BATTLETECH - Mercenary Collection

I was introduced to BattleTech in Mechwarrior 2 and my interest is a good storyline. Having said that: Pros: -Rich linear storyline, but you can "pause" your storyline for a bit to make money and get better tech. -You can choose no storyline and simply play Mercenary mode from the start. -Excellent graphics and sound. - There are a LOT of maps and terrain types giving a richer experience. - The NPCs have a decent amount of lore making it a more in depth experience. -Faithful to the tabletop version without having to roll dice manually. -If you are good with understanding your Mech capabilities and utilize the classes, weapons and pilots well you will do much better. Cons: - You will need a beast of a PC to play. Don't bother with the minimum requirements PC. This game isn't well optimized, but it's beautiful. - Sometimes the action is rather monotonous. Many maps are similar or the same. - If you are new to the BattleTech universe the learning curve can be challenging. Getting to know the Mech tech, pilot skills and movements combined with environmental factors can be daunting. - Sometimes the RNG is bad, but what game isn't? I loved MW2 and MW5 and realized this wasn't an FPS going into it. It wasn't the same as the other two titles mentioned, but I found it was more engrossing because of the storyline.

It always bugs me when people define BattleTech/MechWarrior games as “big stompy robots shooting each other”. They’re not robots, they’re *BattleMechs*. The universe of BattleTech is so much deeper than that crude definition implies. The MechWarrior and MexhCommander titles provided a glimpse of that universe but neither were remotely similar to the authentic tabletop experience. This game finally fills that void. Translating the tabletop experience to a video game was always going to be tricky - what do you change, what do you keep - but Harebrained Schemes has produced something that feels both authentic AND accessible, which is a superb result. When the game first launched it wasn’t without its faults, various bugs, etc, but HBS has, as they always do, continued to work on the issues and the game is in a very good place now. The graphics aren’t photo realistic but they do the job very well. Sound effects and music are solid. Ignore the one star reviews, they’re just mad about Dekker (for those who aren’t familiar with the joke, Dekker is one of your starting pilots. Players would joke that it seemed he was way more likely to die than your other pilots. HBS eventually release stats that showed that, on average, Dekker really does die way more often than other pilots. They swear it’s not deliberate.)

This could have been a excellent game, but as it stands it's pretty rubbish. There are for so many broken missions. Mainly convoy missions, so avoid when possible. The skull differculty macanic is broken and means nothing. A one skull can be a lot harder than a four skull. The more you play Battlemech the more you realise there is something not right with this game. It feels really off. Very long loading times so get yourself a SSD. My advice would be not to pay full price for this, it's not worth it, pick up in a sale for no more then £5

This is an excellent entry into the franchise, the only complaint is that the load times are pretty long for some things which is annoying.

The game is set in a fascinating region of the periphery. The campaign game should be done FIRST because it tells the lore made just for this installment. The voice acting is good & Hare-Brained Schemes' version of the original tabletop game is well-designed. The expansions (mostly) add good material for the game though the advanced weaponry from the 'SECRET SOURCE' dramatically alter combat. The achievements are well-named & well-planned offering a variety of easy to moderately difficult achievements + a few that are truly a challenge. Overall, I LOVE the game ... BUT recently the number of crashes has become beyond frustrating. Crashing three times in the second mission of a new career is ridiculous. The bugs that cause complete game crashes after being released so long ago leave me to wonder what level of dedication HBS has to improving & maintaining this game for the long haul. I played this game on tabletop when it first came out & many, many (all) of its computer game spin-offs to date. The flavor of this title is top notch, but the bugs are extremely frustrating. I WISH I could rate this offering a full 5 stars, but until the bugs are fixed, I cannot.