MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries

Ever since the Mechwarrior franchise was taken over by Micro$oft, various aspects of recent titles have been lacking. The back story and soundtracks have suffered greatly over the course of what, three titles? Anyway, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, released in 2002, was the last installment in the series and as of 2007, there has been no word of future titles in the series. MechAssault and it's sequel don't count since they are arcade, action titles for the masses who are unlikely to get over the 1 hour learning curve of the Mechwarrior titles.

The back drop of Mech 4: Mercs is the Federated Commonwealth civil war between Davion and Steiner. At first the player, who is given the callsign Spectre, can take missions from either faction but doing so earns you positive infamy points with that faction and negative infamy points against the other. Ultimately, how your reputation fares with both factions will lead the player down one of three alternate endings.

The game play will be familiar to many fans of the series. As a merc commander, you earn C-Bills for successful missions, salvage mechs, buy, sell, and customize your mechs and their equipment to your liking and hire additional lance mates. A low point here is the relative ease at which you can salvage mechs, which was incredibly hard in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. In Mech 2: Mercs, you had to score a head or cockpit kill to stand a sufficient chance of mech salvage. If you blew the mech apart in normal fashion you were unlikely to get any salvage at all other than some remaining weapons. Additionally, salvaged mechs in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries seem to have some instant free-of-charge repair ability as they appear fully repaired in your bay once salvaged. In Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, you had to spend money repairing salvaged mechs. This all results in much to simplistic game play. After the first five missions, you'll be rolling in C-Bills.

The game is disappointingly short, with none of the depth or length or Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. Any long time fan can finish Mech 4: Mercs in two days on Veteran difficulty, due to the somewhat weak AI. The only time the player will be in trouble is when the enemy mechs gang up on you. One-on-one, no one should have trouble.

If there are some things I truly dislike about Mech 4: Mercs, it's the voice acting of Spectre. That's right, the VA for the player's character is terrible. At times when he should be showing concern or worry regarding the status of fallen comrades, he sounds like a bored man reading his lines, lacking completely in any realism. In fact, the other VAs, especially Castle's VA seems quite good. I think attaching a voice and a picture to the player was a mistake since it forces you to form a mental picture of your character's... well..character.

The soundtrack is another disappointment. Whereas the soundtrack for the Mechwarrior 2 titles was superb and still held in high regard today, in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries you get the same two or three tracks that play occasionally throughout the game and none of them can hold a nail to any of Jeehun Hwang's scores. By the way, he was the one behind the music in all Mechwarrior 2 titles.

All in all, if you've played all the previous titles, you can see the series going downhill slowly. Even the inclusion of Solaris 7 tournaments, which by the way was started in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, can't appease this disappointed fan. This title is only for true hardcore fans of the series and is a good example of what happens when big companies with only profit in mind, take over a popular genre from the company that previously made it popular, and then give it a slow death.

Come on Micro$oft, do something with the damn license or sell it.

I just have to say that I completely disagree with killer3000ad's disappointment with this title. I honestly think this is one of the best mechwarrior games I have ever played, and I have played every one since Mechwarrior 2.

The ability to choose your own path in the game, and take merc contracts in a semi non-linear fashion, really makes it feel like you are in control of your own merc company.

I thought the voice acting was quite good and really set the tone of the game for me. Mechwarrior 4: vengeance's voice acting was almost comically bad, this title does not continue that trend. I enjoyed the short conversations between the main character, "Spectre", and the intel officer, "Castle". I, at no point thought the main character sounded "unconcerned" or "bored", as killer3000ad had said. You are running a mercenary company after all, high emotion just doesn't factor in much. I enjoyed the different personalities of the different mech pilots you can recruit into your company too, even though they only have a few lines each. Also, the character "Duncan Fisher" that comments on the solaris arena matches is quite entertaining.

I found the soundtrack to be appropriate for the game, and feel that even though the old Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack is great, a similar set would feel out of place for this game. Though, they could have used a few more tracks.

I do like this game very much, but I have to say that it is a little bit too easy most of the time. After the first few missions, you will probably have 2 fully fit lances, and enough C-bills to make sure everyone is in something better than the "flea" light mech. On the other hand, later down the line one may find it difficult to come up with the necessary cash to buy every member of the team a heavy enough mech to turn the tide of a mission.

What I dislike the most about the game is that it is far too short. I really enjoyed playing it, and still fire it up once in a while today. I just wish the experience could continue a little more.

The latest in Mechwarrior combat for the PC platform. This time you align yourself with one of the great Mercenary Companies through a sponsorship program. Northwind Highlanders, Wolf Dragoons, Gray Death Legion, Kell Hounds... all of these Mercenary Companies have certain benefits when you join them, like early access to Clan weaponry and 'Mech chassis, or better payment plans.

Set against the height of the Federated-Commonwealth (Fed-Com) Civil War, you take on various contracts around the Inner Sphere. You'll fight for various houses and in different realms, but eventually you'll have to choose which side in the civil war will support, either Prince Victor on the Davion side, or Archon Katrina on the Steiner side. Luckily the conflict isn't that black or white, since there are four endings to the game. The others involve you joining Vladimir Wards Crusader Clan Wolf, or you claiming a large base on Canton.

