Favorite Mech Game

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EventHorizon
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Favorite Mech Game

Post by EventHorizon »

What are your guys favorite mechwarrior games> I would have to go with a tie between 31 and mercs.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by Cyril »

any of the mech 2 series beats the others hands down.
it is the directional JJs that turn the game into a bunch of pilots instead of robot drivers.

that is all the rest of the games have been, you driving a robot, not piloting it.

Mechwarrior Online was fun till it became a "pay to win" game instead of a "free to play" game.



Mechcommander was a pretty fun game till we all learned to bring a mine layer. then it got boring and they never nerfed the minelayer. we should get a few gmae of mechcommander going
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by navbuoy »

I love MechWarrior 2 Marcenaries. I enjoyed the MW4 version of Mercenaries too...but I hate to admit it but EarthSiege 2 was a close second for me. A totally different flavour of Mech game but still loads of fun.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by IronChefBoyardee »

I have a soft spot for Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, it being my first true Mechwarrior game, though playing online frequently frustrated me given the many balancing issues that game had. Mechwarrior 2 feels the most like a proper mech game to me, though I can't get Mercenaries to run half decently for the life of me.

I've been getting some hours into MW:O, and it's my favorite Mechwarrior game, mechanically, but it's so money grubbing it's disgusting.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by Madsonovich »

Mercs is the best.
MWLL was pretty cool and I really would've liked to see it developed more, but nothing beats MW2 games.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by Pepsi-Wolf »

While I do love Mechwarrior 2 (mw2), I would actually say Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was the best of the Mechwarrior Series up until MWO.

Cyril wrote:any of the mech 2 series beats the others hands down.
it is the directional JJs that turn the game into a bunch of pilots instead of robot drivers.
You've used this analogy of pilots vs. robot drivers many times before, and you did explain it to me in chat once, but I dont recall it. Can you elaborate it again?

While the directional JJ did vastly change the mechanics of combat (in mw2), I feel that isn't in the style of what battletech/mechwarrior universe is. Once the online communities, in the late 90s, started to use JJs and further refine the designs, it completely changed the online experience (and subsequently the single player experience). This made the longevity of the matches better, and enjoyable. This was needed to keep the game interesting for as long as we held it dear until the online gaming services closed down and our conventional methods of playing online were taken away killing the community.

In the novels, as well as the board games, there is no directional JJ acrobatics like we are able to do in mw2. No long jumps, 180 degree spins, reverse course, into raining lasers down onto your opponents, until you come crashing down onto their cockpits. JJs were used primarily for scouting, and overcoming terrain obstacles. Quite frankly, I would have found Battletech boring if it was like this. There would be no need for Aerospace, Battlearmor, Tanks, etc. In modern context, if MWO had directional JJ abilities that mw2 had, then really the game is no longer in the spirit of battletech's mecha style, and more in line with anime mecha (i.e. robotech). If thats the kind of mecha style game you're looking for, maybe Hawken and Titanfall would be better to play. In context of games in the late 90s, I think Heavy Gear and Shogo might have been more anime mecha style.

LAM Mechs are a different story, which I will purposely not address, as I don't believe they should have ever been introduced into this Universe. (basically Battletech should have not had Robotech style mechs)

mw3 made the right step in nerfing the JJ acrobatics, and mw4 made the game much more better by introducing hardpoints. This forces players to be more creative with designs, and employ various fighting styles within the game. On the downside, the players would ultimately pick popular mechs that can handle the most damaging designs.

Cyril wrote: Mechwarrior Online was fun till it became a "pay to win" game instead of a "free to play" game.
There is no such thing as "free to play" with any game --casual (mobile) or console/pc based-- that has micro transactions. There probably should be a new way of categorizing these type of games instead of free to play.

Pay to Win is also a highly overused, and inaccurate, phrase used for any of these type of games. While paying for better equipment, may give an advantage, it doesn't replace experience. You don't instantly become the best in the game because you buy this equipment. I also think MWO leveled out the in game cbill payouts so that you get the same cbills using trial mechs vs. your own. I also haven't had to repair my mechs after matches.

