Customer Reviews

Mech Warrior 4: Mercenaries

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Bought this yesterday, played for a few hours...

I'm a big Mechwarrior series fan, I ve been waiting for this one for a while. Overall, this is a very good game, but it has pro's and cons. I liked the addition of the money management, it's not enough to just slap a bunch of big weapons onto the mech - you have to be able to afford it. You also have to pay your lancemates, and they all require different salary (BTW, you get what you pay for). Fixing your damaged mechs also costs money(surprise!), as well as traveling from planet to planet. The tournament single player missions are also kinda cool, but don't expect a large payout - after winning the tournament my mech was so badly damaged that prize money was less than what it cost to fix it.

Now the bad: I guess I just expected a new Mechwarrior game, which this isn't. It should have been marketed (and priced) as an expansion pack. The terrains and environments are nothing special, actually the jungle is quite annoying, you have to blow up most of the trees before you can get a shot at your opponent. Nothing has been added to the gameplay itself (but nothing lost either).

The bottom line: If you are a die-hard fan of the Mech series (like me) or you never played Mechwarrior before, get this one. Otherwise wait for the price to come down a little. (I don't think expansion packs are worth $50)

One of the first indications of the quality of Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries is the opening movie. No it's not some slick CGI that we are used to, but a mix of canned gameplay footage with a good voice over telling the player next to nothing about what is going on. It sounds good, and looks good enough, but for an opening movie I would expect more. This sums up the overall game. It's great in it's own way, but is lacking the polish that we have come to expect. That said, the actual game is great fun and it's one solid experience. If only we did not have to wait for 2 years to get it.

The single player campaign is interesting but short. It balances between giving the player a lot of freedom but not total control. This way the player can still make choices but still has to work towards "unlocking" the next set of missions. The missions them selves range from the standard search and destroy, defend the base and escort the convoy. But to mix it up you can often take the other side in the conflict. For example, one mission will have you defend the peace talks between two warring governments. At the same time there is another mission that will have you instead attack the peace talks. You cannot do both and the results are different. Or you can just leave the planet and go on to another contract. It's fun to go back and see the different outcomes.
The economy from Mechwarrior2 Mercenaries is back and works well. It adds another layer of depth and strategy that also helps make you feel like a mercenary. However unless you are a really bad Mechwarrior that loses Mechs left and right, you will never really be hard pressed for cash.

Of course you will have to keep your unit well armed with the cash you earn with various Mechs. The selection of Mechs is impressive, and I really enjoyed some of the new designs. Some of the old ones have gotten a nice face-lift with higher detail and higher res skins. There is an equally large selection of weapons and many of them have been revised in some way. The autocannons have new sounds, pulse lasers fire faster, etc. Fortunately the balance has been kept. All this helps inject some fresh interest in a game that is now 2 years old.

However that is where the game is weak. The engine used is getting old. This is the first Mechwarrior game where the graphics have been less than state of the art. The developers promised that they were just now able to use the full potential of the engine. But it is still a far cry from competing with he latest Unreal and Quake powered games. That said, the graphics are at least good enough. Only in a few areas does the game really look bad. It does manage to look improved over Mechwarrior4. It has lots of nice particle effects and better textures. The Mechs still look pretty good and the sound is well done. However the simple water effects, plain skybox, elementary lighting, crude damage decals, and 2D tress all tell of an engine past its prime.

The game does a few things that previous Mechwarrior games never did. Such as giving the player command of 2 full lances (8 Mechs total) rather than the usual four Mechs. The pilots are rather generic but they at least have distinct voices that give you some illusion of character. The voice acting through out will not win any awards but does a good job of creating atmosphere that is just right for a Mechwarrior game. There is also more story content told by text in the form of news reports that help flesh out the story. This is a welcome change from Mechwarrior 4s silly little live action clips.

In the end if you are a Mechwarrior fan than this game should at least entertain you. Anyone familiar with the Battletech story line will be glad to see some important characters and planets later on in the game. But just don't expect Mechwarrior5 or anything too impressive from the engine. If you can look past that, the experience is well worth the money.

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries (MW4:M) is a stand alone expansion to Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance (MW4:V). Why is that so? Well, if you played MW4:V before, you'll automatically feel accustomed to the this game. The game engine, graphic, control, mechs, weapons, AI, and even multiplayer are based on the first game. However, the storyline doesn't follow. In the first series, you are a young noble fighting for revenge. This time you are a mercenary starting up your own company. The time period between the two games is the same, which is during the civil war between House Davion and House Steiner.

For those of you completely clueless, Mechwarrior is a game where you choose and pilot mechs (or large robots) with various speed, size and firepower to out-gun your opponents. There are no other PC game similar to Mechwarrior. On the other hand, there are a zillion games on real-time strategy (RTS) and even more on first person shooters (FPS). Mechwarrior stands out because even though it is like a FPS, the variation of mechs, battle strategy and firepower makes it unique.

