Battletech

Battletech was always going to be my thing. A game system I've owned (though not played a lot) since the early 90s, purchased with money from my first job. When I discovered the digital games, Crescent Hawks Inception/Revenge, I played the hell out of them. Mechwarrior (1,2,3,4) rocked my world, particularly Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries. Turn based tactical games in particular are my jam, going way back to Empire on the C64 (I realise this was a strategy game, but it is the first turn based game I remember playing) and then moving through XCom and on to more modern games like Divinity: Original Sin.

In spite of the above, I waited for a long time to pick it up and play. There are a lot of games on my to-play list and I try not to bump them just to take up the latest thing that grabs my attention. Even after purchasing it sat on my desktop for another month or two before I decided it was time to have a go. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit of a let-down initially. The first four or five hours feel pretty generic and after levelling the pilots for a while I had this feeling that combat wasn't particularly complex. A thought sat in the back of my mind for some time, when I reach the 100T mechs this is just going to turn into a toe-to-toe slugfest. Never fear, it didn't.

I don't want to go over the top in word count so let me summarise the game as I played it. I focused quite heavily on doing non-story mercenary missions to build up my lance tonnage and level my pilots, only recruiting and maintaining 6 mercs. The dropship by the end of the game supported 3x this number and I have no idea why. Perhaps on higher difficulties (I was one notch above normal) you take a lot more casualties. Combat, starting out fairly simple, did eventually flesh out to require some more lateral thinking when I found my 4 mech lance taking on 8 or more mechs coming at me in waves. Using mobility and terrain became imperative to success and rarely did it devolve into the toe-to-toe slugfest I feared. When it was a punch-up, it was only because I loved initiating melee combat (stomping on a ground vehicle never grew old). In general the turn based ruleset worked great, though it is highly recommended you disable most of the combat cinematics and animations to speed things up.

There are enough mechanics away from the combat to keep you occupied. Mechs need to be repaired and refitted and you can modify their weapons, armour and equipment. Pilots need to be trained across 5 (?) attributes which add bonuses and unlock new skills, both active and passive. I trained each to have a particular speciality like indirect fire (using a catapult with many many missiles) or long range with autocannons, or melee. The dropship itself can be upgraded in many different areas such as medical facilities, mech repairs/bays and so on.

I won't go into the story too much as it's fairly generic fare. Someone loses their position of power, you used to work for their clan, now you're a mercenary. That person engages your mercenary group to help take the power back. After a bunch of things™ happen, you come to a bittersweet conclusion involving guns and explosions. Tidy, but unremarkable. When the story ends you can embark on an endless series of randomly generated mercenary missions picked from locations all over the galaxy (or at least the portion the game is set in).


VERDICT: I really enjoyed it. A definite recommendation for lovers of stompy robots, science fiction, or turn based tactical combat games.


Final Word: RECOMMENDED

(game link)

OG Xbox Game Reviews

A bunch of OG Xbox review notes, mostly taken after one or two hours of play. You can probably tell that a minimal amount of effort has been expended. My impressions are very shallow and based on minimal contact with each game. As much as anything this is my attempt to document some details and thoughts on as many games as I can get my hands on.

007 Agent under fire: An old school shooter with gadgets. Like No One Lives Forever, except not as good. Very dated but it ran smoothly and the shooting was brisk.

Aeon Flux: Lots of cut scenes. LOTS of cut scenes. Very zoomed out and stylistic, flashy lights, reflections, weird camera angles. It's basically a 3D platformer and would probably appeal to people who like that sort of thing.

Alias: Like a cut-rate Hitman without the killing (maybe?). I didn't play enough to find out, it was booooring and I never watched the show. Game seemed to assume I was an Alias fan, so nothing was explained.

