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With Battletech back to some degree in the public eye with the HBS tactics videogame, as well as the recent tabletop resurgence, including a Clan Invasion Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/battletech-clan-invasion) that topped a whopping $2 million, then why not take us back to the games most of us are familiar with - the original Mechwarrior titles - most notably, the PC games. I came to the series later than others, and am mostly familiar with Mechwarrior 3 and MW4: Mercenaries - especially since I recently beat them again over the past couple of months, HOTAS and all. If anyone wants to write-up the other games, I'll happily add them to the OP! But I know what you're asking. What the gently caress is Battletech?  Battletech is a trans-media franchise about a future where humanity has expanded out into the stars, and broken up into different factions - House Steiner, House Kuritas, etc. across the Inner Sphere. However, some of these starfaring pioneers left the galaxy and came back... as the Clans - genetically engineered super-soldiers hellbent on enslaving humanity for their own nefarious ends. They settle these conflicts with massive machines of war, known as Battlemechs. Unlike Gundam, these mechs are a lot slower, a lot stiffer, and knocking them over is much more satisfying. It's absurd, and very 80s, and I'll let the Mechwarrior 3 intro explain with greater detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMlJQ0G3zk4 Fuckin' badass, right? Mechwarrior 3 has one of my favorite campaigns of all time. With a unique gimmick of a planet invasion gone bad, and our hero left to scavenge their way across the planet to carry out their mission, combined with possibly the best "mechfeel" of massive boots stomping into the ground, ridiculous weapon recoil, and dynamic damage effects, you could make the argument this is possibly the best of the franchise. It's tight, doesn't overstay its welcome, and gives you just enough room to totally screw yourself if your mobile repair base gets compromised in the field.  Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, on the other hand, is arguably the greatest mech game of all time. I mean, for gently caress's sake - you run and manage an intergalactic mercenary company that fields 100 foot tall stomping weapons of war. Hiring and firing, custom weapon loadouts, and other tactical decisions are now your responsibility. And with the fanmade MekTek modpack, there's a seemingly bottomless number of mechs to get your hands on - the Marauder. The Behemoth. The Unseen. Oh my lord, was it obscene. The story went places, you even got the chance to do different Clan trials - it was fuckin' awesome how freeform it was. There is a Mechwarrior 5 slated to come out in December, but it'll probably be bad... and I'll shamefully buy it anyways, because I'm a bad person and I need my stompy mechs.  Also this is how cool you look playing Mechwarrior with a HOTAS.
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Nov 2, 2019 12:04
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How is this not in the op
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Nov 2, 2019 19:44
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I still rate the Mechwarrior 2 games very highly, I replayed them recently. Yes, there is some (a lot) of jank there, but the mission design, particularly in Mercenaries, is absolutely top-notch. And even better, you can play MW2 and MW2 Mercs for free, legally, thanks to the internet archive: https://archive.org/details/msdos_MechWarrior_2_Limited_Edition_1996 https://archive.org/details/msdos_MechWarrior_2_Mercenaries_1996
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Nov 2, 2019 19:48
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Good job on the op taintrunner How well does mechwarrior 2/3/4 play with modern flight sticks?
