http://www.playhawken.com/
Hawken is a f2p mech game that just went into closed beta. Hawken obviously can't touch the pace of FF, but for a mech game Hawken is like some light speed warp drive shit. It's the warsow of mech games I guess when it comes to speed.
It's not a straight FPS because they are mechs. There's a bit of actual piloting going on, but it's still much closer to an FPS feel than any other mech games.
It's absolutely gorgeous. Really just pretty to look at. I guess it's coded in UDK.
What I've played of it has been really fun. There's no movement skills like bhop or anything like that. But there are some tricks and mechanics for keeping your movement fluid without loosing any momentum.
Basicly you got your mech. It has a decent walking pace and it accelerates to a point as you continue moving. That's a part of where the movement mechanics come in, if you don't know how to strafe right you'll loose speed switching strafe directions. But it's real easy, it's nothing really skillfull to maintain your speed between strafes. All the mechs have boost and it works in a few different ways. You can jetpack to gain height advantage. Climb on top of buildings with it and what not. You don't want to be doing this in the open as just jetpacking makes you sort of a sitting duck. There's a forward boost that's pretty fast, you can zip along maps and get where you need with ease. Can't use your guns while you're boosting forward. And then there's side dodging, it quickly boost you left or right, and makes dodging missles and such pretty easy.
All that stuff provides for pretty fast and interactive DM while still feeling like you're piloting a big powerfull mech.
The maps I've seen so far fit the gameplay perfectly. I think it's going to make team based modes very strategic ala CS, but still provide the fast paced DM we've come to love from fortress or quake titles.
It just went into closed beta today and there is no longer an NDA, so I'll see if I can't record something nice in fraps to show you all.