BATTLETECH

I hadn't seen a mech game in forever, so I was fairly excited to try this. It's turn based tactics, not real time, which is fine for me. My biggest issues are: - Waiting. About 75% of my time playing was spent waiting on other units to move. I can only go get coffee so often, assuming I could even do that; you have to sit and watch so you don't miss anything. - Missing. None of my pilots can hit anything. The trick here seems to be to ignore big damage weapons, like the PPC, Autocannon 20s, etc, because you only get one shot. (Yes, you only get one shot with the Auto20. I don't get it either.) You need multiple machine guns or flamers. Lots of little bitty hits. It's spray and pray every single round you use ranged. - Melee. I don't know why melee is a thing in this or why it's the VAST majority of attacks. Not even punching. Mechs just walk up and headbutt each other. Steel doesn't work that way. You'd damage your own mech as much as the other guy. They didn't have a proper testing team or these things would have been caught. Skip this one.

This game had a lot of potential but it doesn't live up to it. Battles are slow, boring, tedious affairs; and what initial promise of strategy there is, feels unfulfilled most of the time. If you like looking at ugly mechs slowly battle on ugly terrain with a battle system that even a chimpanzee could conquer with an adequate amount of banging on a keyboard and mouse, be my guest. Just close your eyes and pick any other strategy game from gog's "on sale" list.

its a great tactical strategy game. the game depth is amazing. but this game needs mods in order to properly shine. it also has frame drop or stuttering issues and was abandoned by developers.

This game was designed for people who know and love the "BattleTech" name; in particular, those who long for the old days when there were 5 factions and no double heat sinks. The gameplay is decent for a turn-based squad tactical game. You control a handful of 'Mechs, usually taking on 2-5 times your number of enemies, in smaller groups. Though there's a bit of variety, and a handful of special missions, most of your missions come from one of a few types, and it fairly rapidly gets pretty samey. The combat itself is fun enough, with several different ways that you can configure your 'Mechs and tactics to employ. The maps are quite large by the standards of the genre and the weapons relatively long-ranged, which is nice - though melee attacks are devastating, should you choose to go that way. The "campaign" gameplay is pretty meh, managing equipment and pilots while choosing upgrades for your ship that aren't enormously influential. I didn't much like the storyline, which interweaves a few interesting story missions with a bunch of missions where you are inexplicably a mercenary (in order to allow you to work for whichever faction you most like, but honestly just because old BattleTech grognards like mercenaries). If you're a huge fan of squad-based tactics or a huge fan of old-school Battletech who's a decent fan of the genre, I'd recommend this game. Otherwise, I'd probably pass it up.

This is a very technical combat game. You could spend hours just customizing your team. But there is very poor documentation; you probably have to consult the FASA documentation or experiment to find some of the answers. For example, jump jet details, accuracy adjustment factors, etc. Is the small laser also an energy weapon? Why aren't the individual stat-based bonuses documented in-game until they are unlocked? The only thing resembling a manual is a basic UI tutorial made during the kickstarter, which is useless both due to its lack of technical details and its obsolescence, so it's probably just as well it isn't included. As to the UI, it's white, at a fixed size. Even with white or light backgrounds (snow and desert). The font's 6 looks just like an 8. Combat results are represented as tiny floaters around the target, which, even if your eyesight is good enough, you can miss because the camera moves away. Did I actually hit? Was I actually hit? Where (not represented by the floaters)? Having a combat log with detailed dice roll results would have made this a much better game. Keyboard support in general is very poor. Of course that's not to mention the long load times, magic ambushes, poor audio (the "computer" voice sounds twice as loud as everyone else: I can save my ears or I can hear the others, but not both). It's a modern multiplayer, where you need to be signed into an account to play. And you need mods and/or undocumented config file edits to get rid of the repetitive movies and crew interjections (We're running out of money! We have to repair the mechs! (no, we have plenty of money and the mechs are barely scratched)). The only reason I give this game 4 stars is that it is what I wanted: a deep, modern, turn-based mech game, with native Linux support. It could be deeper, but I'll accept that, and only 4 mechs, and a very small star map. Users may have fixed some issues with mods/docs, but not all, and I don't want to waste time looking/testing.