Are there any playable mecha or mech games?

It's still non-realistic (you recommended the game for gameplay). And they made it so unrealistic despite that the PnP game had more sensible ranges.

 

Sadly, it doesn't, because BattleTech as a franchise has notoriously bad art direction and artwork that is simply objectively horrible (hell, the only pretty BattleTech edition was the first one where they just borrowed artwork from other sources like Macross, and the Japanese edition that had the entire artwork redone from scratch), MechWarrior games really do NOT require any degree of skill (just compare a MechWarrior duel to an Armored Core duel) as MW combat is geriatric in pace where lining up shot after shot is easy and there is no mobility or reflexes involved beyond running sideways at a snail's pace or jumping poptarts behind a hill and firing PPCs/Gauss Rifles/LRM20 spam, not to mention feature no ballistics, fire control or deviation; the only game I listed that has cutscenes is ZoE2 (Metal Wolf Chaos is there just because it's hilarious) and it has GOOD cutscenes; the mechanics are hardly obscure, as they are all listed and the effects can easily be felt, it's not brian surgery; not to mention they can't be overrated because you don't see the mainstream media gushing over those franchises like they do from MechWarrior getting a popamole World Of Tanks style Pay2Win game.

Realism is irrelevant to the quality of gameplay.

And it bears mention that the damage model and mechanics are FAR more realistic than the hp-bloat popamole of MechWarrior, MW being mega-unrealistic by any measure.

 

It is relevant as it's a simulation game. Shooting at a target 200m away and having bullets disappear before hitting it without any reason is simply lame.

 

The second you decide 50+ ton giant bipedal exoskeletons should be able to dance nimbly around instead of being stompy slaves to inertia, you've already declared to the world you don't give a flying fuck about realism

 

Dont forget, if mecha get to the air, there should be a very good explaination why fighters dont swat them down like naughty redhead stepchildren. Are there?

 

Gears weight about 5-10 tons and are about 4-5 metres tall. In comparison, an elephant weights 5 tons too.

 

Elephants don't just turn on a dime once they've worked up speed either.

 

Do gears do?

 

You should also consider that this was a game that created a complex tactical variation on the battlefield with very primitive technology compared to what we have today. I guess you didn't notice how much smaller the draw distance was back then (in fact, the whole purpose of Sniper System is that it allows you to see beyond the standard draw distance)?

Heavy Gear 2's excellent lies in furious close combat battle in various environments. It's faster, meaner and leaner, and the guns actually feel like fucking guns due to Gears relying first and foremost on mobility, not armor, to survive. Not to mention in-setting tanks are far deadlier than Gears in a straight-up fight (with the Gear's trump card again being superior mobility and tactical capability).

In case of Armored Core For Answer, it's that the NEXTs are bigger, more agile, have more firepower, direct control interface AND have a Primal Field. In something like Zone of the Enders... Well Jehuty can take out an entire formation of interstellar battleships single-handedly, I think the fighter pilots can concede defeat.

The moment you thought a 10 meter vertical tank isn't the pinnacle of useless you threw realism out the window already. MechWarrior is even less realistic than high-flying Super Robot stuff because there's literally not a single reason for the existence of BattleMechs. They're clumsy, they're inefficient, they're ponderous, they just plain suck at everything beyond somehow being able to mount more weapons than tanks of the same weight despite having much less room in them while ignoring the existence of recoil.

There is absolutely nothing realistic about mecha of any kind, but at the very least the fast and powerful ones justify their existence logically and look good while doing it. Not to mention BattleMechs can't fight the power.

Ulminati is butthurt other mecha games aren't hopelessly mediocre like MechWarrior series, and thinks they're all Japanese and of the same style.

But I point out that actually it's perfectly possible to do a 180 degree air pivot with a jumping gear. This is a fairly basic maneuver that leaves all the popamole fags who think the game will be a skill-free-zone like MechWarrior in the ground when they realize their ponderous assault Gear can't hit, find or even see their opponent, who can calmly proceed to humiliate them with a knife-kill.

 

Goddamn weeaboos. Next thing you'll try to argue that it's logical to stick teenagers in the pilot seats of weapons of mass destruction.

 

Who else would be dumb enough to do it?

 

Don't be dumb. There is a whole world of difference between implementing completely new set of features and tweaking ones you implement anyway.


Kodeksowy Karny Kutas for Vaarna_Aarne for missing the point.

GTFO.

Argument invalid since 1993 (Frontier).

But WHY should a needlessly humanoid piece of junk be more agile than machines built specifically for and around fast flight and manoeuvrability?

It's pure herpaderp either way.

And that's why Terra Nova trumps all the other propositions discussed in this thread - both derpy jmechs with their typically shit art direction and extra helping of derp and hopeless faux-realistic mechs without any reason for even existing.

They can't justify why and how they're mecha, nor why and how they have no non-humanoid de-clumsified counterparts that are in all regards better than they are.

This lands them in essentially the same spot as faux-realistic mecha - depths of retardo.

 

Actually none of the games listed involves a teenager in the pilot's seat. The only exception to that is ZoE1, where a big point of the game was how unprepared Leo Stenbuck was for the accidental situation at the helm of Jehuty and the mass destruction around him. In Second Runner the protagonist is the older Dingo Egret.

 

No.

 

I only liked Mechcommander Gold and Super Robot Wars: OG 1 and 2.

I haven't played Front Mission 5 yet, but Front Missions 1 and 3 were very bad.

 

I think that 5 is superior to 3 and 1 in terms of mechanics and depth but if you didn't like the other ones you will probably hate 5 as well so you shouldn't bother.

 

Darn, I was hoping that 5 might address a lot of the problems I had with 3 and 1.

Namely, 3 focused on untactical RPG style gameplay, instead of tactics style gameplay like the rest of the series.

And 1 was just too simplistic and easy.

 

Mechwarrior 4 might be the easiest to get running on current PCs.
Check out my sig.

 

Well if you have hope that FM5 will pleasantly surprise you then you should torrent it or something, maybe you will end up liking it. Just don't expect it to be significantly different from the other ones. To me it felt much closer to FM1 than 3, but with a lot more shit to do and decisions to make both when building your machines and during combat. It's still pretty easy, but I found some of the levels quite hard. Actually I haven't even beaten it completely cause I didn't have time to play it and dropped it somewhere half way, I'll need to get back to it.

 

PorkaMorka - Not sure if this'll help you, but I do remember that FM5 did have a line of sight mechanic of sorts when firing guns at your target. Specifically, if there was someone standing along the path of fire (or even just beside your target), they could get hit by the attack and take damage. With it being anywhere from a stray bullet from a machinegun to taking full damage as it's completely blocking your target. Oh,there's friendly fire too.

Though I haven't played it too far in as of yet (only played enough to test that the translation was working on my PS2), but even in the early missions the AI seems to consider this when moving and picking targets, as it'll try to put friendlies in the way to get hit by your counter attack. I'm not saying that this will magically make things all better, but it is certainly an improvement of the series.

 

TN:SFC is trivial to run - you set up DOSBox, mount image, install and go.

 

http://www.shacknews.com/file/20900/mechcommander-gold-free-game

It's the full ISO. I vaguely remember Microsoft releasing it as freeware a long while back.

 

Just play battletech: the crescent hawk's inception and love life.

ok, just a touch off tangent, but I might go do that soon....

 

I can't play first person oldy mcolderton games though.

Hell I'm barely getting through another replay of Deus Ex.

 

Get off my lawn.