When I played Tom Clancy's Phantoms on Steam (great game btw), people would always complain of the players who bought premium guns and made comments such as "pay to win" or attributed the players skill as only relative to their gun. I bought a couple premium guns, and there were matches where I got reamed. I only stopped playing phantoms as I started to play payday2 again, and found a couple players that we were able to play often and have fun.

IronChefBoyardee wrote: I've been getting some hours into MW:O, and it's my favorite Mechwarrior game, mechanically, but it's so money grubbing it's disgusting.
I do agree that MWO does over charge, but maybe this might be due to PGi trying to buy out the publisher, and have the game design and rollout back in their hands. Unfortunately, I think their pricing will remain the same until they can stabilize their cash flow after they did buy out the publisher.

I've worked in the gaming industry before, and aspire to have my own applications/games in my future career, I find it hilarious that players would complain that others would pay for these premium items, while they themselves would only get them through normal in game currency. While they're not obligated to spend actual money for these items, its unfair to criticize others as these items are paying for the continuation of the game (sever costs, development, etc...). MWO is definitely an example game that's life is dependent on community's support. I chose not to put my money into MWO for years (still haven't yet), as I was waiting for community warfare to come around. Now that it's here, I may put some money into it.


Cyril wrote:any of the mech 2 series beats the others hands down.
Mechcommander was a pretty fun game till we all learned to bring a mine layer. then it got boring and they never nerfed the minelayer. we should get a few gmae of mechcommander going
Mechcommander 1 and 2 were great games. I wish they would do another game like it.


Madsonovich wrote:MWLL was pretty cool and I really would've liked to see it developed more, but nothing beats MW2 games.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to play MW:LL. By the time I got a PC that could handle Crysis, and Crysis (and the required expansion) itself, the community was almost gone and MWO was appearing on the horizon.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by Striker »

Given that I'm on this forum, the Mech 2 series is definitely my favorite. I'm split between Mech2 31st/GBL and Mercenaries. I spend much more time playing mercenaries as a kid, but the whole atmosphere in 31st/GBL appealed to me a little more

Mech3/PM was alright, but I pretty much gave the game a pass when multiplayer consisted primarily of AT-ST (Strider) boating small lasers that can tear a Dire Wolf (Daishi) asunder. That and the fact that there were only two music tracks on the disc. The single-player campaign wasn't all too memorable either. The mechs, however, felt heavier, and to give the game credit, it felt a little more realistic.

I did enjoy Mech4 vengeance and mercenaries. The game felt relatively balanced, and multiplayer got rid of lag shooting. The story for Vengeance was quite enjoyable as well.

Mechwarrior Living Legends was interesting. I never really played it all that much, and the community was rather small when I joined in. It was a beautiful game, though could have used a little more development time. I'd play it again in a heart beat though.

I never really got into Mechwarrior Online. I was in the Beta and kind of disliked how much of a grind fest the game was. The graphics were most beautiful, however, and while playing it, it did seem like I was driving around some heavy machinery. I was a little disturbed by the business model, where buying a few mechs and items can be worth more than purchasing a triple A game, or heck, even a meticulously modeled Boeing for flight simulator with full IRS navigation capabilities. Granted, no one is obligated to pay a dime, but it still seems like a horrid practice. Given I never went past beta, I never really gave it an honest try. Maybe some day, if it's still around.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

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[quote"Pepsi-Wolf"]While I do love Mechwarrior 2 (mw2), I would actually say Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was the best of the Mechwarrior Series up until MWO.

Cyril wrote:any of the mech 2 series beats the others hands down.
it is the directional JJs that turn the game into a bunch of pilots instead of robot drivers.
You've used this analogy of pilots vs. robot drivers many times before, and you did explain it to me in chat once, but I dont recall it. Can you elaborate it again?

