Dream of Waking Ne Cede Malis

What happened to MechWarrior?

This entry started as a one-sided IM conversation with Matt. I'm looking for a quasi-simple RTS. I have MechCommander 2. That brought back memories and begged the question; what happened to the MechWarrior series?

I've never seen MechWarrior 1. Enthusiasts such as myself believe MechWarrior 1 never really existed outside of FASA Studios. The series really begins with MechWarrior 2, the standard by which all big-robot games are judged. MechWarrior 2 in comparison with the rest of the Battletech universe was almost as shallow as they come. Two factions, both clan, and about twenty mechs equally available to both sides. In terms of available source materials at the time (There's more than two clans in the universe, there's a whole other faction that developed before the clans, and there are way more mechs, some available only to particular factions) it was lacking; in terms of gameplay, it was 100MHz of Pentium gold. For the time, the graphics were blocky but a big step up from sprites and the sounds were fantastic. Almost every button on the keyboard did something and some of them were pretty useless but it was great. I can never forget all those times I'd get into a fight way over my head only to hear the alarms going off and that female voice telling me just how quickly my mech was falling apart. "Warning: critical hit, right arm. Warning: right arm destroyed. Warning: ammo explosion..." and so on and so forth until you're standing there with one leg and the ejector throws you out the top and you watch as your enemies pummel what's left of your mech and it explodes. It was overwhelming. MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries introduced the other side of the conflict, the Inner Sphere, and the mechs they had. Lots of mechs.

MechWarrior 2 came out in the Windows 95 era where developers were halfway developing for Windows 95 and halfway for DOS. I played all my MechWarrior 2 in DOS. By the time Mercenaries came out it was firmly lodged in Windows 95 territory. MechWarrior 3 was released during the Windows 98 days. It was an improvement on everything MechWarrior 2 had. Probably the biggest improvement was they graphics. The first mission showcased what had come with MechWarrior 3; weather effects (the first mission takes place in the rain), more detail in the Mech modelling (such as when your "foot" came off the ground, the "toes" hung), a gritty texturing job (compare original Star Wars trilogy to the prequels), and everything was beautifully 3D accelerated. It was basically the best thing since MechWarrior 2.

Then came MechWarrior 4, well into Windows 2000 support days. Let's give MechWarrior 4 it's dues; improved graphics again, improved modelling. But the graphics are shiny. Like bright, bold mech paint jobs and neon colored lasers. And FMV. What, are we new to the CD-ROM era here? Why did the story need to be conveyed by poorly FMV? MechWarrior 4 tried to save face by releasing a new version of Mercenaries which thankfully ditched the FMV but didn't lose the purple or bright yellow and orange mech paint jobs. Did I mention that the controls were simplified too? MechWarrior 3, granted, reduced the number of useless buttons but MechWarrior 4 can be played entirely with a 5 button joystick. That's awful. I want a simulation, not an arcade mech game. Microsoft is so concerned with details in their flight sim games, why can't we get the same concern for MechWarrior. Those paint jobs were the real dealbreaker though. Who wants to pilot a mech that looks like Barney?

Microsoft needs to quit sitting on the Battletech franchise. Look at Steel Battalion for X-Box and follow suit for PC. I want a dark, gritty, PC MechWarrior game that has to be played wth a keyboard and joystick because there's so many buttons to memorize. I want Microsoft to treat MechWarrior like it's Battlemech Simulator 3049 and please, leave out the psychadelic paint jobs. Sunny-day yellow doesn't scream "80-ton walking death".