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Wow. I don't know where to start. The story of AC2 is pretty simple. After the Great Destruction on Earth, most of the people and big companies started to move to mars. When they get there, there is a huge power struggle between the bigger companies(Zio Matrix, Balena, Emeraude, LCC). You become a Raven (Mercenary in an AC)with the Nerves Concord. From here on in you accept missions an do battle in the arena. What becomes latter on depends on how you fare in the arena, which missions you choose and which you don't and how succesful you are in each mission. The story line is deeper than the oceans and the gameplay is just terrific. This game is similar to MechWarrior in some regards, but outdoes the MechWarrior series many times over. This game is just plain fun ro play!

Customizabilty. This game's biggest asset is its ability to let you design your AC from scratch. You can pick the all the parts (Head, core, arms, legs, generator, radiator, FCS, both arm weapons, back weapons, extensions, optional parts, etc.) Depending on what parts you pick, how heavy they are, their energy consumption, and all whole bunch of things, your AC will perform differently (i.e. Speed for Weight, Power for Ammo, etc.). No, but it doesn't stop there. You can customize the colours of your AC parts, so you can have an all black AC or a rainbow AC, and ontop of it all, there is even a mini paintbrush program in there to help you make a emblem to stick on your AC. Now is that classy or what?

The arena portion of the game is a real bonus. There are 50 players to start with in the arena (including you) and you have to make your way up to the top. Along the way you will be given special parts from the Nerves Concord and other Ravens in the arena so you can beat the Raven in first, Ares, who has achieved the title "Nine breaker". You can use the donated parts however you want, but sometimes they are rare parts so I would advise you to save them, encase you never get another chance.

Here's a little tip: When you first start playing the game (after the test arena), fail missions until you see a little FMV involving a human. Do this until you see the FMV eight times in total and your AC will be set (This is called Human +, every time you see the FMV you get a special ability, but you start back at mission #1). Now about the missions themselves, they are fantastic. With over 30 missions in all, each and everyone of them is something to remember. There isn't really defined types of missions (There are always different objectives and different enemies to face) and as you progress further and further into the game, the corporations pay you more for bigger missions. Most of the missions are started off and finished by a brief in-game movie which looks exactly like gameplay, but occasionaly you'll get rewarded with an FMV which always looks SPECTACULAR. If you search around on some levels you will find secret AC parts, such as the legendary Karasawa or the Moonlight, which i advise you to get BOTH of these as soon as you can. The missions keep getting more and more complicated and deeper into the plot. They'll keep you addicted for a long time!

The music in this game was absolutely amazing. With the theme song "RoboComBat" by Mijk Van Dijk and a whole bunch of great tunes, especially that really eerie one when something bad is about to happen and you're gonna have to blow things up, energized and on your toes.

The versus mode is more fun that words can describe. There's nothing quite like building your own AC and then blowing your friends up with high-tech weaponry on humongous levels at breakneck speeds. It's like combining MechWarrior with Twisted Metal!

With this masterpiece keeping up a steady 60 Frames-Per-Second and an amazingly long draw distance, this game is incredibly addictive game and it kept me going for about 12 hours without eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom....

The biggest low in this game (and it's not really that much of a low) is that the controls will take some time to get used to if your are not already an armored core player. The controls are relatively the same except now L3 (left joystick) controls your extensions and R3 (right joystick) controls your overboost.

The ACs were blatently coloured and shaded, but everything else, from the explosion effects to the smoke effects were nicely done, very nicely done.

That's all the lows I could think off

When I first started up the game to when I finnaly beat it, this game delivers a non-stop action-packed experience that is well worth the price of the CD. I **HIGHLY** recommend this game to anybody who likes big guns or who likes MechWarrior.