I don't review many games but I thought I'd leave one for BattleTech. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game so far and have no issues with the gameplay mechanics; they may seem a little clunky to begin with but they're intuitive after a couple of missions. Combat is highly satisfying whilst being challenging but not impossible. Although non-storyline missions are repeated in terms of their objectives, there is enough variablility in opponents, terrain, structures and biomes to keep them interesting (so far). They storyline itself is great and I found myself emotionally invested from the offset. The company management, spaceship improvements, random events and travel are quite nice but I feel that something could be done to make this more interesting. Mech customisation is great as it is. In terms of performance... Well, I have a low end machine (FX-6300, 760 GT, 8GB RAM) that just exceeds the minimum recommended specs. I run the game ok with the lowest graphics settings; there is some chugging in combat - particularly in larger storyline missions - and I found that disabling the additional camera modes (that follow mechs during movement, jumping, etc) helped somewhat. The graphics aren't great on lowest settings but they are passable. I wonder whether HBS might have been able to have separate graphics settings for the two aspects of the game; one for the battles and one for company management etc. The music and sound effects add to game's atmosphere. I don't have a problem with the voice acting at all although the one-liners spouted by mech warriors are oft repeated. However, some of the one liners do make me chuckle! Overall I'd recommend the game but I do look forward to optimisation patches and perhaps improvements/expansion of the company management aspect of the game.
I don't review many games but I thought I'd leave one for BattleTech. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game so far and have no issues with the gameplay mechanics; they may seem a little clunky to begin with but they're intuitive after a couple of missions. Combat is highly satisfying whilst being challenging but not impossible. Although non-storyline missions are repeated in terms of their objectives, there is enough variablility in opponents, terrain, structures and biomes to keep them interesting (so far). They storyline itself is great and I found myself emotionally invested from the offset. The company management, spaceship improvements, random events and travel are quite nice but I feel that something could be done to make this more interesting. Mech customisation is great as it is. In terms of performance... Well, I have a low end machine (FX-6300, 760 GT, 8GB RAM) that just exceeds the minimum recommended specs. I run the game ok with the lowest graphics settings; there is some chugging in combat - particularly in larger storyline missions - and I found that disabling the additional camera modes (that follow mechs during movement, jumping, etc) helped somewhat. The graphics aren't great on lowest settings but they are passable. I wonder whether HBS might have been able to have separate graphics settings for the two aspects of the game; one for the battles and one for company management etc. The music and sound effects add to game's atmosphere. I don't have a problem with the voice acting at all although the one-liners spouted by mech warriors are oft repeated. However, some of the one liners do make me chuckle! Overall I'd recommend the game but I do look forward to optimisation patches and perhaps improvements/expansion of the company management aspect of the game.
