I purchased Mechwarrior 5, and the Heroes of the Inner Sphere, Kestrel Lancers, and Rise of Rasalhague DLCs. And I can now declare that this is the best shit game I've played in a long time.
+ It takes place in the pre-3050 Inner Sphere, which was my favorite era of BattleTech from back when I played the FASA tabletop version regularly
+ I enjoyed choosing between the different House factions. I went with Liao mostly, but also supported Kurita and Marik. I've always found Steiner a bit bland and Davion too sanctimonious and blind to their own atrocities. Kurita is brutal but not blind to what it is, but also a bit dull like Steiner once you get passed the Asian motifs. But Marik with its constant civil strife and Liao with its insane cults just make for a more interesting experience
+ I often got to be the Kool-Aid man since Heavy and Assault mechs can walk through the outer walls of settlements. I can't tell you how many times a tank got surprised and stomped by me when I burst through and behind them
+ All my old favorite mechs are here. The Locust, the Jenner, the Pheonix Hawk, the Hunchback, the Archer, the Warhammer, the Maurader, the Atlas. Later as the game progresses mechs like the Raven appear. I always hated the mech, but it was always a joy to see the retarded Charger on the other team
+ One of the DLCs allowed interaction with mercs, so I did enjoy running into outfits like the Wolfs Dragoons even if the encounters were brief and pointless
+ I liked the feel of the controls and the weapons. I also enjoyed being able to make modifications to my mechs, but wish I could modify them further and not be held back by the variant restrictions
+ Hero mechs from the DLCs were also a welcome addition. I really had a blast with my hero Archer, loading it up with 2x LRM-15s and 2x SRM-5s and sending my crew to run interference while I blew mechs up from afar. The hero Griffin was a workhorse, and I also liked the Hunchback variant that swapped the AC-20 for a Gauss Rifle
+ I loved watching the history unfold and the map change due to in canon events
+ The mercenary campaign from the DLCs is a better experience than the story-driven campaign in the base game. Just pick a region of the map and go
- The game is still shit though
- Taking a lance into combat was like handing a bunch of retarded 8th graders off of a short bus, giving them AR-15s, and taking them bear hunting
- Short bus retards continuosly shot me from behind and stomped on allied tanks, even when there were no threats around us
- The mission designs on fixed missions are dull and boring with little variation besides destroy waves of mechs of equal tonnage to your lance
- The randomly generated missions were full of bullshit such as enemies teleporting in right next to your lance at the start of the mission. I had one mission where I was guarding a base in a settlement surrounded on three sides by cliff walls. So I set my lance on the edge of the settlement so we could pick off incoming mechs. Somehow the mechs teleported behind me
- The design team must have known that they fucked up the AI and the mission designs, so most of the missions from the base game deal with you meeting a mission objective, then trying to get evacuated from a landing zone while wave after waves of enemies take pot shots at your back armor. This is what the dev team considered as fun and exciting gameplay. Or maybe they just gave up and just decided to publish an unfinished game since the DLC missions are much better and remove the end of mission wave attacks. This turns into a more arcady experience as you get to practice shots into enemy cockpits to slow the hoards down
- Without the end of mission wave attacks, the DLC missions are too easy if you know to bring extra money, pilots and backup mechs into the campaign. The DLC missions are still more fun
- Star League did nothing wrong in the main campaign. Yeah, Star League is a faction of assholes in a game full of asshole factions, but the main character and his father are in the wrong. During the first mission the two characters see a bunch of mech dropships land on their planet. Instead of doing the sensible thing and get back to their HQ and figure out if they should bug out or not, the two instead decide to loot the storage facilities on the planet and get trapped, leading to the father's death... and I'm supposed to feel bad? The guy was trying to rob the government of the planet he was contracted to. And multiple dropships usually mean multiple mechs. Why did you think that using only two mechs to try to rob the place was a good idea?
- Later you find out there is a greater conspiracy, because there's always a fucking greater conspiracy in these corporate video games. And you then hunt down the dudes that killed your father and find out in the great reveal that... your dad was an even bigger asshole than you first thought and Star League had every right to see him as a threat, hunt him down, and try to find out his secrets. And nothing valuable was learned.
