Mechwarrior 2, MW2: GBL, and MW2: Mercs. They're all insanely fun, very well made for their time, and more faithful to Battletech than any Mechwarrior game has been so far.
Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries was the best for the overall gameplay experience. You had to work for your 'mechs, which could die from an ammo explosion and then you were SOL. Though the worlds seemed to become less alien than they'd been in the original Mechwarrior 2, they really broke the mold for mission creativity when they tried. What I liked more was that the debreifings and briefings were actually relevant to the mission you'd just played - unlike Mechwarrior 2 in which the "Extra Information" never involves what you did, often referring to a different type of landscape altogether.
Mechwarrior 2 had only two real flaws, I found - One was overall glitchiness, in that the old Mechwarrior 2 "Autocannon/laser rounds don't register damage half of the time" resurfaced, as well as a new one where the computer would strip out every last heat sink but the minimum 10 in the engine in order to replace them with medium lasers and other heat-intensive weapons, but if you tried to customize your 'mech to put the heat sinks back in, the mechlab shows no changes having ever been applied. This isn't a huge problem when you're still running light 'mechs, but when you start fielding heavies and assaults, it can be game breaking.
That, and when the clans arrive, those missions are nail-bitingly hard. I still remember facing down a Warhawk/Masakari in a Quickdraw, after having already barely dispatched two novas, a kit fox, and a storm crow. My lancemate blew up very early on.
Mechwarrior 2 original, though less inspired than GBL or Mercs, was a much more stable system and still had some really fun missions, like outrunning nuclear reactor explosions and escorting hover-trains, all in some very interesting landscapes.
Mercs' aesthetic most closely matches what I feel this game should be like, I feel. I would suggest that if Alex Iglecias and Piranha want to get the feel of the late succession wars right, they should take as many visual cues from Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries, as well as the old Battletech 4th edition box rulebooks' artwork. Oily, Dirty, and Dark seem to be the overall feel. Not necessarily all brown, but definitely drab and dark, using lighting effects like fire, neon lights, holograms, and laser pulses to add bursts of color. The other 'mechwarrior games tended to fit their settings very well overall, but since the game is not clan-centric, we've got to depict that universe that's nearly blown itself back into the stone age, but is just getting back on it's feet.
...And if we can add a splash of 80s/early90s flavor, all the better. Speaking of which, have some now...
Someone really needs to get their hands on the MW2 code and make it easy to install and play on modern hardware. MW3 too. In fact, I'd like to see all the legacy games fixed to run on today's hardware. That would be a great project. I'd even buy it again.
LocationHiding in a cake, left in green city called New A... something.
Posted 10 November 2011 - 08:41 AM
I voted Mechwarrior 3. I playied only Mechwarrior 4 and expansions, but people say, that MW 3 is just better 4., which was good. I do not know about Mechwarrior 2, though. I probably can not run it on my PC and even if I could, I do not have where to get it and will probably dislike it, because of the graphics. Can you give me some advice on this?
Aridos, The graphics were mind blowing for their time but do look dated by today's standards. However, the game play and overall experience is excellent.
MW4:Hardcore.... it was more 'sim' than arcade, with a very deep strategic component. The other incarnations simply do not compare, like chalk and cheese.
Good Graphics, faithful to the BT Story and tech (well, the instant repair MHQ was questionable, but necessary from a gameplay perspective), with a well thought out campaign, and the Super Nova.