moved onto the dual-screen platform. And the team responsible for that great portable product is ready to repeat that with another Microsoft game, MechAssault. The Nintendo DS system's getting an original edition to the series later this year with MechAssault: Phantom War.

Like Age of Empires DS, MechAssault DS is being handled by Backbone Entertainment/Digital Eclipse, with Majesco taking care of the publishing duties. In this dual-screen action game, players pilot giant, domineering robot warriors in a futuristic storyline. As the story goes, after 60 years of peace and prosperity the Republic of the Sphere is living in a dark age of ex-communication. Nearly all Hyperpulse Generators (HPGs), the pinnacles of interstellar communication, have been struck by a virus leaving worlds cut off from all information. With involuntary blinders on, no one in the Republic knows when, or where, the next attack could be coming from. Their only hope is to turn the HPG into an instrument of war.

MechAssault takes place in the MechWarrior universe, where giant BattleMechs duke it out for supremacy. The Nintendo DS game will feature more than 24 different mechs to pilot, and players will have the opportunity to hop out of their Mech and hack into an enemy's using the Nintendo DS touch screen. There will be nine huge missions in the single player campaign, as well as six different missions for multiplayer combatants. Though the DS game won't be online, four players can still link up locally and battle it out using their best BattleMech for the job.

The game's scheduled for release in early May. We'll have more, including video and additional details as MechAssault DS continues into development. In the meantime, hit the link below to check out the first screens of it in action."

**sleeve** · 18 Feb 2006, 04:26 AM

Yep, looks like Mechassault 2 on an N64.

**MechDeus** · 18 Feb 2006, 05:39 AM

SpoDaddy: My desktop is 1152x764 and your sig is almost my entire browser window. That's a problem.

As for the game, eh. It doesn't look like anything I'll be picking up, even after a few price drops.

**sethsez** · 18 Feb 2006, 09:20 AM

Your sig is awful.

And I'm interested, assuming early screens aren't what the final product will look like (which has been the case pretty frequently on the DS).