19 replies to this topic

[Alaskan Nobody]

It was not horrible - but after growing up with Mech2/3, and loving that kind of (very very rare) gameplay - it was very depressing to see Mech4 move away from it - and Mechassault move even further away.

You want to see horrible - try Phantom War - which dumbs it down even further to fit it onto the Nintendo DS.
And yet - is still fun to play although... more in a so-bad-it-is-good, make MST3K proud, kinda way

So yeah, I agree with most of your review - it just was very very much not what we (IE: those who really complain about it - which kinda includes me) were hoping for.

[Majorfatboy]

MA1 get's a pass since it just felt like a streamlined, simplified version of the MW games, but Grand Theft Battlemech : Vice (What You refer to as Mechassault 2 : Lone Wolf), was utter crap.

If You pretend GTB:V is it's own game, not connected to the BT universe at all, it's.... Still crap.
A game that's supposed to be about giant robot combat, but half the game (Including the final battle) forces You into a crappy power armor, with stupid gimmicks, then immediately tells You to go find a mech, even though in the last mission You were already in a perfectly good mech.
It drove Me out of My mind, with half the missions beginning with:
"Okay captain, We've got to drop You into this mech infested area with just the power armor, for... Reasons and stuff"
-Mission starts-
"Uh, mechwarrior? You're gonna have to find something bigger then that armor if You want to make it through here, see if Y-"
Me: I WAS JUST IN A GOD DAMNED ATLAS. WHY DIDN'T YOU LET ME DROP IN THAT? YOU SAID I NEEDED THIS DAMNED ARMOR! SWEET MOTHER OF **** WE FLEW OUR DROPSHIP RIGHT OVER THIS SPOT, AT LOW ALTITUDE! A DROPSHIP, FULLY ARMED, WITH AT LEAST FOUR BATTLEMECHS IN IT! OH SWEET BABY JESUS THERE'S A WHOLE ARMY DOWN HERE! FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

And that "hacking" crap... Oh Glob.
Yeah, jamming Your suit's claws into a vehicle's armor and doing a minigame makes perfect sense. As does ejecting the original pilot, then hopping in and being able to drive said vehicle, even though the cockpit should be trashed from the ejection. At the very least the seat should be missing...

And I'm pretty sure Major Natalia was ******* Lieutenant Foster's brains out while You were off saving the inner sphere... Lucky nerd *******.

So very much wrong with GTB:V.... So very, very much wrong.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Marack Drock, on 29 November 2014 - 06:29 AM, said:

Whereas no one hates on Halo, Call of Duty, and every FPS ever for being the exact same game.

Spoiler

I do.

Part of the problem is - you change it to much: people complain
You do not change it enough? People complain
See the Final Fantasy games, for example.
FF8?
Not enough like 7 or the older games
FF9?
TO much like the older games
FF11/14?
How DARE they put it online! They should be single player!

As noted above people DO tend to hate on FPS for change or lack of it
Just that most of us have moved on enough that no one can accuse us of trying to start flame wars about it

However - people also tend to cling intensively to their first experiences.
When Halo (or FF7 or FF10) it was not only one of the first of that genre that a lot of people experienced, but also their first game period.

Similar for God of War, or Angry Birds.
Does that make them games fitting their "awesome" reputations?

No.

Does that make them as bad as their detractors (which includes me for Halo ) make them?

No.

Like Mechs here - or movies, or books - ya gotta try them out yourself to know for a surety.
(similar to what people tell you about drugs or alcohol, with less risk of brain damage, or real life death.)

[Mech42Ace]

Yeah the problem is that there is a fine line between to much change and not enough. You can't really go cold turkey to make a change you have to ease the change in to the game over time. Like God said in futurama: "If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Edit: Igeuss I shouldn't call him God he was more a space enomally that talked with binary code, and besides if I did that'd be blasphemy

Edited by Mech42Ace, 29 November 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[WonderSparks]

...I never had a chance to play the first two MechAssault titles (never owned an Xbox, just a Gamecube) but I did play Phantom War.
Which, as dumbed-down and badly displayed as it was (give them a break, they filled the card to the limit, they could not make it look better at that time without ditching something), it was still a fairly enjoyable game.

And I, for one, LOVE the BattleArmor, and hacking anything I set my eyes on. I got so good at the hacking I started trying to hack Ragnaroks and Blood Asps, despite being as good as dead if they hit me.

Also, as has been noted, MechAssault's gameplay is indeed different than what we have here. But honestly? I like them both. Is that so wrong?

[Alaskan Nobody]

And they did not try to claim it was MechWARRIOR.

Gotta give them that as well!

Had a good friend who had an Xbox, got to play the MA series there.
(more the first though)

[Goosfraba]

The problem with Battetech is that is such a difficult licence to work with.

Edited by Goosfraba, 29 November 2014 - 11:00 AM.

[Mech42Ace]

Marack Drock, on 29 November 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

Titanfall failed,
The Name brand is not hard to work with. Its hard to sell.

Yea I did like the concept of Titanfall but IMO it was a lot like mechassault but in first person view. Also you are right it did fail, in another thread( forgot which one but it linked to another forum that said it was in the bargain bin)

[StompingOnTanks]

MechAssault 2 was ******* awesome. Good review, Marack. I agree with most of your points.