The game takes you through the highlights of the Civil War as described in the Battletech novels, as well as Solaris VII, the gaming world. There you can compete in the Arenas fighting for cold hard cash. Placing first makes you the most money, and for each kill you score you gain a cash bonus of 200.000 C-Bills. It's tempting to go all out in each round, but doing so makes it hard to see it all the way to the top, the Grand Championship. Each round you fight you can dedicate your victory to either House Steiner or House Davion, or decide to remain neutral. The Solaris Championships are a good way to raise a lot of cash, especially since there are no extra costs in the terms of paying the salary of your pilots, or maintenance on your 'Mechs.

If not for the Solaris games, the game would be really short. The missions are certainly varied, but at times the game can get tedious. Replaying the game after you finished it with one Mercenary sponsor is only for the die-hard fan, I can't imagine a regular gamer wanting to go through all of it, and especially Solaris, more than twice.

A final note, since the franchise shifted from the clutches of Activision, there seems to be a much smaller role for background events. In the Mechwarrior 2 series, which was in comparison a true simulation of 'Mech combat as described in the books, in between missions you were treated on the large scale events through news feeds. Ranging from local news, weapon development and galactic events, players got a fairly good idea on how large the Battletech universe really is. This has been downplayed during the later games. In Mercenaries, this tradition is once more picked up, although not as in depth as the earlier games. It's good to see some traditions making a comeback.

There are plenty of good things that can be said about Mercenaries over the other Mechwarrior games - More 'Mechs, more weapons, a much better campaign that requires a good number of play-through to see everything, yet.. some bad things can be said, too - after having us to pay 13 bucks twice for two mini-expansions to MW4, it then offers portions of them back up to us included with the game! Come on, that's just wrong. Regardless, the rest of it is very well done - the missions are very rarely tedious, and almost always keep you on your toes - and the voice acting is quite good. The only thing I wish for is a return to Mechwarrior 3's weaponry allocation system - I want my critical back! Anyway, if you've played any of the mechwarrior games and liked them - get this. Now. Or else. See you on Outreach!

I wondered where to post this review, for I wished to make a brief summary of what Mechwarrior is in GENERAL. Mechwarrior is said to be a male-fascination series, but as a female I'm not really much into destruction and firing my lasers, but the story behind it all.

For years, since very first BattleTech game FASA company released, we've been introduced to grand world full of political conflicts, plotting, treason, trade, and all in atmosphere of futuristic idea of monarchic societies, which I also share, as a realist (The idea of Democracy's self destruction is obvious for every well educated sociologist, politologist or economist) - People from FASA created awesome fresh universe with ideas, stories from local and space-wide. IF someone was to put it all into books, we'd receive over a HUNDRED of novels that would easily force every other pro Sci-Fi or Fantasy writer to blush in shame and go away. Think Tolkien created a big world? Nope... Mechwarrior's (Battletech) universe is something way beyond expectations of anyone.

But why Mechwarrior isn't that famous? Well, because it is AMBICIOUS world, demanding, not simple, cheesy mass like Star Wars or Star Trek, but a world of moral mid-grounds, greyness, where nor good or evil exists, where powerhouses struggle for political domination and SIMPLE people got to prove their worth with hard work and long service and not some absurdal childish super-powers. It's fresh in world where all pop-culture get's dominated by clichés, stereotypes and badly made reruns of cheep ideas. Mechwarrior stands out with characters who needs to create their own depth by deeds and not flashy clothing, silly over-sized haircuts(check J-RPG's) or ridiculous powers. It helps me to assimilate, to get into this world, cause I know it is a place of normal people and their chance to show what their real role is in a conflict they got involved, by 100% professional piloting of super-sized war-machines.

That's what I like about this game too... Mechanoids ain't same thing as Humanoids - and game creators know that. Those are not some almost femine looking stick figures like those from Japanese games about robots, but true robust steel daemons, that move and react as they should. You can customize their armament, got to keep in mind heath management is a factor too - if you overheat your machine's reactor it can blow up! But most of all, tactics! You don't run in and shoot, you got to play it out reasonably, as you got an ammunition to take care of - don't waste it too fast, cause you can replenish it only before a mission.

I know why it has so few fans - cause it is games for people who really care, for those who like to dig in the universe full of conflicts, stories, and well designed plots - it's a real joyride. In fact reading Mechwarrior novels, rulebooks from old Battletech RPG's and such, kept me really up for long weeks and discovering secrets of some intrigues were better than some of crime-novels I've read recently.

Thank you, FASA... Thank you, because you simply prove with every Mechwarrior game that you care and respect mature and serious players, not only giving them a simple fun of blowing something up, but you care for such little details like the story and background - a tiny part of a game, but you show you really love what you've created.

Thank you and I hope for more... HAIL House Davion ^^ and Loyalists of His Majesty Duke Hanse of New Avalon!