The Perfect Pacific Rim Game (Or, At Least, My Idea Of It)

I've been following Pacific Rim since it was announced, and the only thing that has disappointed me is the lack of any good video game to go with it. The internet game was glitchy, and the arcade one, I found lacking. So, I got to thinking; See a need, fill a need.

This is my idea of the perfect Pacific Rim video game:

Imagine a game compatible with both controllers and motion sensing input device, such a Kinect or Eye-Toy (Yes, I'm dating myself, shut up), with the most fulfilling experience would be on the latter. You start at a character creation screen, where you choose a starting country, ethnicity, and sex before you move on to the aesthetics. The camera is third person, positioned over the shoulder, as you slowly fade into the game over Charlie Hunnam narrating the story so far. You fell asleep on the job again, it seems. Not that you can help it, your job is really boring. The game teaches you movement and interaction as you move about the office. People are talking about the latest Kaiju attack, and a few even wish they could do something about it.

Then the earth shakes under your feet, and you hear a roar. You look to the window just in time for the glass to shatter, and you to see the silhouette of a Kaiju slamming into your workplace. The building you're in comes crashing down, and you follow movement cues to survive and escape. Finally, you escape the building, and begin to make your way out of the area as alarm sound. Jets scream overhead as you follow the cues through the crowd. A strike from the Kaiju pushes you into the building, where a vandal is busy robbing whatever he can grab. He moves in to mug you, and you are introduced to the fighting cues. You dodge, weave, and bob, before taking him down. You only get to enjoy the victory for so long before the roof flies off of the building, and the Kaiju looms overhead. It's eyes narrow at you, and it raises a claw to pulverize you, right before the Jaeger slams into it like a freight train. You watch in rapt awe as the Jaeger clobbers the Kaiju, and then, as the Jaeger stands tall in victory against a clearing sky, Charlie Hunnam's voice returns, saying that moments  like this are what make people change, and turn normal people into Jaeger pilots.

A short time later, you've registered with the Pan Pacific Defense Force, and are in the crowd hearing the first address by Marshall Pentecost. You meet a few other cadets, who, unbeknownst to you, could become your CPU co-pilot, with an option to have a co-pilot join you from online. You train with them, and watch Jaegers come and go, before one day, you're called upon to be a Ranger yourself. You choose your co-pilot, and are assigned to your Jaeger; the same one that saved you years ago. She's about to be retired, but Pentecost see's a future in her. Strictly speaking, the PPDC has already ordered her scrapped, so Pentecost says that if you want to change her name, color scheme, or build, that's up to you and your co-pilot, as long as you take the fight to the Kaiju, and win. And so you begin your life a ranger, winning and losing battles, before finally taking a Kaiju down with you at the end of the game, just before the events of the movie...

Now, ideally, this game would be best played with two people together in the same room, but it could work online as well, with controllers or motion sensing input devices. While online, you can build a custom Jaeger with a friend, fight other Jaegers, and even enter survival-style combat against waves of Kaiju. While it could be played alone, the most fun and realistic experience would be with a friend at your side. Of course, the game wouldn't be limited to fighting Kaiju: the Jaeger would need repairs and upgrades, all done with PPDC budget money. You'd accumulate this through beating Kaiju, being graded on lack of collateral damage, Kaiju Blue containment, and Drift synch ratio (gauged by matching the cues perfectly with your partner). The larger the budget you can manage, the more upgrades you can add to the Jaeger, making her one of a kind indeed, and taking her from a Mark-2 to a Mark-5 or beyond. However, the battles would become more difficult as the game progresses, in line with the storyline leading up to the movie, ending with the final year and the heavy assault by Kaiju, the most devastating of which ends with you and your co-pilor sacrificing yourselves to stop a Category-4 Kaiju from destroying your home town.

Granted, this game will never happen, but if I can dream of piloting a Jaeger, I can sure as hell dream of a game where that happens.