BATTLETECH

There's a lot to criticize. In HBS tradition it delivers on about 80% of what they pitched. The load screens have load screens. Performance is choppy. The tutorial is laughable. But… it's a hell of a lot of fun. Battles are wars of attrition. The more you play, the more you learn how the game works, and the more rewarding the battles get. Experimenting with different loadouts reminds me of that first time I played Mechwarrior 2. Considering how much info the UI has to convey, it's quite well done. But the game itself does a terrible job of explaining it. I played for 2 days before I understood the heat UI. I don't agree with the complaints about speed. There's a sprint option, which makes the mech build up evasion. Speed is a strategy. Using the debug mode to 5x speed looks and feels ridiculous. More than animations, the game is slowed by AI turns. The more interesting missions have lots of enemies, and you'll be sitting on your ass for 4-5 minutes at a time waiting. HBS has taken feedback to heart and pledged to add speed tweaks to improve those issues. I just want a way to speed through AI turns, especially in the fog of war. If I can't see them, I don't want to sit there and watch blips for minutes. I like the comic style story and art. You can choose a neutral pronoun, but it has no effect on the gameplay. Why complain? Your motivations, or those of the people that hire you, are hardly presented as "just", let alone as justice warriors. And again… they did so much right. The sound effects of the grinding metal. Being able to ignore the story and hop around the system salvaging mechs and gear. The way character upgrades and abilities can form powerful combos that can turn the tide of an otherwise impossible battle. If you enjoy turn-based tactics. If you like mechs. If you have an SSD (loaddding). This game is worth it, warts and all, even now before the inevitable patches. If you'll excuse me, I have enemy mechs to core and leave smoking ruins.

Put 30 hours into the campaign up till now. Did not have a single crash (up till now, see last paragraph). I am a 25 year fan of the Battletech universe, read all the main novels and own most of the hardware handbooks as well as source books. Built my own mechs on paper when I was young - all that stuff. I like the universe and I am having a ton load of fun with the game up till now. Yeah the balancing is an issue. I hung around for 20 hours with a lance of medium mechs without able to hit the heavy missions to claim salvage and I got a full lance of heavy mechs within 3 hours then. Reasons? Balancing issues in my favor. Found a found missions near the Davion border which fielded heavy mechs but suddenly they only had 30 points of armor on their center torso. Thats basically a one called shot hit. And yes there are also balancing issues which just make you want to kill the game. If you load certain save games within a mission you cannot complete your turn because the game thinks all your mech warriors moved but your turn is still active. Yes the story is okay, not great but it has all the elements from the novels and I am standing right in front of the last campaign mission now. Which by the way suddenly tells you that you need multiple fully equipped lances of mechs and mechwarriors while up till now you were only able to field four mechs at a time and therefore only trained these guys/gals to 10/10/10/10. Sucks yeah but the game is still okay. What screwed it up now is that the last patch to 1.0.2 came out and while I had no crashes in the first 30 hours of the game I had now like five crashes within one hour in different situations (within mission, in menu etc). That sadly puts the game on hold for me at the moment till the next patch. So basically it would be a 5/5 for me as a Battletech fan. Is it for everyone? Nope. It has its edges ... big ones and its not as polished. So if you are not a fan, give it a few patches to become what it's supposed to be.

After about 130 hours: I love it and I will play much more! The primary reason you are going to play this game is the tactical warfare, and it doesn't disappoint. Everything factors in to battles from how you level up your mechwarrior (including your background) to what mechs you take to battle, how you outfit those mechs (armor levels, weapons, equipment, mods), the type of planet you are on (tundra, desert, tropical, etc.), terrain hazards (geothermal, radiation, whirlwinds, etc.) and, of course, your enemies (mechs, vehicles, turrets) and how they are equipped). It's all super fun. Outside of battle you can equip your ship with various upgrades to help you travel faster, heal/repair mechwarriors/mechs faster, raise morale, gain XP faster, etc. There are incidents that occur randomly during travel that, depending on the choices you make, will get you a pro or a con (think FTL). The story isn't great, but it is good and does the job of getting you moving through the universe and battling for upgrades. After you are done with the story the entire universe is open to you allowing you to fly around as a mercenary company and just complete missions which is awesome. Some other random things: the music is great, the graphics are wonderful, the modding community is brilliant with many, many excellent mods that expand on the game. There are negatives. The camera sucks. It gets caught on terrain as you rotate it around pulling it away from your target and at times is difficult to get far back enough or at the right angle. You fight it a lot. The missions (before the Flashpoint expansion) repeat basic modes. There aren't a huge variety of weapons with the Star League weapons seemingly non-existent (which makes sense). It does take some small liberties from traditional Battletech, but nothing significant. Overall, it's a wonderful game that you can lose hundreds of hours in like I have.

If you like turn based tactial war games from the 80s/90s. If you like Mechs. If you love battletech. Buy... That simple, its not a perfect game but you will enjoy yourself and not feel like you wasted money or time.

This is an amazing game for any fan of turn based combat, mecha, and battletech. Only real downsides are that you will rarely find an use for lighter mechs as your lances get heavier. Additionally, there are small bugs and issues that come up in game play that take away from the experience.