Please note:
3rd party Paradox account is needed to challenge other players in 1v1 multiplayer matches and to redeem unlock codes for Kickstarter Backer or Pre-Order DLC. Bonus decorations and emblems require online connection in order to be appliable.
I don't know what's happening to some of the guys posting 1 star reviews, but this isn't a 1 star game for sure.
Some were probably expecting a MechCommander like game?
I was lucky I guess and personally got what I wanted out of this game, I'm at about 30 hours, haven't had a single crash or lost a single save so far, yes the game has some loading issues and after 2-3 hours of continuous playtime it starts to slow down way too much (usually restarting it fixes it, but this is still a big issue imo).
Turn-based mech combat? Check
Battletech lore? Check
Customization of mechs, mechwarriors and ship? Check
Light RPG mechanics? Check
This is what I was waiting for, I'm genuinely sorry for the ones having stability issues as I agree this shouldn't happen in a 40 Euro game.
I usually have a hard-and-fast rule against preorders, but in this case it was Battletech and Harebrained Schemes. So I pledged. And waited. And hoped. Silly me.
Battetech is not just bad, it is UNFORGIVABLY bad. The story is literally spoiled in the intro - the generic princess tells you, the generic merc, that yay, it's all over, the good guys won, and it's all because of you. Bye-bye tension and uncertainty; to compensate, you are treated to a Shamalyan-esque "WHAT A TWIST!" moment during the tutorial. The story isn't even yours; it's the story of the aforementioned princess, and you are an "NPC" in it, if you will. Her motivation never progresses beyond "THE THRONE IS MY BIRTHRIGHT!" and the villains quickly go from "morally ambiguous and somewhat relatable" to "cartoony and moustache-twirling".
Then there's the overall quality (or lack thereof). Graphics ares straight out of early 2000s; animations are primitive and unconvincing and environment elements are often wildly out of scale (think giant bushes that reach the waist of your giant robots). Given the relatively complex system that Battletech is, the tutorial is unforgivably thin. and there's no in-game reference that would help you get a better grip on the gameplay. The interface, good grief, the interface; parts of it could serve as the illustration of what not to do when desining one. And finally, bugs. Including the one that causes some graphic cards to constantly run at 100% and overheat. You'd think HBS is cryptomining in the background.
So how did it all go so wrong so fast? The answer lies with one Kiva Maginn, the design lead and an unrepentant SJW, who had the bandwidth to jam in a "pronoun selection" in the character creation and a "gender nonbinary" perk, but not to actually turn out a good product. "Let's all laugh at the industry that never learns anything, TEE HEE HEE". SJWs ruined Dragon Age, Tomb Raider and Mass Effect. Why would anyone expect Battletech to turn out any different?..
Let me first clear the air by explaining that I first discovered Battletech while dealing with my parents divorce. That was some 25 years ago so I've had time to seriously consider my point vis a vie this game. Classic Battletech is not perfect, nor is this game; for me this game represents an era where wargames were king and the combining of wargames and rpg's was the zeitgiest of the moment.
Battletech has always tried to create a "hard Sci-Fi" experience while giving us a war movie perspective. What I mean is, compare "Saving Private Ryan" to "The Great Raid". One is so accurate that veterans hug and humble random people in the audience (I was not the veteran in this example, in fact it pushed me into joining the military) brought about genuine emotion and made one consider war philisophically, and the other is your classic war movie bravado. One represents a real story and the other is an exageration of real events to pull people to a line of thinking. Vets will understand though both movies represent war as it is, though one is more realistic than the other in visuals.
This game represents an evolution of the original tabletop game from the 80's. It makes me feel as though I am playing my first mission ever (in my case a Clan attack on a FedCom firebase) but in the 3025 timeframe. You can do everything perfectly and have everything screwd up by hatred from the RNG. Save scumming is possible but super unrewarding.
Where this game fails is that it is so faithful to the original source material that I wan to punch my monitor. This was easier on me when a computer monitor could survive a proper punch and was hard enough to make me reconsider punching it in the first place. Lol, seriously though, expect to yell at your copmputer a lot. Oddly enough, this game is amazing in that you don't have to rage quit if you set yourself up right. If. you didn't, be prepared to go back 12 hours to when you started. This game is old school. Be warened.
I bought the game soon as it was out. I never played any battletech games before, only heard about Mechwarrior. The lore surprised me for being complexed and consistent, |I really like it. Game has comic-like touch to it which is whole it's charm, I don't understand people who moan about poor graphics, design etc, I think it's the way it was intended to look, it doesn't pretend to be deep realistic and serious.
mechanics of the game is very good, I didn't get bored with it quickly, I disagree that its very difficult like some people trying to say, but it isn't trivial or easy either.
I read a lot complaints about game crashing, bugs etc : it didn;t crash or get bugged even once in over 70 hours gameplay
IN PLUS : mechanics , graphics, cool mechs, decent variety of weapon, challenging enough but not annoying, rng is fine unlike in X-Com. , consistent with lore (i think), it doesn't pretend to be something which it's not - it's a tactical game about big mechs blowing each other, small studio making a good game which is always welcome
IN MINUS : strange resource drain and slow at times (I have a good PC, ran Witcher 3 on ultra), had to force my GPU to stop at 45 FPS otherwise it was overheating with no reason like during cutscenes (which are visually quite basic) or travel through systems, after couple hours of gameplay whole game was slowing down badly, like mechbay loading 10sec etc, can only use 4 mechs and 4 pilots at a time, kind of no point having 18 slots for mechs, at the end of the game I was just dropping 4 assault mechs and blowing everything up easilly, not sure about weapon types balance, i personally was just loading tons of missiles and medium lasers - seems large lasers and ppc have too high heat buildup and ballistic ones are just to heavy for their dps ,strange political correctness , 3 genders, white male characters are all psychos and baddies etc a bit meh
Overall 4/5
minus 1 for stupid resource drain, not in proportion to graphics
NOT an easy game. If you are a tabletop player used to winning 75% of you matches, EXPECT to be in for the fight. This AI does not make stupid mistakes. It covers damaged sides, engages in good lance tactics and handles ranges and heat. As a top-tier tournament guy, I can tell you its ONLY weakness is in terrain movement but that is only a partial weakness and it is offset by the terrain design for each scenario. Do not count on it to carry you. The difficulty is similar to X-Com or to Civ 5 at the Emperor-Immortal level. The tactics are identical to many of the better players you will encounter at a tournament.
Graphics: It rarely stuttered over an entire week of intense gameplay. The damage cooking off after a mech is down provided chagrined/satisfied laughter depending upon whether you downed that target hoping for good salvage, or because it was a deadly machine that you had to kill ASAP. Sometimes it takes a moment for a mech to fall. The mech deaths are sometimes instantaneous from an explosion, sometimes slower from a cockpit hit.
Concerning the 'laser hardpoints,' if you read the old TROs there were numerous examples of mech mod limitations. Some things are impossible as battlefield mods in terms of T&T slot tie-in's, power hookups, ammo linkages, mech balance, etc. A lot of the custom mods we used in tourny play were real abuses of that concept (like when I loaded endo FS9s with all flamers to rush in and detonate clan heavies after they fired on my decoy FS heavies). This is a very wise game mechanic that keeps players true to the spirit of the classic game.
The entirety of the Inner Sphere and Periphery is open to play once you unlock the transportation, btw. It is absolutely false that you cannot move about. Also, there is excellent info on each world in the planetary map feature and battlegrounds reflect the planetary topography, including the inclusion of variable terrain types on the worlds with more variable terrain.
