What makes this game so fun to play is the easy to pick up controls. The left analog stick moves you around while the right analog stick controls your upper torso for aiming. It's kind of like a first person shooter on a console setup, except now in third person. For the most part, you will only need two buttons to play; shoot, and weapon change. Other helpful abilities are hover and a specialized defensive capability that is unique to each mech. These can be accessed by pressing in the left or right analog stick respectively. Not all mechs will be able to hover though. Like the defensive capability, the mechs themselves, a total of ten of them, each have their own unique attributes and weapons. The typical arsenal is a basic machine gun or laser, a type of projectile missile, and some sort of power weapon that is usually charged, or takes time to recharge. While all of the basic weapons have unlimited usage, there will be power ups hidden through the levels that will give you upgraded versions of that weapon for a limited amount of usage.

When it comes to graphics, there is a bit of a soft look to the overall picture, but the mechs have quite a bit of detail in them and animate quite well. Although sparks fly and other visual damage effects occur, it would have been nice to see the mech itself actually deform and show real damage to it. Your mech will be a bit more sluggish when there is considerable damage to it though. On the plus side, damage to the buildings is something that has fairly extensive detail to it. Buildings will take damage to the area that you shoot rather than a generic damage look to it. Just about everything within each area is destroyable with sometimes hidden goodies appearing as a result.

The single player mode is broken down into twenty missions that follow a fairly basic storyline. Unfortunately, while fun, this is the weakest aspect of the game as those twenty missions average between five to ten minutes a mission, with a few being longer. Doing some quick math and you can see that it won't take long to beat all twenty missions on normal difficulty. There also tends to be a lack of boss encounters where they make you really fight out a one-on-one scenario. That isn't to say you won't fight other mechs, but none of the encounters gives you a feeling of a true boss encounter. One small aspect I like is how soldiers attempt to take you down. They aren't exactly weak on the weapon fire either when they start shooting rocket launchers at you. There's nothing more satisfying though than walking over them to take them out. Despite some flaws, the missions are still fun to play through at least once to get a good grasp of the controls, learn the strengths and weaknesses of each type of mech, and learn how to utilize your weapons properly.

However, the real reason to get this game is for the multiplayer aspect. This is what saves the game from being just okay due to how short it is. There are three ways to play multiplayer, on one console, through system link, and through Xbox Live, and there are three modes of gameplay within multiplayer, Destruction, Not It!, and Last Man Standing. Destruction is your standard deathmatch and Not It! is a mode where your kills only count when you're "it". Both Destruction and Last Man Standing have team modes available. Oddly enough, all of these modes are available in multiplayer mode with a single system. It doesn't make sense considering you're limited to only two people. On the upside, a Survival-style mode called Grinder is also available when playing offline multiplayer. The biggest drawback however is there isn't any other way to play against bots in any of the modes except for Grinder. This makes the multiplayer aspect a bit limited when playing on just a single system. Overall, a few more multiplayer modes to select from still would have been nice. While playing through Xbox Live though, hectic battles of up to eight players can be extremely fun with what modes are available. Add in the fact that there is voice communication, and team modes can have a whole new dynamic to them.

Even though there are flaws on both sides of the single and multi-player aspects, the overall package comes together as a worthy game. I originally was lingering around a B+ but on the border of an A- with everything factored in. However, after some 8 player online play through Xbox Live, it was the deciding factor in how much fun and playable the game was. MechAssault is a great, easy to pick up action game that will feature numerous hours of play online. If you aren't looking for the online or multiplayer aspects, then the game is really only a C+ and more of a rental. Otherwise, get ready for some intense multi-player battling that is just the right type of game to help launch Microsoft's Xbox Live.