It's a game that can draw you in immediately, the art style, the fast paced combat, that absolutely killer soundtrack. There's a hell of a lot of world building that really makes you wish there was some more to it, that you got to dig in deeper. Likewise, a lot of characters are introduced that you just don't get to interact with much and it doesn't go much of anywhere. In particular the end of the game feels very rushed, plot lines are very quickly introduced and brought to a conclusion. Don't come in expecting 2077. The combat gets very intense, weapons are plentiful, management of all your abilities becomes paramount to survival. All your skillpoints can be refunded and respent for free at all times so you are never locked into any particular build or play style. So if your current build struggles on an encounter just change it up. On the flipside, being able to and encouraged to respec for encounters takes away the feeling of having a unique build. I'm entirely happy that I played through it, and have no reservations suggesting picking it up.
The writing in this one is something special. Over and over again my options have appeared on screen, I've slammed pause got up and walked away for a while. It makes you weigh your moals versus the outcomes. You want to truly be good? Bend your morals, deviate from the path you want. Just want to burn it all? Choice is yours, so is the outcome. The gameplay is solid, plenty of good gunplay, lots of fun options, but it's the writing that has always set CDPR apart and here again they provide a masterclass in giving players choices that actually matter.
This is classic old school unforgiving turn based strategy. The game actually has a lot of style to it, something of an intergalactic cyberpunk dystopia. You are a new commander in the big evil intergalactic megacorp, and they make it extremely clear that your life is pretty much tolerated at best. Now, the megacorp is out there fighting off the machines that sought to destroy humanity, just so long as doing so proves very profitable. The gameplay is solid, your get a ton of customization options for your battle machines and pilots, the later of which is a disposable asset so don't get attached. A mix of weapons to deal with shields and armor is essential, as is managing your machines energy level. Make sure to balance your shields constantly, and spend your money or you'll be ground to dirt. The graphics, let's be honest. They're bad, the animations are funky. The music? Short little repetitive loops that get old pretty fast. The sounds in mission are serviceable with one exception, the mining ore sound is awful and you have to hear it constantly. The faults are minor and extremely forgivable. The gameplay is engaging and all the standard missions are 15 minutes or less giving it that "Just one more round" appeal that robs you of any chance to sleep. If TBS is your thing, you enjoy having lots to manage and always remember to save constantly then I highly recommend this one.
For the high price of this DLC package, you get only a couple of mechs, and a few multipart missions. The multipart missions really aren't a new feature as advertised since the exact same system was included in the base game and was used for the final campaign mission. Now the Hatchetman is an awesome addition and is an absolute ton of fun, but by the time you're mid game medium mechs become useless as they just can't tank the masses of enemies the missions throw at you, and running lower difficulty missions means not bringing in the cash to keep up with your monthly expenses, so you get this amazing playtoy that you really never get to use. I hate to say this, since I like battletech overall, but wait for a hell of sale to make this worthwhile.
The real star here is the combat system. How turning an arm with nothing in it towards incoming fire can shield yours weapons and render the enemies hits nearly meaningless. How indirect fire over a hill will rain down from above and cause massive damage to the most important areas of a target, how water can help cool your machines or provide relief for the enemy. Positioning is critical, targeting legs or cockpits so you can salvage the equipment you need to continue your war essential, having a pilot out due to injury will affect your bottom line and leave you struggling to decide wither or not you should take on the expense of hiring another pilot just so you can run a full lance into your next mission. You will agonize over your decisions, you'll cheer wildly when you punch another mechs face in, you'll curse and gnash your teeth as that expensive cannon gets shot off your favourite mech. Now the bad bits. The tutorial is lacking, and badly needs improvement. The game is poorly optimized and needs some work to run smoothly on lower spec systems. Load times are on the long side. Voice acting is a little hokey, and the overall plot won't leave you captivated. The game will however keep you clicking on the next mission many hours after you should have fallen asleep, this is pure turn based joy and any fans of mechwarrior or turn based strategy should certainly give it consideration.