Aliens vs Predator: Extinction: Looks like fun. It's an RTS, but in the squad management mould - no base building or unit building. I'll play this again. - https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/aliens-versus-predator-extinction-review/1900-6072952/

Arx Fatalis: A great old RPG from around 2002/2003 that plays like an elder scrolls game. I've played it a bit on PC but never got that far. Runs well and looks pretty good, though of course everything is a little clunkier with a controller. Defn play again, though it might prompt me to finally run through it on the PC if the UI annoys me too much. https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/arx-fatalis-review/1900-6083711/

Battle Engine Aquila: A game about piloting a transformable mech. You either stomp around shooting things, or fly around shooting things. The tutorial was fun. https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/battle-engine-aquila-review/1900-2909822/

Blazing Angels: If you like WW2 planes and shooting things down, this seems like it's a cool game. Played the intro mission and enjoyed it. Looked decent, ran well - annoying American voice overs. https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/blazing-angels-squadrons-of-wwii-review/1900-6146935/

Black Stone: I couldn't find a working review link for this one, that's how good it was. A slow, clunky, janky gauntlet dark legacy clone. The best I can offer is this metacritic page, which flatters it. https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox/black-stone-magic-steel

Burnout 2: Drive. Crash. Explode. Re-spawn. A racing game.

Close Combat First to Fight: Bog standard old-school squad based FPS. Apparently the co-op is split screen and a bit of fun, but no chance to test that yet. Run down streets, run into buildings, shoot muslim soldier caricatures. It was...mediocre. I'd give co-op a try.

Dynasty Warriors 5: A terrible fighting game. You, plus an army of nobodies, versus hundreds of meat shields. So bleh. I played something similar on the Xbox One a while ago and this is a worse version of what, ten or more years later, was also a bland game. Maybe it gets better if you put some time into it, but the reviews I skimmed online did not support this hypothesis.

Fallout - Brotherhood of steel: An Action RPG using the Dark Alliance engine. Supports 2 players max I think. Definitely more adult than Dark Alliance. Worth playing co-op.

Baldurs Gate - Dark Alliance: Action RPG. Co-op for 2 ppl, hack and slash with spells and stuff. Loot things, level up...WARNING: Jumping puzzles.

Demon Stone: A Forgotten Realms action RPG featuring the voice of Patrick Stewart and an emsemble fo characters to play. Combat is against multiple enemies at once with lots of things happening around you. Simplistic so far but looks to have a lot of skills/perks to gain while levelling. Fun.

Full Spectrum Warrior: A squad based cover shooter, Has co-op.

Land of the Dead: An FPS based on the movie of the same name. You're a farmer at home alone when a zombie outbreak hits. Seems to focus more on running away and solving simple puzzles (find the key, cut the chain etc) than trying to kill zombies, though I still killed quite a few. Enjoyed what I played. My wife sat with me, dispensing suggestions both helpful and unhelpful. Also a lot of "LOOK OUT" and "I told you so."

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis: A park building and dinosaur breeding game. My son loved it for 2 days then never talked about it again.

Iron Phoenix: A martial arts fighting game that appears to only support online or system link games. I think it is all about arena battles against multiple enemies. Offline play is just you vs a bunch of AI. The moves are the usual jumping, chi based powers, kicks and punches. There are multiple characters to choose from but I got bored before learning or caring how they differed. Weapons could be picked up and used and the moves were interesting, but ultimately it's just a series of chaotic arena fights and the main draw from the original release - multiplayer - is no longer viable.

25 to Life: A 90s gangster style 3rd person shooter. The gameplay didn't suck balls, but it was nothing new. Run to a spot, use cover, shoot at cops. Run to cover, etc. I hate the whole late 90s/early 2000s cop-killer gangster thing, so this one was duly deleted. (you might protest and say, but what about GTA San Andreas, you loved that! Actually, no, that's the one I hated. Like, REAAAAAALLY hated.)

4x4 Evolution 2: A bland racing game that may have been interesting 15 years ago, but is now just a footnote in history. Very little of interest here for the modern gamer. It runs well, smooth and without any over weird behaviours, controls are precise. Looks like shit and the nature of the vehicles - off-road things of various types - do not lend themselves to beauty in the first place. All the usual basic racing modes plus split screen.

