Mech Games
- Thread starter Paragon Fury
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You'll probably never see it the Origanil Battletech owner got their hands on the game and looks like they are planning on resetting the series and making more traditional Mechwarrior games. I really hope they can get Mechwarrior 5 off the ground.Canid117 said:
I loved Mech Assault and I wish more mech games got developed. Maybe it's not a very popular genre.
First, I must point out that I deeply love Battletech. It remains the only Tabletop game I've ever managed to sit through playing more than once and it kicked off a love affair with humanoid tanks that has never really ended.Naheal said:
That said, there exists a problem with Battletech. Namely that the game, even a very small one (say a pair of lances) takes forever to play. This is generally because the game gets bogged down a great deal in minutae and dice-rolls. Let's say for example, that I'm using a Catapult, a Heavy Inner Sphere artillery mech and I want to use both my LRM-15 launchers on a single target. In order to resolve this attack, I have to roll on each launcher in turn to see if I hit (after calculating the threshold I must meet by taking my base gunnery skill, adding range and movement modifiers, and god forbid, the presence or effect or Artimis IV targeting systems, active probes or combat command computer links), and then roll to see how many missiles hit and then roll to determine where each cluster of missiles hit. This amounts to up to 10 dice rolls just to resolve a single attack by a single mech (one roll for each launcher to determine if you connect at all, one roll for each launcher to determine the number of missiles that hit, and up to three rolls to determine where each cluster of missiles lands). It worked perfectly fine for me, but when playing a single very small game takes 2 - 3 hours from start to finish, you aren't going to attract much of an audience.
Of course, there have been many games based in the battletech universe. There was the isometric action game for the Genesis, there were a pair of strategy games (Mechcommander series), there have been four different in-cockpit games (the SNES classic Mechwarrior and the PC titles 2 - 4), there have even been third persion action shooters (Mechassault, of which I am aware of three, two for the Xbox and one for the DS). The trouble was, the mechanics that worked on the board game have not really worked since in games when directly translated. Mechwarrior 3 was almost certainly the most faithful entry in the series and yet it ran into the very real problem that landing a shot with hitscan weapons was painfully easy. Very high damage coupled with very low armor quantities that worked in the board game resulted in regular instant death in the online version of the game. Worse still, the only difference between two 55 ton chassis with identical weapons was cosmetic alone as every mech handled the same in a given weight class. Mechwarrior 4 caused a great deal of fan outcry since only the core premise of the rule set was maintained, and yet was probably the best implementation of the Battletech universe into a game. Slot layout, different handling characteristics, differences in base heat management and differences in available special electronic options ensured that different mechs did indeed work differently, even if they were identically outfitted.
I'd have to say that, in the end, Battletech may have done it first, but it hardly did it best. The system that was presented made for a painfully slow game on the tabletop and resulted in fundamentally broken gameplay when faithfully translated to a video game.
All that said, I would deeply love to see a new Turn Based (I'd even settle for a good RTS) strategy game based on battletech. In fact, I want that almost as much as I want a new mechwarrior.
And, while we're at it, I'd like to see the same for Heavy Gear.
Chromehounds was a good game? Sorry I just never played it and I remember a lot of my friends hating on it when it first came out.
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yea I want another Mechassault or mechwarrior game quite badly, I thought the original Mechassault game for the original was quite good,(It even had fully destructible environments). I would love to see one for this generation.
but really I just want an excuse to rampage around in a Mad Cat again
yea I want another Mechassault or mechwarrior game quite badly, I thought the original Mechassault game for the original was quite good,(It even had fully destructible environments). I would love to see one for this generation.
but really I just want an excuse to rampage around in a Mad Cat again
I loved that game! I think they made a second one as well, but i never got my hands on it. It would be awesome if they made another one. It was the only Mech game i really got into, admittedly i didn't really play that much of the other Mech games at the time.dekkarax said:I had Heavy Gear as a kid. I'd love to see a new one.
Mechwarrior 5 will get of the ground, its got a ton of Mech fanboy nostalgia behind it, it will sell, they would be stupid to scape the game.Slaanax said:
Armored core 4 (There is no 5) is really fast paced, and would be a good game if they actually told you everything about the game. All the parts have completely meaningless stats that are impossible to understand, and there are a bunch of flight mechanics that it makes no effort to tell you, but that you can't win anything in multiplayer without.wouldyoukindly99 said:
And also, the Armored Core series is nothing like Chromehounds. Chromehounds is much more slow paced, and more strategy based. AC is just OMGPEWPEWPEWKAPOWYBOOM!!!
