Mech Battles?

Has anyone ever piloted a mech in a battle? And by Mechs I mean giant robots that you pilot like from the Gundam series or Armored Core. It's always been something I've wanted to do, but I have no idea about how well it would work. I mean, being inside of a giant robot, having to work the controls and make it move, and fighting another robot from the view of the cockpit... it seems pretty difficult in multiple ways. The perspective might make it a little difficult, not being able to see your mech's body would be kind of weird in terms of controlling it. I feel like if the mech became an extension of your own body it would be easier, maybe if you transformed yourself into a mech... but I think piloting it like a Gundam would be really cool though. Any experiences or ideas?

Hell yeah, this post has made me decide to pilot a Mech-warrior style mecha in my next lucid. I will report back, sir. =P

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ring_Sword.jpg

Edit: Scratch that, one of these http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...rd-d31s4qh.jpg

Haha, sweet, let me know how that goes. I haven't been able to attempt it myself because my skills aren't polished enough yet, but I hope to accomplish it some day :)

That would be sweeeeeet! Maybe it would be easier if you had some sort of controll panel inside like an arcade game (joystick for movement, buttons to deploy missiles, etc.)

I have a friend who hasn't been able to lucid dream, but constantly has insanely detailed sci-fi dreams where he pilots space ships and fights famous battle from sci-fi lore. He is a super technical guy, an engineer since birth pretty much. He's always been building things throughout his whole life. In his dreams, all of the ships controls work and do different things. He commands entire fleets of ships. A lot of other people though, something as simple as a light switch doesn't function very well while dreaming. I think controls might be really easy to use for some people, but for others it might be easier if the mech moves as an extension of your body. I think there was an anime in the Gundam series where instead of using controls, they stood inside of the cockpit wearing a suit, and they moved their own body to make the mech move, that might be easy, but idk... just some ideas for different approaches. Different things would probably be easier for different people.