Gun Metal

Overview

Gunmetal involved piloting a giant robot that had the ability to change in to a flying mode at any point during combat and was equipped with large arsenal of destructive weapons.

While the game itself may not be very significant, people who remember the early promotion material surrounding the creation and release of the Xbox will notice similarities between the Havoc Suit featured in Gunmetal and a robot that featured in an Xbox CGI demo that was supposedly demonstrating the power of the original Xbox. Rage Software most likely developed the CGI demo for Microsoft and had the same artist design both their promotional robot and the Havoc Suit - either that, or it was an extreme coincidence.

Gameplay

The inspiration for Gunmetal most likely came from 80s and 90s animated series such as Macross and Gundam. It featured an open world but had a very linear mission structure which involved the player doing the same types of missions over and over with almost no variety at all. When you weren't protecting a vulnerable target you were simply destroying infantry and tanks or assaulting bases. The game suffered from serious balancing issues which resulted in some missions being stupidly easy while others were obscenely difficult.

Controls also weren't that great as the handling of the mech itself felt somewhat imprecise and floaty while the aiming was rather inaccurate. This was somewhat manageable in robot mode but in flight mode it was next to impossible to hit targets and so transformation often served more as an 'oh shit' button than an alternative form of gameplay. In other words, being in robot mode was slow and cumbersome while jet mode was difficult to control and almost useless.

Story

The game starts with the player on a human-inhabited planet called Helios where a large colony has been established and is under siege by an enemy force originating from Earth. The enemy's goal is to exterminate the colony and to counter this the Gunmetal Project was put in to action. This project involved the creation and deployment of the Havoc Suit. The Havoc Suit is a state-of-the-art bipedal combat mech that has the ability to transform in to a flight mode which resembles a jet and thus is considered the finest weapon in existence for the job at hand.

Weapons

There were three tiers of weapons: current, in-development and future. These came in two types which were specific to the Havoc Suit's land and air modes.

Land tier 1 (current):

Machine Pistols

Double firepower, unlimited ammo, and assisted targeting make it hard to miss the mark with the Machine Pistols. Perfect mainstay weaponry when you want to focus on mastery of The Havoc.

Flak Gun

Explosive charges blast clusters of high velocity shrapnel from the Flak Gun barrel. The indiscriminate spread nature makes for effective crowd control and at short range its effects can be devastating.

Torpedoes

Heavyweight and highly accurate, Torpedoes are extremely effective against armored targets. Their ability to hug the ground gives rise to tactical deployment that effectively evades enemy line-of-sight.

Disc Launcher

These titanium projectiles spin at a speed so ferocious that they attract and sustain a concentrated plasma cloud. The razor-sharp disks will burn and rip through most targets but can also ricochet dangerously.

Land tier 2 (in development):

Mini Rockets

Grenades

Land tier 3 (future):

Assault Cannon

Air tier 1 (current):

Vulcan Cannons

Unlimited ammunition and pinpoint accuracy. Belts of armor-piercing rounds will strip through these wing-mounted chain guns as you chase down every last enemy fighter.

Phoenix

Five overdriven Argon isotope lasers provide an even distribution of photon arcs with only a brief charge cycle between shots. The Phoenix is particularly useful when the skies become congested.

Tomahawks

A large payload of vertically launched land-attack cruise missiles. Although accuracy is low, exceptional topography-matching radically reduces premature expiry due to landscape obstruction.

GP Bombs

General-purpose unguided explosives with a deadly combination of blast and fragmentation effects. Propelled forwards with low accuracy, this weapon is ideal for carpet-bombing multiple ground targets or large installations.

Air tier 2 (in development):

Rockets

Maverick

Air tier 3 (future):

Hellfire

Enemies

Infantry

The infantry are the weakest and smallest enemies, but come in great numbers out of small barracks. There are four types of enemy infantry. The first one is armed with a small pulse rifle. The second type is a robotic walker armed with a continuous laser cannon. The third is another small walker with grenade launcher. The fourth variety is rarely seen, but act as suicide bombers capable of detonating massive explosives when destroyed.

Ground Tanks

Better armored than infantry, ground tanks carry more powerful weapons and can survive more attacks. There are two types of tanks: first is the common missile tank that fires missiles, which hover from the ground. Second is the stronger heavy tank that fires two powerful lasers.

Hover Tanks

Hover tanks are flying vehicles that are weaker than ground tanks, but still better armored than infantry. They attack in at least a squad of three. There are two types of hover tanks, one being most effective for scouting and the other more suitable for combat.

Reception

Gunmetal wasn't considered a terrible game as it received a few positive reviews and ended up with a 63 average on Metacritic. Since the original Xbox platform was relatively unsuccessful outside America, however, any game that wasn't close to Halo's level of popularity had difficulty getting noticed. Thus, being average or mediocre equated to rather poor sales overall.