The real star here is the combat system. How turning an arm with nothing in it towards incoming fire can shield yours weapons and render the enemies hits nearly meaningless. How indirect fire over a hill will rain down from above and cause massive damage to the most important areas of a target, how water can help cool your machines or provide relief for the enemy. Positioning is critical, targeting legs or cockpits so you can salvage the equipment you need to continue your war essential, having a pilot out due to injury will affect your bottom line and leave you struggling to decide wither or not you should take on the expense of hiring another pilot just so you can run a full lance into your next mission. You will agonize over your decisions, you'll cheer wildly when you punch another mechs face in, you'll curse and gnash your teeth as that expensive cannon gets shot off your favourite mech. Now the bad bits. The tutorial is lacking, and badly needs improvement. The game is poorly optimized and needs some work to run smoothly on lower spec systems. Load times are on the long side. Voice acting is a little hokey, and the overall plot won't leave you captivated. The game will however keep you clicking on the next mission many hours after you should have fallen asleep, this is pure turn based joy and any fans of mechwarrior or turn based strategy should certainly give it consideration.
This is the pinnacle of the SWAT game series, the refined friendly AI and the new command system made it a much better gameplay experience than any of the previous titles by miles. The improved graphics and sound, the greatly enhanced voice acting, it all sucks you in quite nicely. Now here is the bad. The enemy AI suffers from a pretty horrendous flaw which sucks out an awful lot of the fun. When they decide to shoot, they really don't miss. Sure they might not score the instant kill headshot on the first shot every time but they are going to hit you. If playing solo, do what you are supposed to do. Issue orders, stand in the back and let the friendly AI go in first. Multiplayer? Apologize to your buddy that gets voted to take point, because it's kind of likely he'll be sitting out the rest of the round.
This game could have been great. Really and truly some awesome ideas in here. Then everything fell apart. The allies system is actually interesting. The weapon jams? Love it, I ran out of ammo for my AK clone in a firefight, grabbed a shoddy shotgun off the ground, three rounds out and a shell stovepipes, requiring a wonderfully animated clearing process trigger with the reload key. Cool stuff we really don't see in games. Getting around is far more than a chore, to get from spot to spot you will have to travel through many checkpoints on the roads, at each of these checkpoints you will have a confrontation where the enemy will chase you down. You cannot get out of your vehicle and simply walk around these checkpoints. The enemies at these checkpoints, like all enemies everywhere in the game respawn fast enough that in a drawn out firefight more will show up before you can leave. On top of that, you have the malaria gameplay mechanic, making you guesstimate how long you have until you have to return to the major hub town for more medicine, and interrupts your travels and firefights for wavy vision and stumbling and puking. Could have been a more interesting element instead of a royal pain if it didn't happen so often.
I was deeply disappointed a few years back when the DRM provider for my copy went out of business, leaving me with an unplayable copy of a fantastic game and no recourse. So I was thrilled and hit buy right away when it showed up on GOG. I would have paid for the classic alone, the addition of the updated version is something I looked at as more of a bonus The new version lacks perks in quest mode. You only unlock them for survival. Sure it adds a multiplayer option but not over the net. So while it plays quite a bit different, t's still a blast. The classic version, the one I brought it for? Buggy. Lots of crashes. Widescreen not windowed mode is crashing, got a crash when trying to load scores from the internet, everything I loved is sitting there, and it would go right back to five stars if only it was reliable.
The mention of this oldie brings back a lot of fond memories. At the time of its release the realistic tactical game genre was just getting started and this was certainly one of the best. That being said, the game puts you in command of four fairly competent AI friends, many games today fail to make friendly AI this good. That said they insist on using mirrors while standing in the middle of open doors and getting shot to pieces, sometimes their flashbangs will bounce off a wall and hit you instead of the bad guys. Eight times of ten everything is great, the other two will cause cursing fits. Enemy AI is simple, however every two bit crook is an ace marksman capable of downing armored swat officers in a fraction of a second. This adds to the be slow and tactical element of the game forcing you to carefully choose your approach to each subject and testing your command skills, but causes an awful lot of mission restarts. As for gameplay, the first few missions are good introductions, but after that things start getting messy quick. In the many years I've had my beloved retail copy I've rarely gotten past the sewer level, where enemies will often open fire with fully automatic weapons in an area filled with explosive gas that prevents the player or friendly AI from firing back. Aside from this I've found no major gameplay issues but will note the missions get very large, very complex and maddeningly hard. To this day there are very few games like this, the on the fly command system here is still one of the best really only surpassed by its sequel. There is a lot of fun to be had here, though one must be aware this is an older title filled with gameplay quirks and a very high difficulty when picking it up.