In this game, the focus is C-bill (the cosmic form of currency). You need it to travel, buy and repair mechs, and hire lancemates. You travel around the universe seeking jobs for hire (and crushing those who stand in your way, obviously). Eventually, you might need to pick between the Davion or the Steiner House. Here are my conclusions.

Pros:
1) Battles are even bigger than before. For over half of your campaign missions, you have the option to command 2 lances (8 mechs total). That spells for large battles with a huge amount of chaos and fire power. If you like that, then that's a big plus.
2) More mechs, there are about 8 or so new mechs on top of the first game (I'm not including the Clan/IS mech packs). Most of the addition is in the assault (ultra-big) mechs. This added firepower allows even more mayhem on top of Pro #1.
3) Graphic, although a bit dated, is still pretty good. There are subtle touches added. For example, when using ballistic cannons, you can see the spent shells exhausting out of the torso/arms after firing. The larger the cannon, the larger the shells. That's a very realistic touch.
4) Solaris. This is a part of the campaign mode where you play first-person shooter, except in a robot. You enter an arena solo and you have to out-gun and out-last 7 or more opponents. Be careful, you could be disqualified if you're not careful.
5) Multiplayer, if you are a big fan of Mech Warrior multiplayer, then this is a plus. Connection is pretty good and stable.

Cons.
1) Because of the larger battles, you need a pretty beefy computer to handle the graphic smoothly. I occassionally get choppy gameplay on large battles and it really puts a hamper on my aiming.
2) Although there are some new weapons, I don't think it is enough. I still end up using the same weapons I used from the first Vengeance, which are the PPC's, Guass's, Scatterboxes, and Clan LRMs. The only new weapon that I occassionally use is the Arrow T-bolts missiles. That's not good enough.
3) Lancemate AI can be a pain. When you are paying 7 other lancemates to help, you want them to follow orders! I have countless time got mobbed by computer opponents because my lancemates refuses to follow me and cover my flank.
4) More variation. At the start of this game, you choose one of four different mercenary sponsors. I wish there could be some more differences aside from starting equipment. I end up with pratically the same thing regardless of who I choose.

Overall, a great game and I highly recommend. This is more of a action/FPS game than a simulation, but I think that helps appeal to more people.

There are those who may may whine about it being stand-alone, but I personally don't mind. After all, there's over 40 missions to beat, four separate Mercenary legions to join, three different endings, and over 35 'Mechs! There are big, epic battles with as many as 15 'Mechs involved, and though that may seem like a small fight, you must remember that EVERYTHING involving giant robots is big. The graphics remain the same, though the developers did improve the textures for the older 'Mechs. This is especially true of the Black Knight, which had blurry chest textures in the Black Knight add-on for MechWarrior 4. Despite dated graphics engine, this game takes it for one last action packed ride, and makes itself a winner. If you're a 'Mech fan, or just like blowing stuff up, this is for you. Plus there's multiplayer! You can blow up Joe Schmoe who lives in Greenland from the comfort of your computer chair! Doesn't that sound fun?

Make sure you check in at Outreach and equip your mech with only the best equipment ripped from your enemies dead bodies. Ahh...its good to be back.

Naturally this game is not the first to claim the title mercenary, nor is it the first Mechwarrior game to do so. It is also not the best Merc game so don't buy it because someone says so. However, it is a great game that is worth its now reduced price. Let me detail...

In Merc, you must earn money and buy mechs, something different from Mechwarrior 4. You also have the option of not only picking the missions you play but also the worlds you play them on. Near the end players can also choose to whom they give their alliance, a fun if questionable ability. I personally would have liked a third option to choose neither side. So ultimetly the player now has control over the direction of the game.

The mechs themselves are again the main feature and main drawback. Running around in a fifty foot tall death machine never gets old. Taking that same death machine and slapping all the best equipment on it is without compare. This is fun stuff. Now the negaitves.

These fifty foot death machines are damn near indestructable. I don't claim to understand physics at the level of Archimedes but if a hyper sonic guass slug impacts a solid object traveling at many times the speed of sound, anything under fifty tons is likely to be blown off its little feet. However the light and medium mechs shrug off repeated attacks of this sort. They actually barely even notice when you hit them with multiple such attacks, something I find unconchanable. I also felt that the idea of salvage was a little weak. No matter what mechs you kill and how you kill them, the salvage is always the same. Also, throughout the game vast numbers of chassis will come your way and unless you are getting brutalized every mission you can end the game with about 50 different mechs. YOu can also expect to run out of all the major weapon systems if you do not covet them and buy them whenever they are in shop. Its an interesting combe...too many mechs and not enough of the major weapons.