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Nov 5, 2019 01:41
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Anyways I'm thinking of how to get started with this series
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Nov 5, 2019 13:44
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Mechwarrior 1 is just too old and has too much jank. MechWarrior 2 is probably the best entry point, with the the Ghost Bear Legacy expansion adding in some fun mercs/scenarios. The best out of the classic bunch through is def MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. From the amazing opening all the way to the final battle the mission were great, the story was interesting, and the game loved to throw curveballs at you to keep things fresh.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:37
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Lawman 0 posted:Good job on the op taintrunner I know everyone says really good things about MW2:Mercs, it just looks too abstracted for me to be able to get into it, and from the retrospective I watched, it has weird bugs like the air support you can call in being useless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwUoe0uD9mI I think Mechwarrior 3 plays best with a HOTAS, but Mechwarrior 4: Mercs supports mouselook aim relatively easily, which ends up being a lot easier to work with than a joystick for precise shooting at long ranges, or even something like shooting out the legs on an enemy mech you wanna salvage - sniping something like the ER PPC is a real treat. The expansion for MW3 is super punishingly difficult and you could probably skip it if you just want to get to MW4: Mercenaries, which is an absolute treat.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:47
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Double post
BexGu fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Nov 5, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 14:51
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Taintrunner posted:If anyone wants to write-up the other games, I'll happily add them to the OP! Hey Taintrunner, I was playing MW4 from the very beginning (pre-release multiplayer stress test) through ~2006. I was part of a top tier team that ran a no-respawn server, and participated in the UTS, WO, NBT4, and NBT4-Mercs planetary leagues. In other words, I've played ALOT of MW4, and at a high level at that. If you or anyone else is interested, I'd be happy to effort post on just about anything you'd like (MW4's history, weapon balance, the mechs, MW4 multiplayer, planetary leagues, etc). I'd also be happy to share interesting stories about battles that our team had. There may even still be some guides posted by a member of our team somewhere out there.
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Nov 5, 2019 18:39
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Lawman 0 posted:Good job on the op taintrunner Haven't played 4 in a while, but back when I did I ran into a problem where only so many joystick buttons could be mapped. The stick, hat and throttle all worked fine, but I had too many buttons to activate various functions I couldn't map. I had to map them to keys, and then keymap them in game.
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Nov 5, 2019 18:45
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Organ Fiend posted:Hey Taintrunner, What was it like?
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Nov 5, 2019 18:53
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Lawman 0 posted:What was it like? Well, it was alot of fun! More specifically: Public no-respawn (NR) MW4 was identical in format to gameplay in MWO. MWO is technically superior (better graphics, physics, etc) and has some features that were sorely needed in MW4 (e.g. spectator mode after death), but I'd say that the weapon and mech balance was overall better in MW4 (that's a whole other mega post in itself). However, the planetary leagues offered a completely novel experience that was hoped for in MWO but never implemented. The first thing to understand about MW4 multiplayer that might not be familiar to those who have only played MWO and/or BATTLETECH (dear God, its been 20 years since it came out) is that multiplayer was pretty much all DIY. MW4 came out right around the time broadband was becoming widespread and when games started to get reliable netcode. There's a whole other megapost worth of information about MW3's multiplayer, its netcode, and how it affected MW4. At this time, no companies were running public servers for their games, and MW4/Microsoft was no exception. MW4 shipped with the capability to set up and connect to game servers and to play P2P games. Another related point is that NR was not the default game mode of MW4. MW4 had respawn settings, no heat/unlimited ammo, third person, etc. In the beginning, there were only a handful of NR, 1st person only, heat/ammo servers. All of these servers had to be maintained by dedicated players. Furthermore, the planetary leagues were entirely run by, and coded by, the players. More on those later. EDIT: for any MW4 guys, our team ran the HRR no-respawn server. Now, the planetary leagues were the special part of MW4 that MWO (and any other MW game) completely lacks. Once again, these were entirely run by the players. Planetary leagues were basically a system for organizing matches with specific rules that would affect a map. NBT4-mercs had a full inner sphere map. Each planet was controlled by a faction and each faction was controlled by a player team. Each planet had an economic value: planets would produce a number of cbills and some had factories that could produce mechs. Every faction had jumpships that were used to move mechs around for the purposes of battles. Some factions (mercenaries and pirates) had no planets, but did have jumpships and mechs. Transfers of