While the directional JJ did vastly change the mechanics of combat (in mw2), I feel that isn't in the style of what battletech/mechwarrior universe is. Once the online communities, in the late 90s, started to use JJs and further refine the designs, it completely changed the online experience (and subsequently the single player experience). This made the longevity of the matches better, and enjoyable. This was needed to keep the game interesting for as long as we held it dear until the online gaming services closed down and our conventional methods of playing online were taken away killing the community.

In the novels, as well as the board games, there is no directional JJ acrobatics like we are able to do in mw2. No long jumps, 180 degree spins, reverse course, into raining lasers down onto your opponents, until you come crashing down onto their cockpits. JJs were used primarily for scouting, and overcoming terrain obstacles. Quite frankly, I would have found Battletech boring if it was like this. There would be no need for Aerospace, Battlearmor, Tanks, etc. In modern context, if MWO had directional JJ abilities that mw2 had, then really the game is no longer in the spirit of battletech's mecha style, and more in line with anime mecha (i.e. robotech). If thats the kind of mecha style game you're looking for, maybe Hawken and Titanfall would be better to play. In context of games in the late 90s, I think Heavy Gear and Shogo might have been more anime mecha style.

LAM Mechs are a different story, which I will purposely not address, as I don't believe they should have ever been introduced into this Universe. (basically Battletech should have not had Robotech style mechs)

mw3 made the right step in nerfing the JJ acrobatics, and mw4 made the game much more better by introducing hardpoints. This forces players to be more creative with designs, and employ various fighting styles within the game. On the downside, the players would ultimately pick popular mechs that can handle the most damaging designs. [/quote]


while i agree with you that basic battletech rules, make it sound like your mech is just poptarting, however i have a different interpretation

when a mech jumps, it can move in any direction it wants, forward, backwards to the left, you may be facing north, and jump one hex to the right and forward, and land facing any direction you want. that implies that there is independent control of left and right jets, allowing you to land facing south while simultaneously moving forward from your original starting potion. giving the mech mid air turning ability.


Left to right thrust is no more a matter of "feathering" your control of your left and right jets.

the ability to slow your mech mid flight is only a matter of direction control of the forward to backwards thust. and there has to be that because a mech can jump forward and backward.

also consider that when you select a "path" in battletech, you dont always follow a straight line, you can make a lazy knight pattern (i had to pull up megamek and look at a map to think of a way to describe it) forward right, forward right, forward, forward, forward. if that makes any sense.

it could be argued that the mech jumps directly in a stright line from hex 1 to hex 4 in a straight line, and the rules may state as much i believe.

however considering all the other capabilities that a mech has in the terms described above, then a "pilot" would be able to make the lazy knight patter with a mech, instead of the straight line.


that is what i mean that mech 2 was like being a "pilot", and not a "robot driver".

i never said there is anything wrong with the driving a big robot motif, and many of the mech games encompass that, but when i imagine a megamek game going, it is mech 2 style, with better animations. it was that way before I ever played mech 2:)

when you imagine a mech getting hit by a guase, do you imagine the mech only rocking alittle, or with thought(neruo hemls) as to having to plant the back leg and swing the arms up (one at more of an angle than the other) to keep the mech from rocking back and to one direction (unless of a dead on straight shot while not moving) tremendously?
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

Post by LordNova2 »

The video-games themselves, the MW2 series was the best hands down for me. I think allot of the games are hard to compare as it was my first experience to MechWarrior and BattleTech.
I feel that the game developers at Activision did their best at the time to make a game where you sat in the cockpit controlling the mech while staying true to the existing BattleTech lore and games it was based off of.
My favoritism to the games in the MW2 series would be 31stCC, followed by GBL, and Mercs coming in last. (Really? We are going to crawl into that clanner state of mind for the first game and its expansion, then switch over to being a merc who ends up fighting against the clans at Tukkiad at a whim for the final stand-alone expansion?)

