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Fast and furious - but not exceptional.

Armored Core has a long history as being among the mech games that attract those interested in all the details: tweaking, tweaking and more tweaking of their monstrous mechanical instruments of destruction. Armored Core 4 is the series' first step onto the newest consoles, and some of the changes are surprising, as are some of the things that stay the same.

When a known quantity - a series of games that's been around for years - appears on the newest hardware for the first time, the same questions come up regardless of genre. In addition to the questions accompanying any sequel (What's different from the last one, are any of the things I hated now improved, and does the story do the series any favors?) But when it comes to a tried and true series appearing on new hardware, the expectations are higher - how much better does it look? How much did they expand customization and multiplayer?

While the graphics are an unqualified disappointment, the other changes to the series depend upon what you're after in a mech game. Armored Core always leaned toward the more complex end of the mech spectrum. This time, the game is much simpler. Instead of starting with a bare mech, a wad of credit and a store full of weapons, you'll be offered pre-built options - Schematics - which represent most of the ways one might want to built a mech: fast and light, heavy and powerful, etc. Each has a rating for attack, mobility, armor and defense, and there's no doubt this makes the game much more accessible in the early going than the older versions. You can still start your mechs from scratch, but you might not need to. And because all your options unlock over time, you'll have to play a while before you can build anything you want no matter how efficiently you rack up money.

Along the same lines, players don't have to deal with fine tuning parts anymore. You're awarded points for completing missions (Fractional Regulation System -FRS points) that you can use to have the mech automatically tuned. You're welcome to do it manually, and you'll get slightly better results but, again, you don't have to.

Armored Core 4 also introduces a new perspective on battlefield speed. Boost isn't something to be rationed for just the right moment, it's the natural way of getting around the field. You'll be using normal boost constantly because it doesn't drain energy the way it used to. Instead, you'll spend precious energy when you jump into the air and fly around or use quick boost to move very fast - usually to avoid getting blown to bits. All of this makes the game a much faster, twitchier experience than what fans of the previous games might expect.

The idea of a fast game applies to the missions, too, all 37 of them. They are all very short, some taking literally only a few minutes. Many of them are satisfying and involve more strategy than simply blowing up everyone you see, like having to destroy a particular enemy or escape a tight spot. But most of them seem to end right when you get into a groove. They are not too easy, and there are varying degrees of success involved in each one, like how much damage you took and how much ammo you wasted. But they are far, far too short to leave a lasting feeling of accomplishment.

Your options for duking it out online with live opponents aren't bad - there are one-on-one matches and four-on-four, with free for alls between either four or eight players. That's as many players as can be expected, but the downside is that the multiplayer maps aren't nearly as interesting as they should be. Wide open spaces are great, but more options would be nice and are hopefully on the way.

AC4 is a step in the direction of trying to please more people, more of the time. The construction process is streamlined, but only if that's how you want it to be. The action is faster, but not without the requirement to think strategically. Even with graphics that fall below the expectations of the current generation of hardware, Armored Core 4 is a fun way to make machines to the dirty work.