BATTLETECH

I cannot recall the number of times that my 80%+ hit chance missed my target...probably about 80% of the time. RNG in this game seems extremely skewed to be a detriment to the player but always in the favor of the AI. Plus, there are huge issues with head hits on your 'Mechs from LRM/SRMs and the devs are currently ignoring that their programing is wrong. Their official reply on the Paradox forums is that if the first missile misses your head, then all other missiles will NOT make a head shot - but either that first missile is extremely lucky most of the times or the rule is not being followed by the program. Missile head hits happen often - so much that in one match I had a pilot sustain three injuries from LRM head hits by the fourth round. And these were from LRM turrets. Aside from the RNG, this game is somehow a resource hog. Stuttering happens constantly during actions like when my ‘Mech lands a crippling hit on an enemy on my GeForce 1060, yet the graphics are 2010 era at best. Loading a map can take upwards to 3+ minutes for no good reason. The maps look nice, but they are just rendering textures and trees. This become old quickly when you want to reload a save point because your pilot was killed by a head shot in cover with 3+ evasion ticks, and it takes so long to load! This game could be fun but the missing features (no minimap?), laggy performance, and RNG just makes it more frustrating overall. For now, I would advise not purchasing this game until they release a patch to fix these issues.

Pros: Nails the theme and feel of the setting. I enjoyed the story and it feels very authentic to tabletop battletech. I love the art style and how the story was presented. Often times its a little over the top, but that's very appropriate to the setting. Cons: Absurdly high system requirements for a turn based game. Some of this may be due to the choice of unity, several other recent games using unity also seem to use way more ram/disk space than is reasonable. I loaded up the game for the first time and discovered I didn't meet min specs to run it (only 6 gigs of ram in my 10 year old computer). That being said it runs reasonably well with no mods and everything turned down to medium/low. Most technical issues people have complained about are probably related to ram usage issues while trying to run the game on higher settings with 8gigs of ram or less. I've seen up to 15gigs used without settings turned down. Game only uses ~5-6 on lower settings. There aren't enough random missions or variety of random missions, giving the game low replay value after completing it once. Flashpoint is coming soon and may fix this problem. For me the mod community has keep me engrossed after thoroughly enjoying playing through the campaign. other thoughts: I have played the original table topgame a handful of times and many of the other battletech computer games over the years. Some of that experience may have smoothed over issues other have had with the tutorial, but I had no issues with it other than wishing i could skip it after the first time. which thanks to patches you now can! Wow thats a large blob of cons for a game I thoroughly enjoyed and have been playing for hundreds of hours. The technical issues didn't take away from my fun at all. I completed the entire campaign with a below min spec system without crashing or encountering any noticeable bugs. Load times are a little long, but more ram or turning down settings can really help.

I find this game to be boring. Combat tries to emulate NewXCOM after a fashion, but it's bogged down by endless animations,. As far as the fights themselves go: Basically you move your mechs around and, once they meet a rival mech, they pummel each other until one gives out. It almost feels like a chore & I grew bored of it quickly The story itself is nothing to write home about either. I was not a fan of BT lore beforehand, and I'm still not one afterwards. It's as bland and clicheish as you might expect, and I find it hard to give a flying duck about any of the characters. I daresay the game would work better if the overarching story was scrapped and it just emulated Battle Brothers. I give it a 3/5 because it's not exactly a bad game. It has some nice individual features. But overall the whole thing feels really, really bland.

This game has (had?) such a great potential. Rich universe, tactical combat, company management... HBS got only combat part right. I didn't like management, it's boring. Upgrade ship? For what? Like, three metrics that don't actually mean much? Why not add weapons workshop to manufacture upgraded weaponry? Like, you cannibalise three LRM 10 to get one LRM10+? 'Mech research lab to create your own mods for 'Mechs? I've got so many questions about everything. Why didn't HBS bother? Interstellar travel is bullshit. Loading screens are outrageously long. Combat is great, though.

Overall, It's a fun game. The best part is when on the brink of utter failure to get the headshot on that last enemy mech with the last functioning weapons and savoring that win. The voice acting stinks, but that's normal for these mech games. Trust me, we don't play it for the voice acting. However, the load times for a simple skirmish are grueling. Unless you have a gaming pc with Battletech on a SSD, each battle can take a while to load. Personally, I still like the game.