BATTLETECH

I had hoped this was going to be a good game, but it really fell short in the end. Combat never quite clicked with me. It felt very random and always seemed as though I were missing something crucial about it. It never felt as though there was much variety to the combat either. Graphically, the game felt rather bland. The camera work was more distracting than anything else. It was never responsive and intimate enough to make it capture anything interesting going on. A few of the story oriented characters were kind of interesting, but the lack of voice work and emoting in dialogue scenes really hampered everything that was going on. At no point do I end up getting attached to any of my mechwarriors so their loss is rather meaningless. Mechwarrior stats didn't really feel like they did much of anything so it was hard to get excited about their progression. Many of the ship upgrades did a poor job of explaining their purpose and end up feeling like an artificial roadblock to further progression. After about 14 hours of playtime, I think thats enough to have a decent feel for the rest of the it. Overall, it's simply a lackluster game.

Solid game in Battletech Universe, but not without flaws. The game looks nice, but deviates far too much from Table Top rules. When you change something that was working for over 30 years, you're bound to get into trouble (balance issues). Fortunately most of the questionable choices made by the devs can now be corrected by mods (there are a few mods aiming to restore CBT/TT rules), but a cost of playing solo (multiplayer does not work with mods). CONS: - small maps, favouring medium/close range engagements (mitigated to some degree by mods) - mods not supported in multiplayer (for now) - long loading times (mod Turbine aims to correct that) PROS: - easily moddable (basic parametres, harpoints etc.) - quite a few mods restoring proper mechanics

When I backed Battletech on Kickstarter. while it was delayed a year longer than expected but I feel it was totally worth the wait. I did not encounter all the problems that people that got on launch day before the first patch I love Turn-based tactical games for an example Xcom, Convoy, FTL, and Wastelands 2 etc. This is fairly close to the board game. Updating outdated ways and make it more fluid. It is well done in my opinion. I can see where people that aren't fond of turned based games could get bored or find it not fun. I was in the beta so I knew what the mech battles were like and approved of the flow before the game released with the story. The story is fairly linear which given the time frame and the size of the budget, they were working with I more or less expected. Bugs: that I have found have been the mechs have been pink in one mission and, fine the next mission. There has been one or two hard freezes. That's it for problems I have had. I have finished the game and I'm in the process of finishing it a second time. I did try the Roguetech mod and ran into issues and backed it out. I may try it out again after this run. I recommend this game if you aren't expecting a replica of MechCommander. If you are not expecting a fast-paced game to keep your attention. If you are not expecting an out of this world story arc. If you like turned based strategy games with three-story-tall robots go for it. If you like the board game back in the day, go give it a shot.

My favorite video game has not changed since 1999. But now it's Battletech. Take X-Com, FTL, and Mechcommander 2 and throw them in a blender and out pops Battletech. I've only experienced one bug after 40 hours of gameplay, but they've had time to patch it plenty since release. I should probably indicate that I only played the campaign for an hour or so before I discovered Career Mode. I'm planning on getting the season pass afer my next paycheck.

My in-game experience: Launch game, sit through a story and then get greeted by a very odd and peculiar character generation system. It is a system that seems rather messy and very forced. Sit through it none the less. Sift through creating a character and then get greeted by more story that seems even more messy and forced than what was previously provided. Fine, we're all here to destroy mechs and forge an empire by any means necessary. That's what mercs do so it was done. Have a decent time running through contracts with a crew while learning game dynamics all the while getting annoyed by poor cinematics and mechwarrior chatter. Disabled all of the cinematic and camera options and disabled chatter to hope to get some peace and try to start a good Battletech experience. Work through the UI, story and art direction and start to get a better hang of dynamics and crew management but find that life as a merc commander is tough while being surrounded by a large group of scalawags. Everyone still manages on get along on the oddly crewed ship and eventually it lands a straight forward and simple convoy intercept job. Try to run through the intercept contract as it was low leveled but the the crew got overrun pretty badly yet still pulled valuable inlet about the area in the process. Revisit the contract with fresh warrior clones and 3d printed duplicates of the lost mechs. Took the intel gained on the previous encounter and placed mechs along the path to the convoy destination and then waited to intercept the convoy. And waited... And waited... And waited for 55 turns. Crew realizes that they are living within a simulation and start to panic. I start to panic. I close the game, write a bad review and turn off my computer. Live strong and hearty in the afterlife little warriors.