money and mechs were possible for the purposes of contracts. Jumpships took real time to move from planet to planet (i.e. the league had a date, like May 01 3055 or something). Once you moved mechs around, you could launch battles. There were a variety of battles you could launch: planetary assaults (complicated multi-drop battles used to conquer planets) and a variety of raid types (economy raids, mech theft, etc). All of this was controlled by an online automation that could be accessed by unit leaders. So in short, you had a full map, with an economy, where you had to produce and move mechs around in real time to launch battles. Battles were fought in MW4. The battles were specially formatted to match what was going on in the league automation. You could only use mechs that you produced, loaded onto a jumpship, and then attacked with. If those mechs were destroyed in battle, they were destroyed in the automation and couldn't be used again. This was especially important for multi-drop battles like planetary assaults. Furthermore, mechs you destroyed could be salvaged (salvage chance was handled by the automation). Battles were tonnage and player limited. Raids and the like had lower tonnages (say 300-400 tons, 8 players max), while seige battles in planetary assaults would have higher tonnages (say ~600 tons and 8 players). This meant that you saw a variety of mechs. We've used everything from Ravens and Wolfhounds to Hauptmen and Dire Wolves. Map type (swampy, arctic, lunar) and conditions (fog/clear, radar/no radar) were set by the automation. For example, lets say I want to raid a planet. In the automation, I load up a jumpship with the mechs I want to use, jump the jumpship to the planet I want to target, then initiate the battle in the automation. We get in contact with the unit leaders for the target and set up a time to play. The automation tells us which map/conditions to use. Someone sets up a server, we all join in, and fight it out. At the end, both leaders report the mechs taken and killed and the automation makes sure everyone took the right mechs, and destroys/salvages the appropriate mechs. Some battles, like planetary assaults had multiple drop types and phases (recon phase, pushing to base phase, seige phase) and could go back and forth depending on who and how battles were won. I can remember a particular PA we were in where it took months to dislodge the defending force, mainly due to the final siege map they were using. When you did finally take the planet, or force the invading force off the planet, it really felt like an accomplishment. The end result is that battles really meant something. Raids got you money and mechs and PAs could change the map. You could totally feel the stakes of the battles. The loss of mechs meant something. Your victories were plain to see. Additionally, the structure of the league meant you fought on a huge variety of maps, with a huge variety of mechs of all weights. The fact that MW4 had excellent weapon balance added to the variety, making drop preparation a big deal. Another result of all of this is that you had real, emergent politics, which is probably something familiar to the Goonswarm EVE guys. For example, our team went by HRR. In NBT4-mercs we took the Clan Burrock slot: we decided that we were going to take a minor clan and make a force out of it. The Ilclan at the time was Clan Wolf and we were nominally allies. We crushed our enemies in the K-cluster and consolidated our holdings (credit to the Blood Spirits, they fought hard and improved, unlike other whiners and quitters). We then moved to the Inner Sphere and carved a foothold in the IS (with Clan Wolf's permission to move through their territory) out of the remains of the FRR and some of the LC. The aforementioned seige/PA I mentioned was us breaking a planet held by the FRR and LC. The clan grand council assigned invasion corridors, and long story short, we started making too much progress, so Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon started blocking us. We fought with them in the GC for a while and then we had had enough. We turned traitor and went mercenary (we took the GDL slot). Our former enemies, the LC, gave us an unlimited pile of cbills and mechs and turned us in Clan Wolf's direction. We beat them so badly (we were about to launch a PA on their main factory world in the IS) when they basically quit the league. For any NBT4-mercs Wolf guys, it was really only their Khan that was a total rear end in a top hat. Anyway, I hope that gives you a taste. MWO could have had something like this, but you know,  sucks.
Organ Fiend fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Nov 5, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 21:52
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Mechwarrior 1 - 4 are so amazing. I am also excited for the upcoming poo poo show that will be Mechwarrior 5. Mechcommander, and Mech Assault games were awesome as well. The Mechwarrior games on Sega Saturn and PlayStation were a huge amount of fun as well.
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Nov 5, 2019 22:52
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I liked MechCommander 2 quite a bit, although it appears not to be as popular as 1. I thought the radar/ecm functionality was neat. Long range all you could see is a blip, then maybe approx size, until you get full sensors and then visual on a target. I had a BAP or ECM equipped raven I think hanging around all game to provide better sensors while hiding myself.
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Nov 5, 2019 22:56
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I don't think the series I'm about to mention deserves it's own thread, but this is the closest place, so... Has anyone here played Heavy Gear 2? I used to gently caress people up on MPLayer back in the day, along with AvP classic.
