BATTLETECH

I pre-ordered the game and so far I'm very satisfied. But, there are a few problem - I've encountered a crush that not only happened just after a tough mission, but also prevented starting the game without a copmlete comp reset. Also, the tutorial should be a little more detailed - there are no explanations about Initiative, the use of Rserve and some more. I saw some complaints about the UI, but I have not encountered any problem even palying on my laptop with my touch-pad. I was introduced to the BattleTech universe with the MechCommander games, and this game is close - with more detailed managment. Overall - I'm satisfied and hope for more extensions and more games exploring the timeline.

A couple of hours into the game now, and so far I like it. Luckily I was spared any technical issues. The gameplay is solid, if a tad difficult to get into, as the tutorials are very, very rudimentary. I recommend watching some YT videos for that. Story is nothing special so far, but the presentation is well done - I especially love the music. There are some rough edges of course. Loading times could be shorter, and some things in the game could be more comfortable. For example, once you have selected what work (repairs/refitting) is to be done on one of the mechs, you can't edit the workload without reentering everything - that's annoying. But other than that this game is everything I hoped it to be.

I'm totally hooked by the gameplay. Sure there seems to be a memory leak and some performance issues. But this is not EA we are talking about. It's a small studio that will surely have a much harder time testing all the various hardware configurations out there. As soon the bugs get sorted out what's really not to like? Wait out a couple of patches before you rate a game like this down just because you had a crash or two. Its just out a couple of days. Seriously guys give it a chance!

The contract: eliminate a lance of enemy mechs trying to secure a beachhead on the local planet. My mercenary lance advances north towards a hill and makes sensor contact with the primary targets. We engage one of the enemies, a Wolverine (a medium mech suited for close range combat). His buddies are about a turn away still putzing around on top of the hill. Then, a light scout mech comes at us from the west. We take a turn to blow it away completely (some laser and autocannon fire to the center torso puts it out of action for good), but then its buddies show up and use long range missiles (LRMs) to soften us up before closing in to start using their heavy weapons. At this point, I choose to press on up the hill, hoping to wipe out the original targets before their reinforcements close in. We take out the Wolverine, and engage the other three - a Cicada, another Wolverine and a Manticore tank. We use our jump jets to maneuver ourselves up the hill, keeping out of line of sight of the reinforcements while pounding the primary targets. Eventually, we take them down, but our mechs are all shot to hell. The commander's cockpit is a sauna as his weapons have generated an enormous amount of heat, the guy in the Vindicator is about to pass out from injuries sustained during the fight (taking a laser to the dome isn't very healthy), while the Spider left its right arm and most of it right torso section about three hundred meters back at the base of the hill after taking a couple of good PPC shots. At this point, I have a choice: do I engage the reinforcements, or do I withdraw? I choose to call in the dropship and hightail it out of there. Sure, I could stick around, but then I'd start losing mechs and limbs (and probably mechwarriors too). At least this way, we get partial payment for partial contract completion, our withdrawal is ruled as "good-faith", and our mechs only take a couple of days to fix up (except for the Spider).

This is a game I've been waiting to play for decades as there has never really been a solid video game interpretation of the table top source material. Thankfully it lives up to a lot of my hopes and succeeds at being a deep tactical experience that is a lot of fun. The single player campaign is lengthy and open-ended and the story is well represented through nicely drawn cutscenes. The multiplayer as of right now is a little underdeveloped but still entertaining. This is a must buy for Battletech fans and strategy fans and worth checking out if you were someone who was only familiar with the source material through MechWarrior or MechCommander. The only reason I can't give it five stars is because there are some optimization issues that still need to be worked out but the first round of fixes is already available and hopefully things will steadily improve. The most exciting thing about this game for me is it serves as a solid base for expansion and I'm looking forward to further adventures in the Battletech universe.