Mechajammer - Review @ B3

Big Boss Battle reviewed Mechajammer.

Mechajammer Is A Grungy, Dystopian CRPG Full Of Chaotic Potential

Mechajammer‘s Calitana is a grungy world stuffed with the dregs of a crime-ridden society. The only things scrubbing away at the grime is the unsustainable cycle of corruption and death, that and the fires from the open rioting and fighting that floods the streets. Calitana is already imploding, and it’ll soon be exploding too; You’ve got to get the hell out.

How I describe Mechajammer to people has changed a lot over the last while, and only a part of that is due to the major patches that have already been pushed live to fix some of the launch issues. Its influences, which include the likes of Escape from New York and The Terminator, run deep through it. However, it’s two old SNES games that it really reminds me of and that I compare it to the most. There are some similarities between the two games, Shadowrun and Syndicate, both take place in worlds that are inherently broken, operated and run by faceless corporations who no longer care for the humans that make them up, and who thrive on chaos and violence. There’s also a theme of transhumanism, be that the science or the practice. All of this carries through to Mechajammer, with its mutants, droids, chaotic gangs and syndicates.

Mechajammer‘s world is better realised than both of those old worlds, in fact, it feels like somebody has taken those old games and — ironically, in the case of Shadowrun (SNES) — created a wide, cRPG world within those settings. Shadowrun‘s murky streets and alleyways occasionally pockmarked with a train station, office or club; and Syndicate‘s wide-seeming city districts, have been exploded into a city that feels both dense and hollow, both alien and strangely familiar at the same time.

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