While I never got online with it that much, so just for single player experience alone; I thought MW3 was a good step forward in the MW franchise. At this time-frame I was heavy into MechCommander for online play. And I was all super psyched and roaring to go (especially after the delays) when I got my copy of MechCommander 2, however with Microsoft being extremely late on the draw with fixing their memory-leak bug in the game (never got to finish it at that time because of it), I got into MW4 instead.

While I did not care for a lot of the directions that Microsoft took with MW4 game, I still have allot of good memories and had a lot of good times playing online. (Not even going to get into that pile of excrements they released for their xBox)
While a bit late on the draw, I think Mek-Tek did a good job at taking what they had (MW4) and turning it back into more of the traditional style simulator game. Once again by the time they really made some big changes to the game with Mek-Pak 3.1c, it was too late as the game was already dying out.


The MWO game was a bit too much of a change for me, I might have been able to get into it more if they did not have that quick-join only crap and allowed myself to break into the game with a community of players and not strangers every time I played.
Not to mention how PG would talk about going one direction with the game and then completely go in another. I found this to be rather insulting/offensive to allot of us fans who were trying to support them in making a good MW game. I feel that they are just trying to take a free-ride on a franchise to turn over a quick buck rather than caring for the franchise and trying to expand to it. But I knew something was fishy from day one with this “It's not going to be your father's MW game” stuff.
I think for a MW game where the creators/developers came out and said they were going to make a video-game to best represented BattleTech (more specifically MechWarrior aspect of BattleTech), they did the worst job of representing it for what is available to them now for PC hardware and other technologies.
Not to mention what they are charging for their digital content, at least when we paid for all these other MW games (good or not) we can still play them long after the developers have sold their rights to it and ended their support for the game, and if not we still have the physical media to the game to try and do something to make it playable again. Whenever PG goes belly up; that is it, all that cash you wrapped up in MWO is gone, no installation media, no servers left to connect to play it again with, not even a game box or installation disc left over to display on your shelf with the rest of your BattleTech collection.
Sorry to drone on about MWO so much, but it really sticks in my craw.



As an honorable mention:

I do think the fan-based MWLL MOD for Crysis was a much better attempt at making a MW game, I honestly feel they got off to a better start than Microsoft and there is no comparison to Parana Games.

And in my case, while the MW1 game no longer on the shelf well before I had access to a PC, when I did get to play it, it did seem to pale in comparison to my MW2 and MW3 experience. However taking into consideration all the limitations at the time I feel that it was the best the developers could do.
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Re: Favorite Mech Game

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LordNova2 wrote: Not to mention what they are charging for their digital content, at least when we paid for all these other MW games (good or not) we can still play them long after the developers have sold their rights to it and ended their support for the game, and if not we still have the physical media to the game to try and do something to make it playable again. Whenever PG goes belly up; that is it, all that cash you wrapped up in MWO is gone, no installation media, no servers left to connect to play it again with, not even a game box or installation disc left over to display on your shelf with the rest of your BattleTech collection.
Sorry to drone on about MWO so much, but it really sticks in my craw.
I read a thread on the MWO Forums today, where some people have confessed to spending literally in upwards of $1,000 USD for MWO digital content. I think I nearly fainted. The Devs at one point even charged $500 for a gold skinned mech packs, and while at the time I thought it to be the most incompetent/greedy business decision ever made, it seems a matter of fact that some people do actually spend this kind of money. I see people scattered across the forum who actually "pre-ordered" a $40 USD Urban Mech due to come out I think April... where the usefulness is questionable outside of beer can jokes.

I gave MWO another try last night just to see what all the hype is about. There have been a lot of changes since I first trialed it during closed beta. Unfortunately, it's still a grind fest, and even if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'm still not sure if I can ever justify paying that much money for it. For the value of the money I spent on each of the previous 'mech games (give or take $50 each), each and every one of those gave me much more value than the MWO experience. The fact that I can still MW2 today is truly proof of that :mrgreen: .
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