S.L.A.I.: Steel Lancer Arena International
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S.L.A.I: Steel Lancer Arena International is the PlayStation 2 sequel to the Xbox game Phantom Crash. It was released on September 21, 2005 by Konami.
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[edit] Story
The game's main storyline takes place in 2071, in a future where the sport of "rumbling" has taken precedence. Run by the FIRA, players called "Wire-heads" compete by piloting SVs, a variation of the mech, in specially built arenas in seven real world cities such as New York City, Tokyo, and London. Each city has eight standard rankers, ranging from categories D-A which describe the overall difficulty and whether they compete during the day or night. Upon beating all 56 of these rankers, players can then battle against each city's Regional Ranker. After beating these seven, they are allowed to compete for the Third, Second, and First Ranker, officially making them one of the best players in the world. During this quest players will become part of an investigation trying to find a serial killer who starts killing other wire-heads, with the plot moving as rankers are defeated.
[edit] Characters
Player - represents yourself in the Story mode of gameplay. You can determine your gender when you first start by choosing among free Lo-Tek models, some male and female.
Knocker - A very minor character; he is your virtual daemon guide when you first join HAVEN. He stays with you until you switch his Chip for a different one. If your chip shuts down, knocker comes back until you get a new chip.
DD & JJ - When you first enter Hard-Wired, where you go to enter rumbles, you run into this curious duo. As a freelance internet blogger, DD has been having trouble getting hits on her site, and is in debt up to her knees from the purchase of her new "Edge" series persona. JJ is a dog IC (Intelligent Chip) that serves as the main editor of DD's blog site. When you run into them the first time, you are the 172nd rumbling team that they have asked/begged to report on.
Bogeyman - Top ranker.
[edit] Gameplay
Most battles consist of a deathmatch against several other players, with the ranker appearing once all other players have been defeated at least once. The major exceptions are the final battles against the regional and world rankers, who are fought in one on one matches. Players enter via any of three gates in each arena, and are required to reenter them to finish a rumble. Each arena has several obstacles which can be destroyed for money. Also, cubes are dropped periodically at specified sites that can either heal your SV, replenish your ammunition, or give you a certain amount of money. There are matches ranging from D to A, costing an increasing amount of money to join. There are also free matches in case you lose all of your money, or you can simply turn the right joystick on the contoller to gain money.
SVs come in eight varieties. During the storyline, only five types are available: Protons, KHTs, Carros, Zwergs, and Hartmans. Three additional types, Molniyas, Arditos, and Elints, can be purchased after completing the story from a hidden shop. Each SV can hold up to four weapons, consisting of two arm weapons and two shoulder-mounted weapons. These include machine guns, swords, missiles, lasers, chainsaws and many other unique armaments. SVs may also be equipped with several option modules, particularly modules that allow your mech to temporarily become invisible, and can be decorated with paint and decals.
Of particular note are the chips that accompany the player throughout gameplay. In the game's story, chips are responsible for actually operating SVs while players remotely control the action from special computer terminals. Represented by animals, they each have distinct personalities and can gradually learn skills that enhance the performance of SVs in a style similar to role playing games. Like SVs, they are capable of being destroyed upon receiving too much damage in a rumble, and therefore must be regularly maintained.
Outside of battle players may perform a variety of tasks via a stylized menu interface that represents the city's computer server. Included are a variety of shops for rumbling-related services, including stores to buy SVs and parts, a "beam-port" that allows players to travel between cities, and an official Rumbling area where players enter battle.
[edit] Online
Online play was originally available, including a leaderboard similar to the rankings in the story mode and the ability to create clans. However, the server was officially shut down on October 1, 2006, thereby discontinuing online play.
[edit] Servers
Servers are the cities where you can rumble. Each server has its own color. Each server has a different lay-out. Each server contains stores and shops. There are no different stores for each server. All stores are the same in each. Each server also has its own unique music from Blood Music. There are 7 FIRA Servers in total; The Liberties Server, The Strip Server, The Miyako Server, The Dragon Server, The Memphis Server, The Valhalla Server, and the Hide-Park Server. The respective cities are New York, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Cairo, Stuttgart, and London.
[edit] Stores
In the world that you play in, known as HAVEN, there are several different locations ("stores") that you can visit. You can change between stores as often as you want. However, 3 of these stores give you an option for skipping ahead to the next day(marked with a †).
[edit] Hard-Wired†
This is the "building" that you will most often use, as it is the gateway to the rumbling arenas. This store also provides you with the FIRA Rumbling Schedule, which shows what types of rumbles are taking place in the 7 servers for each of the 100 days on the calendar. It also allows you to "scout" the rumblers that are currently on the field at the time you enter the store, showing you their name, IC, and bounty if you knock them out. There is also a sleep chamber so if there is a A-rank match, and you only attend the D matches, you can go there and sleep until the D match.
[edit] SV Hangar†
The name of this store is rather self-explanatory; it is a storage area for the SV's that you own. You start out with having only 3 slots available for you, but you can purchase up to 5 more slots to use, each one at the cost of 100,000 credits. The SV Hangar also allows you to customize and build your SV and assign it (when an SV is "assigned", the SV will stay with you as you explore HAVEN, and will be the SV that you use when you rumble). You can also build a rumbling playlist made of songs that you purchase from Blood Music. You can also change IC's.
[edit] Blood Music
Blood Music is the store where you can buy music and listen to your bought music while you are rumbling. It has many bands and singers including: Zebrahead, Chris Thompson, Welbilt, and many others, some well known, some not so much.
[edit] Difference EG.
Difference EG. is a store where you can buy, sell, or heal your chip. Each chip is represented by an animal. Each chip has different stats. The stats depend on the animal type of that particular IC. For example: any bird chips will have significantly better long range attack stats then the dog chip, while the dog chip can level up faster than the bird chip.
[edit] Edgeworks
Edgeworks is a shop in each server that allows you to modify your SV's parts, with the exception of Optional parts (Coprocessors, Cloak Generators, etc.) When you buy an SV from any of the Company's stores, all parts are Normal 0. Using Edgeworks, you can modify each part in two general directions; Heavy upgrades your parts durability, armor points, damage, and increases the parts weight, whereas leaning a part towards the Light branch will cause a part to do less damage and have less durability, but give it more ammo and a lighter weight. (When using modifications with your legs, Heavy and Light will also change the limit of your Maximum Load stat, and if you focus the modifications on your body, it is possible to upgrade or decrease the maximum number of Optional slots available)
[edit] IDOL
The Idol store allows you to purchase a persona that you will use to represent your character in HAVEN. There are 4 different lines of persona's, ranging from the cheap "Lo-Tek" models to the top-quality "Edge" series. There is also the readout series and the puppet series. The Edge series is the most expensive, than the readout series, the puppet series and the least expensive but low quality series, the lo-tek series.