But seriously... play the mercenary campaign with some of the DLCs and ignore the main game. Treat this like a Mechwarrior sandbox with no true ending, and you should have a blast.
+ It takes place in the pre-3050 Inner Sphere, which was my favorite era of BattleTech from back when I played the FASA tabletop version regularly
+ I enjoyed choosing between the different House factions. I went with Liao mostly, but also supported Kurita and Marik. I've always found Steiner a bit bland and Davion too sanctimonious and blind to their own atrocities. Kurita is brutal but not blind to what it is, but also a bit dull like Steiner once you get passed the Asian motifs. But Marik with its constant civil strife and Liao with its insane cults just make for a more interesting experience
+ I often got to be the Kool-Aid man since Heavy and Assault mechs can walk through the outer walls of settlements. I can't tell you how many times a tank got surprised and stomped by me when I burst through and behind them
+ All my old favorite mechs are here. The Locust, the Jenner, the Pheonix Hawk, the Hunchback, the Archer, the Warhammer, the Maurader, the Atlas. Later as the game progresses mechs like the Raven appear. I always hated the mech, but it was always a joy to see the retarded Charger on the other team
+ One of the DLCs allowed interaction with mercs, so I did enjoy running into outfits like the Wolfs Dragoons even if the encounters were brief and pointless
+ I liked the feel of the controls and the weapons. I also enjoyed being able to make modifications to my mechs, but wish I could modify them further and not be held back by the variant restrictions
+ Hero mechs from the DLCs were also a welcome addition. I really had a blast with my hero Archer, loading it up with 2x LRM-15s and 2x SRM-5s and sending my crew to run interference while I blew mechs up from afar. The hero Griffin was a workhorse, and I also liked the Hunchback variant that swapped the AC-20 for a Gauss Rifle
+ I loved watching the history unfold and the map change due to in canon events
+ The mercenary campaign from the DLCs is a better experience than the story-driven campaign in the base game. Just pick a region of the map and go
- The game is still shit though
- Taking a lance into combat was like handing a bunch of retarded 8th graders off of a short bus, giving them AR-15s, and taking them bear hunting
- Short bus retards continuosly shot me from behind and stomped on allied tanks, even when there were no threats around us
- The mission designs on fixed missions are dull and boring with little variation besides destroy waves of mechs of equal tonnage to your lance
- The randomly generated missions were full of bullshit such as enemies teleporting in right next to your lance at the start of the mission. I had one mission where I was guarding a base in a settlement surrounded on three sides by cliff walls. So I set my lance on the edge of the settlement so we could pick off incoming mechs. Somehow the mechs teleported behind me
- The design team must have known that they fucked up the AI and the mission designs, so most of the missions from the base game deal with you meeting a mission objective, then trying to get evacuated from a landing zone while wave after waves of enemies take pot shots at your back armor. This is what the dev team considered as fun and exciting gameplay. Or maybe they just gave up and just decided to publish an unfinished game since the DLC missions are much better and remove the end of mission wave attacks. This turns into a more arcady experience as you get to practice shots into enemy cockpits to slow the hoards down
- Without the end of mission wave attacks, the DLC missions are too easy if you know to bring extra money, pilots and backup mechs into the campaign. The DLC missions are still more fun
- Star League did nothing wrong in the main campaign. Yeah, Star League is a faction of assholes in a game full of asshole factions, but the main character and his father are in the wrong. During the first mission the two characters see a bunch of mech dropships land on their planet. Instead of doing the sensible thing and get back to their HQ and figure out if they should bug out or not, the two instead decide to loot the storage facilities on the planet and get trapped, leading to the father's death... and I'm supposed to feel bad? The guy was trying to rob the government of the planet he was contracted to. And multiple dropships usually mean multiple mechs. Why did you think that using only two mechs to try to rob the place was a good idea?
- Later you find out there is a greater conspiracy, because there's always a fucking greater conspiracy in these corporate video games. And you then hunt down the dudes that killed your father and find out in the great reveal that... your dad was an even bigger asshole than you first thought and Star League had every right to see him as a threat, hunt him down, and try to find out his secrets. And nothing valuable was learned.
But seriously... play the mercenary campaign with some of the DLCs and ignore the main game. Treat this like a Mechwarrior sandbox with no true ending, and you should have a blast.
