could also create and host an online session of MechAssault. Once the player defined all the characteristics of a game, they could invite other players from their friends list or leave slots open for any online player to join the battle. MechAssault had several modes of combat in which players could engage, often based around by-now-common forms of online competitive gaming. In Grinder mode (local play only), the player tries to survive as more and more 'Mechs are spawned into the battle. This mode can played with one or two players. In Destruction mode, the player can choose a 'Mech and fight to the death in deathmatch or team deathmatch. The player or team with the most kills wins. Last Man Standing is a free-for-all with no respawning as a mech. Once a player dies, they respawn as an unarmed infantryman. Gameplay can be either deathmatch or team deathmatch. Capture the flag is a team based game where the opposing team spawn on opposite ends of the map and try to "Capture" the enemy flag without giving up their own. A fairly common metagame during the height of online popularity was known as "Elemental". A Last Man Standing match, "Elemental" saw only one player choose a Mech while all others chose the Elemental mobile armor, a much smaller and weaker playable class. This was decided by players in voice chat prior to the start of the game. It was later released as an official game type known as "Giant Killers". Reception The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot said, "If you're going to buy one game with your Xbox Live starter kit, MechAssault is the one to get." In Japan, where the game was ported for release on June 12, 2003, Famitsu gave it a score of 28 out of 40. By July 2006, the game had sold 750,000 units and earned $26 million in the U.S. NextGen ranked it as the 85th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Combined sales of the MechAssault series reached 1.1 million units. GameSpot named it the best Xbox game of November 2002, and later presented it with the annual awards for "Best Online Game on Xbox", "Best Shooter on Xbox", and overall "Game of the Year on Xbox". It was