[Goosfraba]

Marack Drock, on 29 November 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

Not really. The ones that are hard to work with are the ones without a story. BattleTech has story and is laid down very straight forward. What is hard is working with a dead genre. MechWarrior is simulation. Simulation is out now. BattleTech could be easily worked with if done by people who know what they are doing. There could be 50+ MechWarrior/BattleTech movies based off of lore. The reason no one will do it, is because this genre died. Transformers tried to bring back giant mecha type combat and it is just a giant pile of trash and successfully killed all that people want from Mechs. Titanfall failed, Hawken is dying, MechWarrior Tactics is dead.... MWO is the last of an extinct kind now.

The Name brand is not hard to work with. Its hard to sell.

When it comes to BT, the brand is a mess cause it's not clear who owns what, and that's even without considering the deal with HG. It's a lot of work to even get to the point where you can sell it as a brand.

Edited by Goosfraba, 29 November 2014 - 07:41 PM.

[TheSilken]

I always enjoy reading Marack's posts since they are either very clever or insightful. Mad props man.

Edit: I too love MechAssault and MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf and continue to play both of them occasionally. Favorite parts are the Nova Cat, soundtrack, and the big reactor meltdowns when they die (wish they had that here).

Edited by TheSilkenPimp, 01 December 2014 - 06:07 AM.

[xeromynd]

-Lava Cannon
-Ultimate Instagib Energy Alpha Strike
-Power Armor that shoots unlimited mortars as big as its chest
-Super mega dark energy purple black plasma PPCs
-F**king awesome rapid fire purple pulse laser
-The Raptor II design (Aka. Stiletto)
-Pwnage Gauss Rifle sound design.

They were certainly not anything like Battletech, but the weapons in this game looked, sounded, and felt awesome

[TheSilken]

I miss that Lava Gun. Give me my Ragnarok back!

Edit: and it's variant the Ymir

Edited by TheSilkenPimp, 01 December 2014 - 09:09 AM.

[Mech42Ace]

TheSilkenPimp, on 01 December 2014 - 09:05 AM, said:

I miss that Lava Gun. Give me my Ragnarok back!

Let's ROK!

[Goosfraba]

Marack Drock, on 30 November 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:

Nah... Smith and Tinker own the novel rights, Microsoft owns all media rights. The end. Also HG hasn't really bothered anyone in a long time about this. There was a supposed tuff between them and PGI when MechWarrior Online was originally going to be MechWarrior 5 but that turned out not to be true and the game was actually scrapped due to lack of funding. That means HG hasn't bother the BT world since.... early 2000s?

It's actually a bit more complicated than that. And for what HG did and still does to the franchise, well, for starters, they still get to vote on the unseen, even if they are not based on the original designs.

[Goosfraba]

Marack Drock, on 01 December 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

Um then I don't know how you explain BattleMaster, Shadow Hawk, Locust, Griffin, Wolverine, and Thunderbolt. They are all unseen. And Harmony Gold had no involvement. Also its not that hard to avoid them. Just don't put the mechs in. The end.

On the unseen they have the rights to, obviously.

Marack Drock, on 01 December 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

Also they aren't that bad anymore as seen by MechWarrior 2's use of Marauder and Warhammer and Rifleman. All of which are supposedly heavily disputed designs. Anyways they only have to be 15% different. And there isn't that much else in reality.

Yeah, and that is why you'll never see MW2 on Steam or GoG.

Marack Drock, on 01 December 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

Harmony Gold hasn't bothered anyone on the BattleTech end in a long time. The biggest offenders right now are the owners.

Really?

https://twitter.com/...733744493780992

Edited by Goosfraba, 01 December 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[TheSilken]

Anyone else remember the Hammer Missiles? Sure would love them in game also, got 142 kills in a Bowman in one Grinder session with those nasties

[luxebo]

Marack Drock, on 28 November 2014 - 05:02 PM, said:

The thread of MA2

True indeed that MA2 had some non-lore based equipment and whatnot but it was it's own game and worthy a play. It's just not Mechwarrior though, the mechs feel much more like Hawken and other games.

Same as in different Command and Conquers: C&C4 was so badly criticized for not having base building that the series practically died. But in my opinion and a few other's opinions, C&C4 was just not like any other C&C, it wasn't a bad game itself it was just different.

Marack Drock, on 01 December 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

So what. The Beam Cannon from MekTek and the BlackJack II mech are both non canon.

Edit- All the games implemented their own non canon elements with MechWarrior 4 adding enough to make MechAssault look kinda tame.

Blackjack II is canon iirc. Assault Laser/Plasma Cannon... I think it was created late dark age era but if not then yeah you are correct on that.

There was some mechs and whatnot handcrafted by Mektek and Magic's Mechcommander mods, like Ares 60 tonner, Warlord, Behemoth the 2nd, Blood Asp the 2nd, and more. Plus Wolfman's expansions break lore so hard that no one would believe. You thought the lava cannon was broken, say hello to insta gibb gauss rifles that fire faster than machine guns in this game, and insta gibb missiles that instantly vaporize anything but an Atlas who has that much front armor.

Play MC2X yourself to find out, but MA2 wasn't nearly as bad in lore breaking as MC2X. Regardless, MC2X is one of the most fun, exciting, and awesome expansions to MC2 but it does break lore harshly. http://mwomercs.com/...ander-2-thread/

[TheSilken]

Behemoth 2 exists man

http://www.sarna.net..._%28Behemoth%29

Go to the bottom and see where it says Stone Rhino 2

[luxebo]

TheSilkenPimp, on 01 December 2014 - 08:33 PM, said:

Behemoth 2 exists man

http://www.sarna.net..._%28Behemoth%29

Go to the bottom and see where it says Stone Rhino 2

Maybe not Behemoth II but at least Warthog. I was close ok.