I bought this on a whim during a good sale a while back and was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. I'm not much of a Battletech/Mechwarrior fan but I'm aware enough of the series to have an inkling of what it would be about and gave it a go based on that and i was not disappointed! For those unaware, the game is turn based and largely sandbox (in terms of where you can go, and what you can do between story missions, which you can take on whenever you wish) and features a bit of RNG when it comes to enemy weapon hits which can feel pretty brutal at times but not unfair, since you can sometimes pull off those super lucky head shots yourself sometimes. Between combat, you can change weapon loadouts, upgrade your ship and that kind of stuff. During an actual mission, the gameplay can be great fun, once you get your head around how things work (it isn't explained in great detail, which is a minor flaw). loading into the mission, even on SSD is surprisingly slow.. which feels odd in this day and age. Combat flows well and i don't think i ever had a crash. The story is.. well.. it's there - it's not some space epic but it's not awful either - it's just fairly plain and easy to see coming. Replayability is fairly limited unless you want to choose to make up your own goals to pursue Overall, with all the DLC included in the Mercenary Pack, and on sale, this was an excellent deal and well worth the money. Definitely don't pay the full price though - it's a good game, but you won't be telling your grand kids about it. That said, it's still definitely worth your time!
There are a pile of 40k licensed games floating around over the last few years and, for the most part, they're pretty much cash grab garbage. GW, the creators of WH40K seem to be more than happy to let people slap the 40K name on any old rubbish and shovel it out into the world without a care at all. This game is not one of those. Due to the aforementioned loads of garbage out there, i didn't want to risk wasting money on another 40K game unless i was sure it was going to be good. Luckily, a guy on YouTube (Mandalore Gaming) decided to test the waters first and offered a great, honest review of the game and based on that, i decided i should give this one a shot and boy, am i glad i did! Ok, so the real review starts here - this is a Warhammer 40k themed game which looks remarkably like X-com, and absolutely does not play like it - it has a similar style, but plays in its own way. Cover mechanics? nah these guys don't duck, there are no frustrating hit %'s to worry about - weapons just hit - this goes for you and the other guy though, so fights can be fairly brutal if you don't think about what you're doing. That said, its not an intensely difficult experience and is actually fairly relaxed. The challenges ramp up though, so its not a complete breeze. It is themed really well and plays super easily. Visually, it looks like the developers channeled 40K really well - all the dialogue is excellent and appropriate to the setting. Non-40k folks may find this game a bit jarring to get into - the Mechanicum isn't really explained in much detail.. or.. well, any, so a little prior knowledge of the 40k world will help things make a little more sense - seriously, not much is needed, the game is quite approachable once you know a little bit about the setting. Ok, this review is rambling and going nowhere. Put it this way, of all the 40K games I've played, this one deserves the license, it earned it, respected it and respected the players. This game is well worth your time.