This problem is exasperbated by the Mech Warrior 4 customization system, where only certain weapons can go in certain slots. So a laser heavy mech must remain so. For a player like me, who grew up on the Nova clan mech(12 medium lasers) this is a little less fun. I also miss the ability to repair my mehc at the well placed depots in the mission. I thought this went a long ways towards making the game fun and challegning while letting less skilled players get through. In this game, where players face more enemies than ever before and have even more near worthless squad mates to protect, not being able to repair your mech is a serious handicap.

There is more but I am beggining to ramble and loss my focus so I will wrap this up. Great game, some handicaps, not as good as the origional Mechwarrior Mercenary. But it works on XP machines so...

for a long time mech warrior fans have been wanting a good Mercenaries game. well microsoft has heard the call a far surpassed the mech fan's expectations. I have played this in Mech pods at gencon 2002 and found it to be amazing game, that is as fun to watch, as it is to play, the action is amazing. People would crowd around a big screen TV that was set up so that people could watch the battles unfold.

Of course there are some problems with the game but they are small bugs that are just annoying enough to distract you nothing takes away from the actual game play. Plus they have added some new mechs such as the Fafnir, which we have dubbed the tank with legs. All in all it is an amazing game that I highly recommend buying.

I myself have been a diehard Mechwarrior fan all my life and have all of the Mw games (with the exception of pirate moon).
I enjoyed the double lance action but In my opinion it was it bit overated because whenever your lancematescame under heavyfire they would get "confused" and fire at a FLEA with no arms instead of the Templar blasting its rear and sometimes (very rarely) your lance would fire at you. I also cannot stress that microsoft should get a new terrain engine to replace those trees and "rocks". Other than the terrain I think this game is good and the fact that I can tick off the Steiners really rocks.

And I would just like all players to know 7 key things

1. If you want to salvage go for the head it the easiet way to disable a mech and it to your repetoire.

2.Repairing takes time so try to keep a few mechs handy so you do not have to miss out on that killer mission just because your WOLFHOUND is damaged.

3. Watch where you step because ther could be mines(I know your out there!) and you set off trigger points for ambushes and if you stay behind the trigger lines and you see the enemy you can destroy them without return fire.

4. If your a novice or having a hard time with mission just equip you mech with all ER Large lasers and plenty of heart sinks (Double Heartsinks if you can) and you watch your enemmies turn to dust. Note: Only do this as a last resort because it takes all the fun out off the gamme to know the AI weakness and it takes a degree of firing and pacing to make this technique work.

5. Solaris 7 is a great way to get extra cash but, you have to work for every c-bill of it. And if you want to win take a HELLHOUND into the medium class if you can manage it.

6.One glitch that was very annoying was if you put an ULTRA CLASS AUTOCANNON20onyour mech in battle it would show up as a 10 instead of a 20!

7. When picking you lance pick someone with high blindfighting because all other skill will go up to 90or even 100.

Actually give this 4-1/2 stars. This is the best of all of the Mechwarrior series. Mercenaries takes you even deeper into the world of mech combat. You are not only piloting some awesome mechs, managing weapons and resources, but must now make some choices about alliances, missions, and lancemates which by the way you can have up to 7 now. (not to mention the graphics are gorgeously rendered, with enough detail to give perspective on the size of these monsters). The only thing I would add to the wish list on this one is being given the capability to carry pilots from one game to the next. If you like good simulation games (NOT Arcade style), this is a MUST BUY!!!!

Mech warrior 4 mercenaries is indeed a great game. Without however the proper extra http://mektek.net expansion packs the game gets boring. I would rate it only 4 stars without the mektek expansion packs. The new mechs from the free mektek packs ; theres over 15 new ones:
Anihilator
Warthog
Cyclops
Blood asp
mauler(modified) note: its just a change to make gameplay easier
Deimos
Stalker (with modified in second pack)
Awesome
Canis
Gargoyle
Zeus (mod)
Marauder
Thantos XT
Avatar (2nd pack mod)
Ares
rifleman
Black lanner
Grim reaper
Black hawk
Uziel (mod)
Gesu
Hellspawn (mod)
Hollander II
Strider (2nd pack mod brand new)
owens (mod)
Uller (mod)
urban mech (with mod)
Commando
Solitare
Brigand
Dasher (new fastest mech over 140 kph)
flea (mod)
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wow big list up there all from http://mektek.net - all do not have spyware.

this game has great online gamming if you buy this game make sure you go to www.mektek.net and download the mekmatch because the microsoft zone doesn't work anymore, With this you can find online servers. Updates are also available there. When most get this game they did not know about mektek and it is hard to play online without it.