MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries

Great game, assuming you're using mods of which there are plenty.

If you enjoyed the old MechWarrior games pick this up, you won’t be disappointed. Managed to get my old flight stick working, and it felt like the 90’s! I have two complaints. Galaxy being the ONLY way you can play multiplayer, and the data collection they attempt to do. But since they provide no LAN, I provide no WAN. Gotta love firewalls : ) I’m still going to give this 5 stars despite my gripes. I'm an old school Mechwarrior fan, and this hits all the right marks. The single player game is great. The Mechs look awesome, the music is ROCK, and it’s just fun as hell. Worth a buy in my opinion.

Crashes: -spawning off the map and infinitely falling down -Unreal engine: Fatal errors (from running 1 mod, multiple mods, no mods... on an INCONSISTENT pattern. I can't tell how to avoid these crashes. -There's no fixes for it in the cfg/ini. -Its ruined playthroughs where I've gotten Assault mechs after ascending from having only light mechs available The tempting selling points: +Obtain mechs faster than in MechWarrior Online +Weapons +MWO mech models More downsides, not crash-related: -No Clan mechs -Poor dropship hub -UI design -Bobbing animation is too smooth -Grind to obtain and maintain mechs -Multi-stage Mission Operations are a joke. You could be forced to face surprise waves you can't beat and the mission will then be a matter of just fleeing to the dropship. These encounters are pretty random but are soul destroying with what mechs you bring in to the final mission. -Mech 'feet' do not align to surfaces -Level loading times (1 minute+ load-up) -Level buildings by walking through them without any pushback to make you feel buildings aren't made of Jenga bricks........ (can be funny though, but not to me) -Mods have many great features the game needs. -MECHWARRIOR LIVING LEGENDS 2 WAS BEING DEVELOPED ON THIS GAME'S ENGINE AS A MOD BUT NOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW - ITS A SEPARATE GAME PROJECT NOW because of MW5's instability. (Its crash-related but in terms of the mod community it shows the game is worth abandoning and either playing MWO, World of Tanks, WarThunder... or simply waiting for Living Legends 2 like I am.) ...... somehow if you're computer doesn't have issues with UE4 than you may be able to play the game without crashes. The game is still clunky though if you do play it, and I don't feel like this is worth it compared to continuing the Garage Grind in MechWarrior Online. The grind in MWO is faster than the heartbreak of losing progress in MW5... So 2 stars is this game's deserved rating.

I remember playing this game pretty close to when it came out and I wasn't all that impressed. The bevy of logistics components and overall feel of the game just wasn't there for me, but I decided to give it another shot a few years down the road. They've done a good job rolling out global improvements along side their DLCs and I think the game is in a much better place as it currently stands. Adding to that, they baked in options to mitigate some of the logistical aspects of the game. I know some people really like these but to me, it's just tedium and distracting from the real meat of the experience. Additionally, you've got a pretty decent array of difficulty settings to work with as well. There are still a few things about the game design I'm not overly keen on but the overall experience is a pretty engaging one.

This game has been out for 3+ years now, has 4+ DLC campaigns and multiple "patches" and yet they still can't fix the serious bugs? We all know the AI is spotty at best, and the attempt to sweep that under the rug by allowing you to jump from mech to mech is a huge fail. Why is it a huge fail? When the mech you vacated goes dead, pilotless, you are effectively down a mech. This has been a problem for awhile now and they, with this latest DLC (Rasalhague) have actually made it worse. Nothing better than 2 of your lancemates/mechs going pilotless! The game does have some serious potential. But when the developers don't spend any time on the serious bugs, the bugs that kill the entire playing experience, the game just becomes an exercise in frustration. Be forewarned. This game is nothing like the MWs you've played in the past, unfortunately...