They did indeed make a Heavy Gear II. Activision made it after they lost the Mechwarrior liscense to Microprose (who made Mechwarrior 3). Heavy Gear has much the same problem as the early mechwarrior games though in that the game can be readily broken. I remember playing against a bot who's battle value was about 70,000 and in spite of idiotic AI getting ruined. His shots all critically punched through my armor, he had lethal accuracy and no matter WHAT I did I would just get murdered every time.TheComedown said:I loved that game! I think they made a second one as well, but i never got my hands on it. It would be awesome if they made another one. It was the only Mech game i really got into, admittedly i didn't really play that much of the other Mech games at the time.dekkarax said:I had Heavy Gear as a kid
In fact, Heavy Gear II gave me a happy moment when I finally realized what it must have felt like to be one of those guys going up against one of the gundam thingies in Gundam Wing. After carefully chipping away with my own heavy autocannon for what seemed like hours, I ran out of ammunition and the bot didn't seem any worse for wear. That left me with three options left - my pack gun (a glorified water hose in this situation), my vibro-axe, or my extra large pack of super heavy missiles. No enemy in the game had ever taken more than TWO and survived and I assumed my pack of 10 in the mech's weakened state would have to work. I popped on my alternate transportaton mode, managed to close while evading fire and at point blank range, once I knew I couldn't POSSIBLY miss, I unloaded the entire rack. The explosion took my own pristine mech to blinky red health, critical systems informed me they were taking a vacation and the gear was thrown to the ground. Still I assumed my gamble had worked as the opposing gear was nowhere to be found. Then, as my own gear struggled to it's feet, the bot appeared from the cloud of smoke and promptly murdered me.
I don't know about 2, but i never found Heavy Gear that broken at all, controls weren't to great (but you where in a mech, so maybe you could pass that off as an attempt at realism as you had to use pretty much the entire keyboard), But i never encountered such bad problems with the ai or those armor piecing crits.Eclectic Dreck said:They did indeed make a Heavy Gear II. Activision made it after they lost the Mechwarrior liscense to Microprose (who made Mechwarrior 3). Heavy Gear has much the same problem as the early mechwarrior games though in that the game can be readily broken. I remember playing against a bot who's battle value was about 70,000 and in spite of idiotic AI getting ruined. His shots all critically punched through my armor, he had lethal accuracy and no matter WHAT I did I would just get murdered every time.TheComedown said:I loved that game! I think they made a second one as well, but i never got my hands on it. It would be awesome if they made another one. It was the only Mech game i really got into, admittedly i didn't really play that much of the other Mech games at the time.dekkarax said:I had Heavy Gear as a kid
In fact, Heavy Gear II gave me a happy moment when I finally realized what it must have felt like to be one of those guys going up against one of the gundam thingies in Gundam Wing. After carefully chipping away with my own heavy autocannon for what seemed like hours, I ran out of ammunition and the bot didn't seem any worse for wear. That left me with three options left - my pack gun (a glorified water hose in this situation), my vibro-axe, or my extra large pack of super heavy missiles. No enemy in the game had ever taken more than TWO and survived and I assumed my pack of 10 in the mech's weakened state would have to work. I popped on my alternate transportaton mode, managed to close while evading fire and at point blank range, once I knew I couldn't POSSIBLY miss, I unloaded the entire rack. The explosion took my own pristine mech to blinky red health, critical systems informed me they were taking a vacation and the gear was thrown to the ground. Still I assumed my gamble had worked as the opposing gear was nowhere to be found. Then, as my own gear struggled to it's feet, the bot appeared from the cloud of smoke and promptly murdered me.
Nobody in the games publishing industry cares unless it can sell two to three million copies every year. I predict that we will never see it and if we do it will be Mechwarrior 5: Can I has Call of Duty edition.TheComedown said:
I absolutely love the PC Mechwarrior series. I love the blend of sim and pure adrenaline pumping action you get with those games, and all the fun strategy you can take towards victory not to mention customizing your own mech towards your personal play-style preferences. The ability to target specific points on an enemy even as you have to manage such things as your own armor, ammunition, speed, range, weapons overheating, coolant fluid, radar settings, etc. It sounds complicated, but it just helped create the illusion that you really were piloting one of those behemoth beasts.
I also really loved the pacing of those games and the lumbering speed heavier mechs would take. Many other mech series, especially from Japan, tend to be fast and frantic. But I just sorta feel that takes away from the simulation feel of these games. In Mechwarrior it feels like you're piloting some terrifying evolution of the Panther or Tiger tanks. Slow, lumbering beasts of war that aren't fancy or marvels of technical engineering so much as the steady evolution of warfare taken to new heights. Plus the slower pace on heavy mechs only helped increase the tension sometimes, as when the cockpit is flashing warnings, your armor is red, weapons are running low and there's this sense of urgency where every second is an eternity and each and every shot counts.
Been playing a lot of Mechwarrior: Living Legends lately as well as some Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries. Both damn fine games. Hope Mechwarrior 5 turns out alright.
Jade Falcon for life!
I also really loved the pacing of those games and the lumbering speed heavier mechs would take. Many other mech series, especially from Japan, tend to be fast and frantic. But I just sorta feel that takes away from the simulation feel of these games. In Mechwarrior it feels like you're piloting some terrifying evolution of the Panther or Tiger tanks. Slow, lumbering beasts of war that aren't fancy or marvels of technical engineering so much as the steady evolution of warfare taken to new heights. Plus the slower pace on heavy mechs only helped increase the tension sometimes, as when the cockpit is flashing warnings, your armor is red, weapons are running low and there's this sense of urgency where every second is an eternity and each and every shot counts.
Been playing a lot of Mechwarrior: Living Legends lately as well as some Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries. Both damn fine games. Hope Mechwarrior 5 turns out alright.
Jade Falcon for life!