Well, things have gotten pretty crazy, with me having just started college. Taking a programming class, so who knows, if it’s successful I may make a mecha game. Anyway, today I bring to you one of my favourites, tied with just Silver Knights. Second Age is a mecha space combat game, featuring a cast of 8 unique robots. The video for Silver Knights on my first post here wasn’t mine, but the guy who did it sure made an amazing trailer. From now on, though, I’ll be bringing you all the mecha game video joy! So here’s a video showing some rough gameplay and showcasing all of the robots.

So with that, I’ll talk some about the gameplay. There’s no other way to play other than ‘Practice’, which really should be called something like ‘Skirmish.’ It’s a mode where you fight with up to 8 mechs, and you can split into (several) teams. Actually, there IS a mission mode, but it doesn’t work past mission 1…

So you choose mechs, teams, and from 5 maps. The gameplay has quite a few buttons despite its simple appearance. You move your aim with the directional button, and hold a button to boost in the direction you’re pressing. It works really well, actually, so you can easily aim while moving. You have a shield button, boost, main shot, melee, secondary shot, and shield+backboost. Many mechs have different attacks depending on the direction you’re boosting, and different melee when and when not holding a direction. There’s also special attacks, which are done by pressing certain two buttons at once.

It’s a simple concept, and maybe the graphics will throw you off (I think they’re superb for an old indie game, but others would disagree…), but this game is actually very good and fun. It also has LAN play, but I can’t figure out how it works, because of a language barrier. The rest of the game is totally in English, though. It may be me, the nostalgic music (surprisingly catchy), or the mech designs, but this is definitely one of the best once you really get into it. I may be a little biased, as this was my first (and best) foreign mech game find, aside from Silver Knights, which already had a little English fanbase.

So, you can download it from the website I made for it (Yeah, I really do love Second Age ;-;), or from the main site. Thing is, the main site has a latest version, which is more of a test build and incomplete… While from my website you can pick up an older and fuller version with all the mechs. Also, I made a whole picture manual, with explanations of the game and movelists.

So my fan-site is: http://www.freewebs.com/the-second-age/

Or you can check out the (Japanese) official website, which has actually been abandoned for years, but surprisingly still up… My point is, just try this old little gem.

http://www.geocities.jp/anno_sa/ar