BATTLETECH

I was a late backer of the game and i appreciated the idea of a turn based Battletech tactical game with light rpg elements. The game delivered upon launch, i really liked the Campaign so far and the Soundtrack is nothing short of fantastic. The Mercenary side of the game was a bit lightweight to me as you cash in like crazy and you really need to intentionally play a selfwrecking combatstyle to have the expenses for repair and maintenance eat up your rewards. For the inexperienced player it may certainly be a boon but i felt a lack of challenge. I bought 2 of the 3 expansions, Flashpoint and Urban Warfare - to me Heavy Metal is the unworthy cashgrab conclusion and i really do not like its pay to win Mech Arms Race character. Also the game made my old PC from 2011 really steam under its burden and i did at that time not mod the game with the several Battletech mods availalbe that only add to the burden. Recently i bought myself a new up to date PC and now it runs with ease anything i throw at it and i started to include mods to my gaming. WOW - what a change to anything, what a way better challenge, a way better Gameplay. Especially the "Battletech 3025 Extended Commanders Edition" is a must and THE MOD in my eyes that takes the game up to whole new Level with its way better AI, the many additonal Vehicles and Mechs, the Galaxy at WAR part with the whole Inner Sphere at your Hand to play in and so much more. This game in itself is worth the money - especially when on Special Offer - and the mods keep the game alive long after you finished its original content. Kudos to both Harebrained Schemes and the Modders that made this game possible! I hope for another Battletech sometimes in the future...

Apparently someone thought it's a great idea to make the difficulty have a variance of 2 stars, so a 3 star job can be a 1, can be a difficulty 5. In general, I've experienced two possible outcomes - you either breeze through the mission with no issues at all, or you get mauled by 2 lances + some support units. There is no tactics in this at that point - you're trying to lure the enemy and split them - not gonna hapen. Trying to pick one enemy off? Nope, he'll soak up the damage, loose limbs, fall down and STILL survive - while his friends maul you. Finally the campaign. From the mechanics point of view, it's a complete failure. You need to progress into campaign to make the game playable - except this will make ALL the missions harder with no option to pick easier ones. Your mech suffered heavy damage? No problem, we'll just need a month or more to repair it. Simple rearming can take weeks. This game is a festival of wasted potential.

This game has severe problems with performance, game design and saving. It regularly "lost" my saves, only for me to start the campaign over. I was unable to proceed to the first story mission (after the unskippable tutorial), as the game would not let me progress. No error, no feedback, just nothing. Clicking on the button did not do anything and I was not able to either leave the system or load an earlier save. The game is _slow_, and by that I mean release-day XCom2 slow. Every animation seems to run at 75% speed, the camera zoom in for (not interesting kill shots) and there are just so many 1-2s breaks where control gets wrested from you for a camera pan or zoom, an animation, a title showing up, etc. The game also always runs at 100% GPU but it's really questionable why (it looks okay, but I've seen better). Loading times are horrible and some loading screens seem to miss an image or anything. All you get is a tiny progress loading indicator in the top left. 21:9 screens are half-assedly supported. There is quite a bit of information hidden in the UI but, again, it's not really explained. Why are my hit chances so low? What is the bar below the heat bar? What are the separated fields in the armor/HP bar? I think there might be a good game in there; I was really intrigued by the economic game and squad management but I never got there :( I'll wait until it's fully patched and has maybe one or two expansions before trying it again. PS: On the plus side: I've never been a fan of the inner sphere mech designs (just look at the drawings in the tech readouts, *shudder*) but HBS made them look really great in this game! PPS: preordered it, only to find that the game was discounted by 10% on launch day. Support gladly offered to refund the game, so I could repurchase it at a discount, however I turned that into a full refund after running into these game breaking bugs.

Battletech is a game about waiting. You'll wait a lot. A heck of a lot. You'll wait for it to boot up, you'll wait for your save game to load, you'll wait for your squad's animations in combat to finish, you'll wait for the enemies animations to finish(goog god will you ever spend time on this), and you'll wait while travelling from one system to another. I really can't overstate how much wasted time you'll spend watching as animations and cut scenes playout. Near the end of the game you'll easily spend two minutes watching enemy 'mechs move, shoot and other activities while you can do nothing but sit and watch. This waiting is without a doubt, the largest thing holding this game back. The second thing causing Battletech difficulties is how very little is actually explained. The intro might be just about the worst intro I have seen in the last decade of gaming. It is so wholly lacking, that you'll wonder if the game is finished. Then there are the midgame and endgame concepts that recieve almost no words at any point to help you understand them, you're just expected to figure it out. The third, and by no means last thing that causes a problem, is that the game is rather repetitive. By the time you are about 6 hours in, you've really seen almost all there is to see. The enemies don't vary too much after that. By this I mean is that sure, they get different names, but overall, they still play the same, they just have bigger numbers. All in all, definitely get the game if you're looking for something in the Battletech universe, it is quite possibly the best option you'll ever get. But if you're looking for deep, involving strategy, this is about a middle level, not bad, but not amazing.

I heard that the game has its cracks and rough edges, so I was cautious going in, but after putting 50 hours into it I can safely say that I'm incredibly pleased with what I ended up with! VISUALLY, the Mechs look good and animate convincingly. Environments are nicely detailed as well. I love the 2D art and the overall aesthetic. The UI is efficient and easy to look at. It's a very consistent package. Only criticism here is the way the 3D faces are rendered, something feels a bit.. off about it, but it doesn't detract from the experience for me. AUDIO-wise, the sounds for the weaponry are satisfying. The noise radiating from Mechs on the field when the camera gets close to them is a nice touch, and they're appropriately heavy-sounding. I love the little lines pilots spout during missions. The music is just fantastic and sets the mood perfectly. The STORY has been pretty good, I'm invested enough in it. I enjoy the characters and interactions in particular, especially the (sometimes very wholesome) events that occur between missions. The BattleTech universe is just fascinating to me and the game does a good job making you feel like part of it. GAMEPLAY has been fun and well-balanced. Can be difficult, but I haven't hit any walls. I've gotten plenty of use out of (nearly) every Mech I've come across, and there's multiple ways to tackle almost every situation. The economic/planning-side is neat - there's a subtle risk/reward factor to every little decision you make in terms of budget/Mech-builds/squad-composition/etc. There's a great modding community as well! PERFORMANCE on the other hand is still a but mixed... I experience drops and stutters that I can't explain even on this final version of the game. Still completely playable, but not optimal. One crash so far, but no real progress lost. MY HARDWARE: Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 6GB. Overall, I'd say the game is currently a solid 4.5. I can't give it that, so I'm rounding up to 5.