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Apart from performance issues, the game is quite enjoyable at first. But it doesn't last more than a few hours.
There is a large variety of mechs, and the tactics mechanics are interesting. Building your mechs and testing them on the field feels great, until you find some OP Mech/Layout Combos at which point the game drastically changes from untertaining to boring.
The Difficulty rating of missions is misleading as 2/5 rated missions can prove difficult while 4/5 rated missions are way too easy.
As soon as you get your first Assault, 1-2 missile boats and the called shot mastery, you can steamroll everything without having to use your brain. Most mechs can be OS. You find yourself rushing the main mission because mercenary contracts are too easy/boring.
The game could be great, but as for XCOM 2, it would need a Long War overhaul to unlock its real potential.
First of, for me the game is a solid 5/5 Stars, but this applies only if you are a Battletech Fan (boardgame and books).
The Story and writing is that of an average Battletech book, some cringeworthy conversations some pathos but in general enjoyable. It does not win a Pulitzer, but thats fine with me.
The story missions are nice and the random generated ones fit with the BT universe.
As a Battletech fan you will feel right at home in the Mechlab as well as with the games managment systems and economic.
So why is this only a 3 out of 5?
Because, if you do not know much about Battletech you will have a hard time with this game. The tutorial just gives you the basics of combat but nothing much else, for example you will not have any idea about building a decent Mech. The turnbased combat is less enjoyable than one of the new X-Com games, as it is much more random elements and depends heavily on how well you did in the Mechlab.
Also, if you do good in the lab, the game becomes a bit too easy, the same as it becomnes frustratingly hard if you just use standard loadouts.
As of now the game had some technical problems, but the latest beta patch seemed to have removed them, at least on my system.
I will try to cover the main points of this game after 70+ hours of play.
MAIN PROS:
Its a beautifully executed rendition of the battletech universe
The core mechanics are solid
Initialy it's engaging
A fresh and in many ways superior tactical table top simulation for mech combat than classic BT
With some tweaking and patches (and mods of your choice if you wish) this game could easily be 5 stars worthy.
MAIN CONS:
Game constantly steals control of your camera in a often completely fruitless attempt to show you whats happening on the enemies turns.
Vanilla BT without mods does not "feel" like BattleTech (example, anything with MGs or lots of missiles is more dangerous than an enemy with harder hitting guns that shoot less often becasue even with head armor still up "any" hit equals a pilot injury). I have had pilots "die" before their armor was even pierced.
Pilot injury and recovery mechanic is poorly implemented, and it causes a lot of down time and detachment from your Pilots. Also leads to a good amount of "grinding" to get enough pilots to lessen this issue.
Enemy AI acts like skynet trying to eradicate you while denying you everything it can even if it cause is hopeless (25 ton mech with no arms or side torsos charging in to melee an assault mech). "No one" ever ejects.
Game does not "scale" well as it progresses (example: ever time a mech is attacked regardless of hit or not they lose "evasion" pips. When your stuck with 4 mechs versus half a dozen or more enemy mechs who will split fire and have vehicle and turret supporting them you "have" to use cheesey tactics and drop all light mechs to survive a lot of missions. It can force your hand and it breaks immersion.
Story missions get more more poorly designed as you progress (They often feel like you would need prior knowledge to succedd in them (as in you lose in two turns becasue an APC you didnt know existed moved half way across the battlefield on a road and if you dont kill it that very turn it moves again into an area of the map and you auto lose). Descriptions for missions in general are often completely misleading.
The simulation side of the game is all out of balance (example, you negotiate to get good salvage at the cost of basically not getting paid, but the RNG at the end can give you a bunch of ammo and heatsinks (common in all mechs) and flood your salavge haul into netting you almost nothing (as they sell for abut 10% of their already low value). You "salvage" mech parts from enemy mechs you defeat and "magically" get them brand new in your mech bay (when it takes you a month to repair a mech you already own after a hard fight in the begining).
If you want a game that fells like a frsh and faithful Battletech turn based strategy game your gonna have to mod it (You really are, and thats whats so frustrating to me about this game. It's not like these moders are doing anything really extreme or hard. A lot of it is literally notepad+ JSON editing).
While the vanila game itself has a lot of flaws and inconsistencies from the tabletop's rules perspective and the main soryline is forgetable at best , the modding community can make "awesome" happen.(bad pun I know) .
Enter "RogueTech" ,a mod that drops the snoozefest that is the main storyline and turns the game into a savage "make your own story" aka sandbox , with a mertric ton more mechs from the original universe, weapons , support modules , more factions including clans , expanded universe map and a ridiculus amount of mech and pilot customization.
If the idea of an unrestricted "make you own story" mode without the nonesence and enough mech tinkering to make you feel as smart as a Rick and Morty viewer( lame joke I know ) tickles your fancy this is the mod for you!
Useful links...
....would have been here but I'm just too lazy( xD ) so google RogueTech and you'll find it ,they also have a discord channel for troubleshouting and a wiki page with all the changes , again I'm too lazy just google it ( xD xD).
Oh boy. Back in ye olden days (I'm 47 at the time of this writing) I used to play the boardgame with some friends of mine for hours on end. We even found oversized sheets of hex paper to create our own maps (and rule variants).
I found this game by chance, Battletech/Mechwarrior was completely out of my focus. I read some articles and posts saying that it was meh, too hard, technically bad. Then I watched Arch Warhammer (greetings and salutations!) play it on Youtube...and bought it.
Damn. I was not ready for this. After the first three hours of playing it I felt a sort of relief - the game really scratches a 30 year old itch that I didn't know was there. It has it's quirks, for sure, but overall I now am solidly in the "one more mission, ups it's 3am" department.
The game uses the XCOM-esque split between economy-sim and tactical battlefield. I am not interested in the economy part, so I cheated myself rich to not have to care for that, I want to boom boom instead of counting c-bills. Works like a charm, most game configuration is in user editable JSON files.
The "in my opinion" laundry list:
- Hard enough to challenge and sometimes the RNG makes you pull your hair out, but if you change tactics (and sometimes, yes, restart the mission or reload a save) you should always be able to come out on top with a feeling of achievement.
- Lots and lots of information during the game, this is how it should be done, thanks HBS!
- MECHS. 'nuff said.
- Most of the game configuration is in JSON files, making it easy to adapt things to your liking.
- Story is ok, writing is so-so, but not detrimental.
- Long waiting times for mech refits and travel are detrimental to experimentation.
- Technically not top of the line, VERY long loading times in enough places to annoy me (-1 star) and some graphical stutters. Good sound though, with nods to the glorious MW3 soundtrack imo.
I love it. Now if the devs can find a way to rid us of the load times...
