All this love for mech combat and nary a mention of Front Mission? I am sad.

Nah, my brother had the original too. It was pretty much as awesome as it looks, but he was also high when he bought it.

Front Mission is to Steel Battalion as Final Fantasy is to Gears of War. The cognitive leap is huge.

Notice I also didn't mention the ACE series, Zoids of any kind, the Super Robot Taisen games, Mechwarrior, Heavy Gear, Battetech, Macross, Evangelion, Gundam, Chromehounds, or Zone of the Enders (and those are just the ones I notice lying around my office).

If I took time to mention every mech game in existence because it superficially shares subject matter with Steel Battalion Heavy Armor, the post would be nothing but a stupidly long list of games featuring giant-ass weaponized robots.

Then, once I'd finished naming the 40,000-plus Japanese developed games in the genre, I'd splatter my brains all over the bathroom mirror with a revolver, just to stave off boredom.