funny how the one MOBA I've ever played only caught my eye because the devs conceived it as a modernized Herzog Zwei, except that's something they kinda got away from over time...
I played this back during its alpha phase, before Ubisoft brought it to consoles. Nothing tells me what pushed these guys into trying silly things like a VR port when they could have changed up the core modes, or anything to make this stand out from the crowd. Granted, someone more active in the beta and release periods would know more about whether or not this ended up and remained fun to play. This was also the only time I ever played a Chrome Store game, something the IGDB/Backloggd page won't tell you about its origins. That period of web-based free-to-play games seems to have waned, or just folded into the background as everyone and their mother does that stuff via Roblox instead. Funny how these trends come and go, only as prescient or permanent as the market and its manipulators demand.
Basically, imagine the aforementioned Tecno Soft RTS for Mega Drive, just with distinct factions and heroes + the usual mess of loadout management and heavy micro associated with this genre. Something tells me that I gravitated towards AirMech to fill the Battle.net gap in my soul, not having a Windows PC good enough for StarCraft II and having no idea (at the time) how to get classic Blizzard online games going. The ease of matching with relatively equally skilled players early on helped here, as I generally won and lost games in that desirable tug-of-war pattern you'd hope for. Quickly managing unit groups, keeping up pressure in lanes and the neat lil' alleys on each map, all while doing plenty of your own shooting and distraction using the hero unit-meets-cursor...this had a lot going for it.
There's a bit of a trend with very beloved and played free-to-play classics getting, erm, "classic" fan remasters years down the line, e.g. RuneScape or Team Fortress 2. But because AirMech was always closed source and never had that level of traction (some would argue distinction in this crowded genre), there's no way for me to revisit the pre-buyout era and place my memories on trial. What I've seen from AirMech Arena, meanwhile, seems more soulless and bereft of unique or meaningful mechanics and community. It's very easy to just play Herzog Zwei online via emulators or the SEGA Ages release on Switch, too, and that's held up both in legacy and playability. So the niche this web-MOBA/-RTS experiment tried to address is now flush with alternatives, let alone the origins they all point to.
Maybe this just sounds like excuses for me not to download the damn thing and give it a whirl. All I know is this led me to playing Caveman 2 Cosmos and saving up more for my 3DS library at the time. The beta didn't exactly develop that fast, and when it did, the general concept and game loop started favoring ride-or-die players over those like me who just wanted to occasionally hop in and have a blast. Balancing for both invested regulars and casual fans is a bitch and a half, yet I also can't imagine this would have been fun if imbalanced towards skilled folks constantly redefining the meta. The extensive mod-ability and "anything goes" attitude of classic Battle.net games definitely wasn't and isn't a thing for AirMech, nor do I suspect the developers ever wanted that. If it's a focused, overly polished RTS-MOBA you're looking for, I'm sure there's worse out there, but this no longer has that scrappy, Herzog-like simplicity that I crave.
The premise still has a lot of potential, even if Carbon Games seems content with where they've brought the series so far. I'd love to have a more story-focused, singleplayer-friendly variation, something which spiritual predecessors like NetStorm surely could have used. Until then, eh. This one's just here, sitting in the back of my community college neurons, taunting me with what could have been.
I played this back during its alpha phase, before Ubisoft brought it to consoles. Nothing tells me what pushed these guys into trying silly things like a VR port when they could have changed up the core modes, or anything to make this stand out from the crowd. Granted, someone more active in the beta and release periods would know more about whether or not this ended up and remained fun to play. This was also the only time I ever played a Chrome Store game, something the IGDB/Backloggd page won't tell you about its origins. That period of web-based free-to-play games seems to have waned, or just folded into the background as everyone and their mother does that stuff via Roblox instead. Funny how these trends come and go, only as prescient or permanent as the market and its manipulators demand.
Basically, imagine the aforementioned Tecno Soft RTS for Mega Drive, just with distinct factions and heroes + the usual mess of loadout management and heavy micro associated with this genre. Something tells me that I gravitated towards AirMech to fill the Battle.net gap in my soul, not having a Windows PC good enough for StarCraft II and having no idea (at the time) how to get classic Blizzard online games going. The ease of matching with relatively equally skilled players early on helped here, as I generally won and lost games in that desirable tug-of-war pattern you'd hope for. Quickly managing unit groups, keeping up pressure in lanes and the neat lil' alleys on each map, all while doing plenty of your own shooting and distraction using the hero unit-meets-cursor...this had a lot going for it.
There's a bit of a trend with very beloved and played free-to-play classics getting, erm, "classic" fan remasters years down the line, e.g. RuneScape or Team Fortress 2. But because AirMech was always closed source and never had that level of traction (some would argue distinction in this crowded genre), there's no way for me to revisit the pre-buyout era and place my memories on trial. What I've seen from AirMech Arena, meanwhile, seems more soulless and bereft of unique or meaningful mechanics and community. It's very easy to just play Herzog Zwei online via emulators or the SEGA Ages release on Switch, too, and that's held up both in legacy and playability. So the niche this web-MOBA/-RTS experiment tried to address is now flush with alternatives, let alone the origins they all point to.
Maybe this just sounds like excuses for me not to download the damn thing and give it a whirl. All I know is this led me to playing Caveman 2 Cosmos and saving up more for my 3DS library at the time. The beta didn't exactly develop that fast, and when it did, the general concept and game loop started favoring ride-or-die players over those like me who just wanted to occasionally hop in and have a blast. Balancing for both invested regulars and casual fans is a bitch and a half, yet I also can't imagine this would have been fun if imbalanced towards skilled folks constantly redefining the meta. The extensive mod-ability and "anything goes" attitude of classic Battle.net games definitely wasn't and isn't a thing for AirMech, nor do I suspect the developers ever wanted that. If it's a focused, overly polished RTS-MOBA you're looking for, I'm sure there's worse out there, but this no longer has that scrappy, Herzog-like simplicity that I crave.
The premise still has a lot of potential, even if Carbon Games seems content with where they've brought the series so far. I'd love to have a more story-focused, singleplayer-friendly variation, something which spiritual predecessors like NetStorm surely could have used. Until then, eh. This one's just here, sitting in the back of my community college neurons, taunting me with what could have been.