Ludography
88/100
Players10 ratings
74/100
Critics3 reviews

Where to get it

Armored Core For Answer cover

2008 · FromSoftware · Shooter · Simulation

Armored Core For Answer

The 13th release in the franchise, Armored Core: for Answer is set ten years after Armored Core 4 and sees the largest machines in Armored Core yet called Arms Forts.

Released
19 March 2008
Platforms
PlayStation 3Xbox 360
Genres
ShooterSimulationThird-person shooterVehicular combat
Developers
FromSoftware
Publishers
—
Series
Armored Core
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
ActionScience fiction
Country
Japan
Age ratings
ESRB TPEGI 12CERO AACB PG
Directors
Hidetaka Miyazaki
Composers
Kota Hoshino

About

Armored Core: For Answer is a 2008 mecha-based 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.

Keywords

  • vehicular combat
  • post-apocalyptic
  • arena
  • mech
  • dystopian
  • death
  • robots
  • insanity
  • achievements
  • mecha
  • silent protagonist
  • playstation network

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

AC customization features a new interface. Online mode returns with a new co-operative mode alongside the player versus mode. Gameplay enhancements an auxiliary high-speed booster. 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 game is also the third in the series (after Last Raven and Fires of Rubicon) to feature multiple endings.

Story

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.

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.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
PlayStation 319 March 2008Japan · North America 16 September 2008 · Europe 31 October 2008 · Australia 20 November 2008
Xbox 36019 March 2008Japan · North America 16 September 2008 · Europe 3 October 2008 · Australia 20 November 2008

Editions and related releases

Followed by
Armored Core V
Follows
Q2707847Armored Core 4

In the same series

Games like this

Collections1 collection

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.