Battle Engine Aquila for the PS2 is a mecha action game, where you pilot mechs that can transform into a ship and fly in the sky. The Aquila mech looks like a robotic spider with four legs while on land. You'll be fighting against other mechs and full army platoons with spaceships unloading troops and attacking your allied forces. You can join in the frey of battle to help your troops or just focus on the mission objectives to win the battle and move on to the next levels.There many weapon types useful for battle, the rapid fire lasers have unlimited ammunitions but overheat, there is also an energy charged blast which shoots slowly but packs a powerful punch, then there is the assortement of missles which are mainly used for airborne targets. The view can be changed from FPS to third person view and making your mech fly while jet mode is very limited for a short time, before you run out of energy. You are then forced to land or crash on the ground and await for your mech to re-charge if you want to fly again.Part of the strategy in the game play is deciding when it is best to fight on the ground mode or in jet mode, no single type works for all situations as sometimes you have to do both. In many missions you have to protect your base, as you destroy enemy ground units; enemy bombers arrive on the scene and then you are forced to fight in the skies against bombers and jets.The battles look huge and kind of have an epic feel to them. You'll see your own allied forces on the ground and the skies shooting it out with enemy forces: tanks, jets, infantry, transport ships unloading, turret guns fending off enemies and (sometimes you). You want to keep fighting, but if you missed aprimary objective- its game over. And it doesn't matter if you your forces were winning the battles! It doesn't matter if you were undamaged. This makes the game feel linear and scripted as events happen a certain way every single time. And you must react fast before another event occurs that causes you to lose the game. It ruins the sense of freedom the game wants to conveyI just wished the game didn't try so hard with the linear element just to tell a story.It has a bit of freedom to the gameplay and I like how you can go from a ground battle to air combat at the press of a button, but I hate all the limitations imposed by the gameplay; And although your allied troops help out in battle, they are mostly idiotic cannon fodder. You will have to win most of the battles by yourself. Another strange thing about this game is that even though your mech can take much punishment from explosions and enemy attacks, landing on water/ the ocean will instantly destroy your mech which seems unrealistic and unfair.Pros:+epic battles+excellent graphics+excellent weapons+excellent sound effects+excellent music+your mech can fly+good controlsCons:-severely scripted gameplay-very linear, eventhough itwant to be free-roaming-water destroys you instantly-your allied troops are idiots-limited flight time-your energy levels always run low