Ring of Red (PS2)

[Yoherz]

Story - 4/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 4/10
Overall - 7/10

The storyline is your typical military-type game. This battle, this battle, this person betrays whoever, then this battle, etc.
Though, the mechs that they use are actually feasible, and wouldn't surprise me if the military had considered using one of them at one point or another.

Most of the reason I'm reviewing this game, is for its gameplay. Your team consists of a close range AFW (Armored Fighting Walkers), which has machine guns, a mid-range AFW, which has weaker machine guns and a weak slug fire, and a long range (or sniper) AFW, that has a powerful slug fire.
Not only does the ranges that you engage the opponent at make a large difference in damage (light AFW, high mobility, one square attack range, medium AFW, medium in both, heavy AFW, low mobility, but can attack from three squares), you also have to aim each shot yourself. The light ones, the machine gun reload is quick, but low damage, and its made more for taking out your enemies infantry (since you can add two squads to follow each AFW, more on that in a bit), so you want to be close and aim at their infantry (you choose between infantry or AFW before firing) whereas long range, is heavily armored and more for aiming at their AFW, and hitting them before than can hit you.
All basic combat tactics, for anyone familiar with them.
The best part about this game is, that since you manually aim the gun (sways, and the longer you wait, the more it zooms, and the less it shakes), is that you can target their legs, which makes them slower, their head, which reduces accuracy, or their weapon itself, which greatly reduces their accuracy. So if they're a mobile unit that's try to run from the battle, you can pick off their legs and slow down their retreat.
Now, onto infantry. You can have a medic squad, support squad, or an attack squad (forget what their name actually is). Their abilities are used when you send them the area where they're use to use them. For example, a support squad is usually put in the cockpit to increase the reload times, or can be placed on the front or rear lines to set traps, which are great for snipers trying to keep away light units, or throw a smoke bomb at a sniper unit to reduce its accuracy temporarily. Medics can usually repair the AFW mid-battle if the legs are destroyed by a trap, or some other such thing. And finally attack squads, which have abilities that are almost all on the front lines, such as sniping, co-operation (where they fire with the squad next to them), and grenade.
Then there are even the AFW abilities. They're usually character specific, but they can be very mean. Such as using emergency reload and rapid fire with a sniper unit to deal a lot of damage to a unit that's closing in. or even a short range unit that fires shrapnel, that does massive damage to any troops on the front lines. If you can manage to get a pilot with incendiary shrapnel, not only will it do massive damage, it even forces whatever troops they had on the front lines, to retreat to the back lines for a bit.
Oh, and there's also CQC, where you can use special punches or other such abilities, which usually light mechs have. However, battle is immediately ended after a CQC attack, unless the opponent has one they were trying to use as well.
The gameplay is so in-depth and well thought out, that it makes up for everything else, honestly. It relies entirely on the skill of the player, so you won't get f*cked over by percentages or anything like that.

The graphics are, well, PS2, but they're pretty well done for that time. You can tell when its night and day (which reduces your accuracy unless you have flares, another support unit ability), you can see the terrain clearly, and the mechs are actually fairly easy to tell how they're made and the like.

It has some nice in-battle music, but there isn't really much else. It's a fairly realistic game, so about the best I can give it is that when you're using a special, you hear extra gears grinding, maybe some of the AFW creaking. Little things like that.

Overall, the gameplay is the best aspect, no doubt. I never really saw the game the whole way through, and there's even supposed to be anti-AFW type AFWs. If anyone at least gets to those, I'd love to hear about 'em.