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The
young and the 'mechless.
Review by Dave "Marauder" Kratky assisted by Kingpin's input. Dec 2/2000.
Oh man. One more reason to hate Microsoft rolls down the pipe. Special note: Please check out the Mechwarrior 4 MUTIPLAYER review. Let me begin this by saying.. ARGH! Why is it that people can't help but screw up Battletech games? Is there some sort of a curse that haunts my favorite gaming universe??I really don't know what's going on here, but man am I pissed. I LOVE Battletech. I love the books. I collect them. I love the board game. It's a riot. I hounded my local computer guy for MONTHS when I found out that Mechwarrior 2 was coming out. Hell, I spent over $400 on new hardware just to play it. And it was great. The original one got played to hell and back on my 7mhz XT back in the day. I beat the second one multiple times on my 486 and then my Pentium 120. I still drag it out occasionally to play it. So tasty. So good. Then I played Ghost Bear's Legacy. And it was DAMNED FINE! Even better than the original, though shorter. The only major issue I had with MW2 was that the multiplayer it shipped with was unplayable. I had to buy the multiplayer addon. Piss me off. But once I started playing it. Wow. It was fun and there were tons of games and cool things. Then we played Mechwarrior Mercs. It was decent, and had some very cool touches like picking the missions you wanted to play. Took you back to the good 'ol days of Mechwarrior 1....... Then along came Mechwarrior 3 and I was just ecstatic. Oh yes. I played the demo and saw the graphics.... Ohhhhhhhhhh....... Man that's good. Then I played the actual game. Not bad, not great. The briefings sucked, but I could live with that. The single player game was actually very good, as was Pirate's Moon the add-on. However, the multiplayer was horrible. It was unplayable. We first tried it at one of our LANs. We could only get 3 players in on a 10/100 LAN before everyone lagged solid. We had a list of bugs as long as an Atlas' arm before the party was over. Gah. CRAP!. CRAP CRAP CRAP!! SOOOO hurt. And from the thousands of posts on the MW3 forums so were alot of other people. They kinda fixed the game, MONTHS later..... but it's still a little wierd multiplayer, and they've removed all the games. Mostly it's just deathmatch. Which sucks in 'Mech games. *Sigh* Well. Enough bashing MW3, let's bash move onto bashing MW4! First off, where the hell do they get these idiots who act in these games? I was hoping that Full Motion Video was deader than the Daikatana Fan Club members I beat to death last week. But nooooooooooo.... Observe the below screenshots. AMAZING rendered animations and stills. Wow. The 'mechs just look hot and sooooo realistic. Then they overlay pathetic actors. God. And the script? It's funny as hell, hearing some idiot in a monotone yelling "OH GOD! I'M ABOUT TO GET BLOWN TO HELL! HELP ME DR. JONES! MOMMY!" Yeshhhh. I'm going to show a whole bunch of screenshots from the intro movie. So good and so horrifying at the same time. The FMV crap totally ruined the game for me. It's hard to feel serious about the plot when you're laughing at the lousy actors.
OH! And the FMV fun doesn't end there! Rather than having SHORT briefings on the new mission, and your campaign progress, you'll be subjected to the true torture of listening (And watching) up to 4 or 5 minute long clips of idiots giving you unwanted advice. I usually just read the nice concise briefing on my map and leave it at that. I guess they were trying to add to the atmosphere, and you can almost sense it succeeding. Then you listen to these guys reading their lines and you loose all faith and belief in the game. How about weird bugs? I've started a few missions where I jumped into the battlefield with my legs apparently buried in the snow. Good thing I took jumpjets with me, because until I used them I was bogged down. Occasionally I've turned my torso during the training missions and had it stick where it was. No turning back I guess. :( Prepare yourself for some wicked control remapping. The default keys are all over the bloody keyboard. VERY annoying. OH! And there's no way to tell which weapon group you currently have selected, so you'll be spending some time wasting ammo just to figure out which guns you are about to fire. Gah. Considering how deadly missiles were in the first Mechwarrior games, I'm glad they toned them down a little. Regrettably, it's now almost impossible to get a missile lock on a moving (Or even stationary) target, so you'll spend alot of your time just firing missiles at the ground around your enemy trying to land a few on him. I've been told the targeting computer make things a little better... but what's the point of long range bombardment when you can't lock on? ARGH! I like shooting 'em anyhows, 'cause they just look so damned cool.
OH! And the zoom feature! Wow. They've managed to take the worse things about all the zoom reticles I've ever seen and combine them into one, useless POS. (Actually the target reticle is too big and ugly for my tastes to begin with.) This one blocks most of your view, but still doesn't fill your whole screen, which would make it useful. It's really hard to control as well.
How about the gameplay? Well. For the first time ever, it doesn't really feel like you're piloting a mech. Very disappointing. A 'Mech is a 20-100 ton lumbering death machine. It booms when it walks. These 'mechs kinda sashay along lightly and quickly. Reactions feel a little too quick to be believable. You jump in the air and your 'mech doesn't really make much sound when it hits the ground. Deadeye said it well when he compared it to a ballet dancer rather than the 300 pound wrestler that a 'mech is. This game feels a little more like a shooter than a Battletech simulator. The game play reminds me of Heavy Gear 2. Now don't get me wrong, I LIKED HG2. In fact I thought it was superior to MW3........ (Except for the stupid wheels thing.. That was just retarded in multiplayer) BUT! A 2-10 ton armored exoskeleton SHOULD move faster than a damned 'mech. Argh.
Good stuff The graphics. No more need be said. Just keep looking at those screenies and drooling.
There's a wide array of different landscapes to battle across. Some of which, like the swamp and the city are very cool. The city maps lead to some really tense, up close fights.
The new 'mech customization screen is a big improvement. Notice the different colors on the hardpoints? Different hardpoints for different weapons. Very cool. It means that you can't do stupid things, like load your 'mech down with 15 lasers, or nothing but SRMS. I really think this change will vastly improve multiplayer.
The final analysis Overall the game is disappointing. The addition of FMV and rotten actors just killed the whole game for me. The fact that I can't kill the animals and little people on the ground, and that they are actually fuzzy little sprites rather than models sucks as well. Shouldn't have added them. The graphics are amazing, but the game play lacking. Going to go try it multiplayer and I'll let you all know how that is. Overall though, it's not worth buying. MW2 & 3 were much more satisfying and a more complete 'mech experience. There was so much attention payed to certain things in the game, so little payed to others. I honestly wonder if they just ran out of time and money and had to shove it out the door. It's not a horrible game, but it's not a great game either. The jarring discord between amazing and mediocre just kinda spoils it. (The music btw is good.) :) That said, if you've never played any 'mech games before, and are not a big Battletech fan you'll probably enjoy MW4. Perhaps I'm just expecting too much, or I'm too much of a perfectionist. Each time I see a 'mech game I can see the potential lurking in the wings, but it just never materializes. Sad, since Battletech is my favorite universe. *sigh* again. |
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