Armored Core: For Answer

Armored Core: For Answer is a 2008 vehicular combat game developed by FromSoftware and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is the 13th installment in the mecha-based Armored Core series, the game is the direct sequel to Armored Core 4.
Gameplay
AC customization has been changed from the previous Armored Core title, with a new interface and many new parts not found in Armored Core 4. Online mode returns with a new co-operative mode alongside the player versus mode. Gameplay enhancements included a power increase for both Quick Boost and Over Boost, as well as an auxiliary high-speed booster, which is known as the Vanguard Over Booster (VOB). Another new feature in the game is the Assault Armor attack that becomes available by equipping certain Over boost parts. This attack uses up all available Primal Armor (PA) that the AC has and generates a huge blast consisting of Kojima particles (highly reactive particles) that destroys or damages all objects surrounding the AC. However, this also leaves the AC vulnerable because not only will the AC lose its PA, it will also not regenerate for a few seconds. Laser blades are deadlier because of the revamped laser blade attack. Once the blade has acquired a lock-on, the AC will instantly rush to the target, traveling a great distance to use the laser blade. All parts carried over from the previous game have had their parameters altered, much like the transition between previous series installments Silent Line and Nexus. The on-screen HUD can now be changed to any of 20 colors. There are now 442 FRS tuning points available to unlock, which is an increase from the 300 (PS3) and 337 (Xbox 360) FRS points available in AC4. Maps are much larger and more detailed including environmental damage such as collapsing buildings. The game is also the second in the series (after Last Raven) to feature multiple endings, with three different possible plot branches available depending on your actions and decisions in the game.
Plot
Five years have passed since the LYNX War. Earth is now governed by the League of Ruling Companies, an international council composed of the corporations that survived the war, which ostensibly seeks to preserve global peace and corporate prosperity. In truth, the League is little more than a puppet of its chief member, Omer Science Technology, which emerged from the LYNX War with an enormous technological advantage and seeks to keep it. Since much of the world's surface was polluted to inhospitable levels by hazardous Kojima Particles dispersed during the LYNX War, the League built perpetually-airborne habitats known as Cradles, which are dependent on ground-based power plants called Arteria that generate even more Kojima Particles as waste. Over half of the human population now lives in the Cradles, while the surface is a battlefield where corporate armies and mercenaries wage the interminable Economic War over control of Kojima Particle-based technology.
During the League's rise to power, it relied on the capabilities of LYNX, the pilots of the combat mechs known as NEXTs, and then abandoned the LYNX on the surface in favor of utilizing Arms Forts, mobile super weapons that could bring tremendous amounts of firepower to bear. While most LYNX are forced to eke out a living as mercenaries for Collared, a League-controlled intermediary organization, a handful of LYNX discovered the corporations' dark secrets and formed a resistance group called ORCA to overthrow the League. The player takes on the role of a LYNX known as Strayed who works for Collared and eventually becomes a pivotal figure in the escalating conflict between the League and ORCA.
Three ending routes can be unlocked sequentially over three playthroughs. In the first ending, Strayed is tasked by the League with stopping ORCA from seizing the Arteria. Strayed succeeds, ensuring the Cradles stay aloft. ORCA is eliminated and the League remains in power, but the existential threat posed by Kojima Particle radiation is still unsolved, and one day, it will rise to the Cradles' altitude.
In the second ending, Strayed helps ORCA take control of the Arteria. As a result, the Cradles lose power and make an emergency descent to the surface, causing many civilians to die from Kojima Particle exposure. However, the energy from the Arteria is redirected to destroy an array of autonomous weaponized satellites in Earth's orbit. The satellites had originally been put in place by the corporations years ago as a means of precluding any single corporation from exploiting space's wealth of resources and attaining economic supremacy. With the satellites neutralized, humanity gains the opportunity to save itself from extinction by colonizing other worlds.
In the third ending, a psychotic ORCA-affiliated LYNX with the callsign "Old King" reaches out to Strayed. Old King is the last survivor of an anti-corporate terrorist group that Strayed eradicated, but he blames the corporations for his comrades' deaths and disagrees with ORCA's efforts to minimize bloodshed, so he proposes destroying Cradle 03, a fleet of five Cradle airships with 100 million inhabitants between them. After Old King and Strayed carry out this unprecedented atrocity, Collared deploys a team of its best LYNX to hunt the two mass-murderers down. Old King dies in the battle, but Strayed emerges victorious and goes on to destroy all of the other Cradles, becoming the single most prolific killer in history.
Reception
Armored Core: For Answer received "mixed or average" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. One of the most consistent complaints among reviewers seemed to be the lack of any sort of online community. Kevin Van Ord of GameSpot stated in his review that there were "fewer than a dozen [players on] Xbox Live" when he tried to playtest the game, and that similar attempts to find a game on PlayStation Network yielded "just a single opponent". In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 29 out of 40 for the PlayStation 3 version, and one nine and three sevens for the Xbox 360 version, while Famitsu Xbox 360 gave the latter console version 31 out of 40.
References
External links
Official website (Japanese)
2008 video games
Armored Core
Video games about mecha
PlayStation 3 games
Third-person shooters
Ubisoft games
Video game sequels
Xbox 360 games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Fiction about corporate warfare
Video games developed in Japan
Video games directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki
Video games scored by Kota Hoshino