Advent Rising: An action adventure game in 3rd person. Sci-fi, first contact deal, some good guy aliens appear and warn you that the bad guy aliens will be here in a few weeks - then the bad guy aliens drop in an hour later and fuck everything up. It looked pretty crap visually and stuttered a lot in complex scenes, but it was obviously trying hard for the time to be something cool and unique. The shooting and punching was okay and the story is by Orson Scott Card. Looking back it felt like a proto-Mass Effect. To be played again I think, there was a lot of potential in the mechanics I saw and the story was engaging enough.

Airforce Delta Storm: An arcade "flight sim" from the late 90s (around 99, maybe even 2000) that was ported to Xbox. Flying a jet of some kind you select hotspots on a map and fly a mission at that location. When back at base you can unlock new jets and munitions. I dominated with the base jet, destroying all air threats, tanks, trucks and even navy vessels with ease, so I assume these new jets are needed for future threats. There appears to be only the two weapons, missiles that lock on to both air and ground targets equally well, and a cannon that is about as useful as you would expect. Once or twice I used it on a ground target. You don't resupply munitions until you return to base. Runs fine, plays ok. Was probably a bit of fun 20 years ago.

Alter Echo: A scifi third person hack and slash featuring psychic powers and manipulable matter. You stab, you jump, you use the powers of your mind to do things. Initial thoughts:


America's Army: A fun, squad based, FPS with an emphasis on 'realism' and using real world tactics. Or so I assume, I'm not in the army. I enjoyed the training missions and though the skill system could potentially extend interest and playability by allowing for character customisation. Initial thoughts: This was fun, by far the best put together of the squad based shooters I have played so far. I forgot it was such a huge genre back in the early 2000s.

American Chopper 1 and 2: A game about bikers going around doing motorcycle things. Based on a television show I think. Pure horseshit. Initial thoughts: Fuck off.

Apex: A game based around building up a fictitious car company that is focused on racing. The driving and customisation are basic and bog standard. There was absolutely no lee-way on corners (hitting a raised curb on an apex almost stops you dead). Even though I hit everything imaginable and drove off the road a lot I still came third, so, it was fairly forgiving. Game runs fine but looks bollocks and blocky. Apex is a dressed up arcade racer defined only by the ability to build up your car brand and race them against real world car makes. Initial thoughts: Bored. Nothing I haven't played 100x before.

Aquaman - Battle for Atlantis: Awful garbage

Arctic Thunder: A snowmobile racing game of all things. Looked shit when I was selecting options and setting up the race, then it hung. Probably the best of all possible outcomes. Initial thoughts: Terribad.

What the hell is going on with this review site!

Have I abandoned it!? Hell no. What's happening is an amalgamation of several occurrences coming together at once to slow my rate of writing.

First and foremost, I'm not playing a lot of small games right now. ARMA3 Liberation, Outer Worlds and Battletech have dominated game time and I don't feel people need yet another review by a backwater site on the subject of a AAA game release. Suffice to say I like all three games and you should defn buy them if their genre is in your wheelhouse.

Second, it's spring where I live, coming into summer. This time of year I play more sport, do more training and spend a lot less time gaming. For this reason I might branch out into board game reviews or board game session reports. I tend to play more board games when the weather is good.

Third, I've been playing through a heap of games on my original XBox. I might post a bunch of micro reviews, I just want to touch on every title I have even a fleeting interest in and give a brief summary of the underlying game style plus my thoughts. Maybe.

Fourth, work is busy. Life is busy. I'm older (as the banner suggests) and I have older children whom I spend a lot of time chasing around or doing things with. Last night I was playing Street Fighter 2 and Dead or Alive with my 15 year old. He's never seen either and we had a great laugh.

Fifth, I'm doing a lot of other writing that kind of takes up what little creative time I have. These are fiction I'm going to submit in the next six months in the hopes of following up the publication of my first story earlier this year.

Do I have a lot of games to play and review? Oh my god, yes. Do I have time to do it? Probably. But it would mean pushing aside a bunch of other jobs and hobbies, and right now the focus is on them rather than game review. Soon though, the pendulum with swing this way once more. Until then...game on.