It also makes for a very slow game with limited excitement. Each mech gets up to two squads of infantry that you can control. These soldiers add a lot to the game, especially in the looks department. They are beautifully rendered and animated. The mechs also are a treat to watch as they clank and churn across the landscape with exhaust puffing out behind them.
Several problems remain, however.
You wait to get blasted, then you wait for your cannon to charge, then you fire and wait to see if you hit the target. Then you have to sit through interminable cut scenes. There's no way to skip them, so if you are killed and have to start a section over, you have to sit through the cut scenes again. Besides the slow pace, some battles take hours to complete, and you can't save until the end. That means if your mech is toasted as you approach the final shots, you're looking at fighting the whole thing over.