If you were to take any self respecting otaku and play some word association games with them, if you asked "robot" they'd probably respond with Mobile Suit Gundam. The popular manga and anime series has had several offerings on past systems throughout the years, but Gundam is taking a step into the next-gen, with the upcoming Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire. Killer Betties got to be involved with a conference call earlier in the week with Brian Glazebrook - the Localization Manager at NamcoBandai - who answered some questions about the upcoming game.

Question: What is the story behind Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire and how does it fit into the Gundam world?

The game itself doesn't follow any actual story from the animation or such, so it isn't rehashing anything that has been told in stuff like the anime, stuff like that. You kind of play the events of the animation era, but from a different part of the world. It is still within the One Year War story, however, you are not playing side by side or playing as the main character in the whole Gundam universe. So you start as a grunt, someone low key, and as you keep playing, battling, fulfilling missions, you go up in the ranks, and as you go up in the ranks, you get more powerful Mobile Suits or customize them. It doesn't necessarily follow exactly the anime storylines, but it takes place in that One Year era.

Question: What customizations can players make to their Gundams?

There are no actual parts. However, you can upgrade mobile suits based on how many missions you've accomplished and how much money you have. So whenever you upgrade a Mobile Suit, it doesn't upgrade right away, but when it is implemented, a day or two, you have to wait until it gets implemented [game time – not full 24 hours]. When you upgrade the Mobile Suit, you can take it into battle right away, or hold back and continue to upgrade as long as you have the money, and as you do things like upgrade the weapons, you get better weapons, like a little peashooter/machine gun to begin with and then go to bigger gun, beam rifle, or something of that sort.

Question: Is gameplay restricted to Mobile Suits?

It is going to be strictly Mobile Suits.

Question: How different are the two storylines? Are they completely different missions or same missions looking from different perspectives?

For the most part it is from different perspectives, because you are actually going up against each other. For example, you are playing as a Federation Mobile Suit and you are trying to protect your base, and you see all these enemies trying to destroy your base, you'll try to stop them. On the flip side, your mission will be to try and destroy the base, so there are those types of missions as well. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all missions are like that, there are a few that are a little different, but typically you see it from two different perspectives, one or the other.

Question: Is the gameplay mostly linear or open world and side missions?

Whenever you are not participating in a mission or spending a day repairing, it takes one day away, and within that one day if there was a major battle that happened in this major war, there will be a newsflash to say someone died, something happened to this based, this happened to the captain of this side. So if you miss a specific day, you'll miss a really cool mission, but it will also mean that you at least upgraded your Mobile Suit and equipped. So it is not necessarily linear, because there is no really linear path, if that makes sense, because if you play every day, your mobile suit will just collapse and it will be game over, so it is more strategy and how you'll want to go about it.

Question: So what type of world does the environment have in the gameplay? Is it destructible and if so to what extent?

It is destructible. For example, if you bump into a building or knock into a wall, the walls will crumble and destroy. Things that you'd normally would be able to destroy if you were in a huge mobile suit walking around in the city, you'll be able to breakdown buildings, step on cars, etc. Also, for example, if you are walking through the forest, instead of just destroying the forest, some of the trees will actually bend, cause they don't necessarily break or collapse, because if you are just pushing through it kind of reacts in that sense as well.

Question: The ability to target limbs – is it strictly a visual trick or does it play in strategically?

It does play strategically. For example, say you blow off the arm with the big bazooka, after you blow off that arm, you no longer have to worry about it cause it has no arms. Of course, it can still kick you or if it has head vulcans it could shoot as well, so depending on what type of mobile suit you are trying to attack, there are different strategies about it. If it has a shield do you want to take the shield out first, leaving it wide open, or take out the weapons so it won't be able to attack you as much. It is really up to how the player plays it, but there is definitely some strategy involved.

Question: How long is the single player game expected to be?

Well, let us put it this way. Our guys here, who know the game inside out, playing it for 12 hours straight, barely could get about half way through the game.

Question: It has been said the player will be both the pilot and commander. How will this work and what options will you have to lead your squad?

They are usually just basic commands, like regroup here, spread out, focusing on destroying…a basic command can be given to your squad. The type of rank you are also affects the amount of strategic commands you can give out to your squad.

Question: Does the game use the PS3 controller's tilt functionality?

Unfortunately, no.

Question: For the multiplayer, what different multiplayer modes are there and what is the maximum amount of players?

Well it isn't online, so it kind of limits how many players we can have. We are going to have two player co-op, and deathmatch, either or.

Question: What are some of the things you've done with this game that weren't possible in other Gundam games on other previous consoles?

First off, the previous consoles, the Gundam games were closer tied to the anime franchise. It had the actual Mobile Suits themselves; they moved very human like instead of very mechanical. This time around, since the much more powerful hardware out there, we are going for the more realism factor, such as how big robots really should move and react; things we couldn't do in the past games. So for example, things we couldn't do on the PS2, say you blew off a head of one of the mobile suits, and it kept rolling over and over - come back to the stage, 10 or 20 minutes into the battle, and the head is still there; it doesn't do much in terms of gameplay, but it is the kind of things gamers have been looking for cause hardware is getting more and more powerful.

Question: What will the damage scale be like in Crossfire?

In the anime, yes, you shoot the right place, it blows off. If we put that in the game, it wouldn't be a game; it'd be who shoot first would win. This time around it is more based on the damage scale, where it depends on weapon being fired, how powerful is it, to the Mobile Suit being shot as, how high is his base armor or upgraded armor. It isn't the one shot deal like the anime.

A special thanks to Brian Glazebrook for taking the time to answer the questions