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Nov 5, 2019 23:34
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I got MW4:M working on Windows 10 the other day and except for crashing every mission or when it changed resolutions (good auto-saves lol) it ran perfectly  I've been considering replaying MW4 and Black Knight but I recall BK sucking and MW4 probably is just going to be a lesser M so whatever I've only ever played MC2 and I really enjoyed it and remember nothing about it except being very excited to salvage Urbanmechs early on as extra firepower.
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Nov 6, 2019 15:47
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I'll take this chance, as I always do, to post that the Mektek version of MW4:M is still available online at https://www.moddb.com/games/mechwarrior-4-mercenaries/downloads/mw4-mercs-mektek
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Nov 7, 2019 17:54
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Mordja posted:I'll take this chance, as I always do, to post that the Mektek version of MW4:M is still available online at https://www.moddb.com/games/mechwarrior-4-mercenaries/downloads/mw4-mercs-mektek My mech at the end of the game was some bigass boy that fit 3 Large Lasers and a capital ship's railgun on it. Medium and a lot of heavy mechs immediately died.
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Nov 7, 2019 17:58
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How well does MW3 run on Windows 10? Last time I played was probably W7 or Vista and I remember there being a (funny but annoying) bug where tanks and such would bounce up and down due to too high of clock speed or multiple CPU cores or something.
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Nov 7, 2019 19:44
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How many copyright holders do I have to kill to get MechWarrior 2 to come out on GOG or Steam?
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Nov 7, 2019 19:58
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It’s pretty much abandonware at this point, but the license has changed hands so much a re-release would be pretty much impossible.
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Nov 7, 2019 20:33
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Star Man posted:How many copyright holders do I have to kill to get MechWarrior 2 to come out on GOG or Steam? Microsoft and Activision would need to work together for it to happen. Plus there's the threat of a suit from Harmony Gold, since those games have original-design Unseen.
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Nov 7, 2019 21:58
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I'd already settle for all MW4s to be on GOG. Mechwarrior/BattleTech licensing is a mess.
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Nov 7, 2019 22:16
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Ban all no-heat no-ammo mixtech pop-tarting. You know who you are.
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Nov 8, 2019 02:07
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Mr E posted:How well does MW3 run on Windows 10? Last time I played was probably W7 or Vista and I remember there being a (funny but annoying) bug where tanks and such would bounce up and down due to too high of clock speed or multiple CPU cores or something. It works great for me, I played through it a few years ago. The keys are: use dgVoodoo to emulate a Voodoo video card, and use a framerate limiter to lock the engine to 60fps, that fixes the physics issues. I think I used this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/mechwarrior/comments/5jefsa/how_to_run_mechwarrior_3_and_pirates_moon_in/ I really enjoyed MW3, something about the mission design just clicks for me. I like how you can call your mobile base up to get repaired, how big the maps are, how it handles objectives and so on. It feels a little more like a strategy game than the more FPS-style of 4.
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Nov 8, 2019 04:05
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is there a way to play the original Mw4 campaign anymore?
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Nov 9, 2019 00:22
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I managed to get mechwarrior 4 working and sweet jesus the control scheme 
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Nov 10, 2019 19:51
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4 and its expansions was the only MW I played but I liked it a lot. I played through it again sometime in the past couple years and it's still a lot of fun, although the AI for your buddies could get pretty frustrating especially in Mercs where it felt like some serious cat-herding at times.
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Nov 10, 2019 22:09
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Lawman 0 posted:I managed to get mechwarrior 4 working and sweet jesus the control scheme First time playing the old simulator style Mechwarriors? Its probably why MWO didn't quite click with me, the fact it was designed around kb/m controls, when I was used to digging out my joystick for the old games. And I know MW3 has mouse aim, problem was it was clunky as you either have torso twist, or mouse aim. Couldn't figure out how to have both at the same time.
