Chou Shoujuu Mecha MG (DS)

If any development studios could be considered auteurs, Sandlot would definitely be among them. There are a few things their games tend to feature: giant things (especially robots), destructible environments, unorthodox control schemes, huge amounts of missions and similarly huge amount of options with regards to how players tackle those missions.

Chou Shoujuu Mecha MG has all of these things. You might have gathered this from the title, but it's a game about giant robots. Specifically, it's a game about controlling giant robots. This might seem an odd distinction to make, since most games are about controlling things, but CSMMG takes it to a new level. There are many selectable mecha in the game, and they each have unique control schemes.

In what must be one of the best uses of a touch screen gimmick, though all the mecha use the d-pad or face buttons to move around, they each have a unique control panel on the DS's bottom screen. The control panels all have various switches, buttons, dials and other stuff for controlling weapons and other functions the mecha have.

They aren't just lazy reskins, either: each one is different to all the others, there's a robot samurai that turns into a racecar, a giant toy robot that has powerful weapons, but needs to be regularly wound up, a bow-wielding robot that has you pulling back and releasing arrows on the touchscreen.

The variety also stretches to the missions. There's the obvious combat missions, against gangs of generic enemies, as well as solo mecha with similar diversity in design as your own, there's moving huge objects around, destroying stuff, races, contests to destroy more stuff than your rival and so on.

I definitely recommend Chou Shoujuu Mecha MG: it's fun, there's tons of stuff to do, and it looks great. The only problem with it is that i can't really talk more about it without just listing the cool things that are in it.