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Nov 11, 2019 07:42
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Paingod556 posted:First time playing the old simulator style Mechwarriors? There was a key I bound to right click that locked the cursor and twisted the torso. Can't remember which one, but with that and zoom on Z (plus a little ocntrol scheme filtering) it was a nice MKB experience.
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Nov 11, 2019 08:59
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Speaking of controllers ... Anyone remember this thing? 
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Nov 13, 2019 04:15
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Yep that's what I originally played MW2 on. That's pre-sidewinder, right? Like pro-flight or some poo poo?
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Nov 13, 2019 04:19
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Kazvall posted:Yep that's what I originally played MW2 on. That's pre-sidewinder, right? Like pro-flight or some poo poo? That's the original sidewinder precision pro. For those that don't know, the stick twisted along its vertical axis, which was great for torso twisting. I went though so many of those things. I played so much MW4, I wore down the sensors that detected twising.
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Nov 13, 2019 04:23
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Same. I'm on my 4th Logitech 3D Pro. MW4:M is the main reason I've had them wear out in about a year. Solid joysticks for their price though
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Nov 13, 2019 04:38
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Paingod556 posted:Same. I'm on my 4th Logitech 3D Pro. MW4:M is the main reason I've had them wear out in about a year. Oh no 
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Nov 13, 2019 05:04
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Organ Fiend posted:That's the original sidewinder precision pro. Ah yes, it is. I only went through two of them, but I am pretty positive descent 1 and 2 were responsible for their destruction.
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Nov 13, 2019 05:27
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So I played Mechwarrior 1 like mad. I had a full lance of Battlemasters and Marauders and would win basically every drop I got. The problem was that this was after hours and hours of completely ignoring the storyline. Did anyone ever beat it? I know that progressing through the story essentially meant piecing together clues from one-time textboxes and random chatter in bars, but if you miss the very first rumor, you're basically doomed to an endless career of robotfighting without the endgame of getting your revenge. Mechwarrior 2, I didn't have enough computer for at the time. Mechwarrior 3, I didn't have enough hard drive space for at the time. Mechwarrior 4, I didn't have enough money for at the time. Mechwarrior Online was a shitshow that I also didn't have enough computer for until it came out that they were basically ignoring everyone in favor of making the game a sniper-fest. You know what I did beat, though? THE CRESCENT HAWKS' INCEPTION. It took absolutely forever, since part of the endgame involves recruiting a party and then grinding up their mechanical and medical skills in order to pass skill checks at the mad inventor's lab in order to get to the star league cache, and the game would occasionally make it so recruitable npcs were double agents, and ANY npc you had with you could perma-die.... ...but I beat it. I was extremely pleased with that. On the other hand, the follow-up, The Crescent Hawks' Revenge, that was a tale of extreme hubris and tragedy. I nearly beat the main campaign, after a whole age of suffering. Most of the early game, you're extremely undergunned and have to rely on tactics and the hope that you roll well and don't get into extended slugfests. It also contains one of the worst-designed escort missions ever - you have two urbanmechs, you have to escort a pickup truck around a base while it slowly gathers supplies while you fight off infantry carrying anti-mech weapons. Then, at the end, when your trash cans are dented as gently caress, they drop a brand-new Panther for you to fight. It literally will run circles around you, you need to get a lucky shot off to stop it. One of the last levels is a very involved prison breakout under a time limit. I drove my mechs to what appeared to be the correct area, saved my game, but found nothing. I'd been holding the map (in the manual) the wrong way round and had gone to the wrong corner of the complex. I made it to the prison eventually, but because of my having saved, I no longer had enough time to escape. I never even made it to the urbanmech mission in subsequent playthroughs.
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Nov 15, 2019 00:55
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I got mechwarrior 2 working  Now what?
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Nov 15, 2019 04:56
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Organ Fiend posted:Well, it was alot of fun! this was a really interesting post, thank you 
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Nov 22, 2019 07:04
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Organ Fiend posted:Speaking of controllers ... I got the bundle    The 3D Pro was kinda annoying IIRC, needed some extra steps to get working with poo poo like Tie Fighter and a few other games
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Nov 22, 2019 15:43
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