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Friday March 19, 2010 3:14 AM AEST
Atomic MPC
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Mechwarrior: Living Legends
PC Games
Mechwarrior: Living Legends
«
1 - We love mechs
2 - Living Legends
3 - Crying mechs
4 - Coming soon...
»
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By
James Matson
Jan 27, 2009
|
12 Comments
Tags:
mechwarrior
|
cryengine
|
mecha
|
mod
Living legends
So what exactly does Mechwarrior: Living Legends offer? According to Wandering Samurai Studios, the project seeks to create a massive, highly detailed outdoor environment where players can take control of over 47 vehicles (most of them Battlemechs) and slug it out against each other in armed combat with a twist.
“We are planning to release two game modes initially: Solaris Arena and Trial of Annihilation,” explained Caleb Essex, the team’s lead level designer. “The Solaris Arena mode basically allows two teams to fight to the death. Any equipment and vehicle restrictions are removed and there are no objectives other than kill the other team. Trial of Annihilation is a battle for the map itself. Your objective is to take away your opponent’s bases, thus conquering the planet or area. We’ve introduced several new innovations to the mixed arms genre in both game modes to promote team work and give a new perspective on what can be done with gameplay of this type. We didn’t want a game where the teams just capture and recapture bases endlessly. We wanted to make the players earn it, each and every time.”
It’s Mech combat in its purest form, but given a completely modern facelift; are you adjusting your pants yet? It’s okay, you can admit it. The team has been careful to make respectful nods to Mechwarrior’s tabletop roots with as much dependence on the same rule sets that the original game(s) contained, but some aspects have been tweaked or modernised,
“We followed the rules of what we always felt the strength of the Mechwarrior IP has been. Modular weapons, heat tracking on vehicles, battle armour that can jump and attach itself to the vehicles to ride into combat,” comments Daniel. “Other things we’ve taken a few liberties with. We’ve slowed the Aerospace fighters down significantly, we’ve tweaked the behaviours somewhat to keep true to the spirit rather than necessarily the word of the technical readouts or documents pertaining to the IP.”
Fortunately for hardcore Mechwarrior fans, the team has worked hard to include not only all the iconic Mech units like the Mad Cat, Atlas and Raven, but also some of the best maps from earlier games. There’s a definite feel here that old Mechwarrior staples are being mixed with some of the better advancements in game technology that previous Mech titles never had access too. The title will be faction-based – as is the expectation for any Mechwarrior game – and at the time of writing the two main groups involved in the fighting are The Inner Sphere and the Clan.
The player will be dumped into a major conflict between these two groups, with a campaign scenario of three maps laid out to re-enact historical engagements between these two old foes. The separation of the two fighting forces trickles right down to the design of the Mech’s themselves, with different technologies and appearances for both. For example, in the Battletech universe the Inner Sphere – due to the fall of the Star League – has degraded to nearly 21st century levels of technology. The quality of the Mech units is reflected in this, being in a state of disrepair before they even enter combat, indicative of the lack of equipment available to maintain the machines of war and a lack of skilled labour across the Inner Sphere.
«
1 - We love mechs
2 - Living Legends
3 - Crying mechs
4 - Coming soon...
»
This article appeared in the
January 09
issue of Atomic.
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12 Comments
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
orcone
Jan 27, 2009 1:04 PM
Awesome looking mod.
SquallStrife
Jan 27, 2009 1:25 PM
I hope it's not too much different from playing Mechwarrior 2...
SquallStrife
Jan 27, 2009 1:26 PM
(gameplay-, control- and strategy-wise, I mean...)
Just_Some_Guy
Jan 27, 2009 2:18 PM
The author is mistaken when he says "the landscape of Mech games just evaporated".
In fact, what happened was:
1. Microsoft bought the Mechwarrior franchise, soon after they brought Xbox to market.
2. Microsoft deliberately stopped further development of MechWarrior 5 on PC. As part of their 'only on Xbox' strategy, they tried to force people to buy an Xbox if they wanted to play further MechWarrior games. (It's the same strategy that led to Halo development being moved from the PC platform to Xbox.)
3. Microsoft used the Mechwarrior intellectual property to create MechAssault on Xbox. But that was a huge disappointment to Mech fans, because it dumbed down Mechs to become something akin to a console shooter.
So, the MechWarrior online franchise has been sitting idle for 5 years, locked in Microsoft's vault of valuable unused things. That's also contributed to declining interest in the WizKids MechWarrior miniatures games, which was officially discontinued around mid last year.
So, MechWarrior didn't "just evaporate". It was deliberately killed by Microsoft to try to sell more Xboxes.
Now, to be fair, Microsoft also last year permitted the modders from Living Legends to use the Intellectual Property. So that is a redeeming point in what would otherwise be a pretty straightforward example of Microsoft reaming the MechWarrior community for corporate profit.
Just_Some_Guy
Jan 27, 2009 2:50 PM
PS: My interpretation of Microsoft allowing the modders to use their MechWarrior IP, is that they are potentially considering the release of a new MechWarrior game sometime in the future. Allowing modders to use it is a way to stop the ashes of the MechWarrior franchise going completely cold, and therefore, retaining some value in the franchise sitting unused in their vault.
xtort
Jan 28, 2009 8:05 AM
i just love mechwarrior it would be great to see it with worthy graphics i just might need to upgrade :)
daleyboy79
Jan 28, 2009 3:03 PM
MS allow them to do it because the Devs are not going to make any money and it will increase the mechwarrior brandname (good for MS) and if it all goes well .. MS may then step in and say heres $X dollars for the new Mech version u developed .. then MS goes and sells worldwide
Hobo Man
Jan 28, 2009 7:16 PM
Doubt it daleyboy79, as its based in the cryengine 2, microsoft would have to fork out a minuscule 7 figure sum to license it (CE2)
SlickGrunt
Jan 28, 2009 8:55 PM
Awesome!! :D
Just_Some_Guy
Jan 29, 2009 9:46 PM
Hobo:
I think Daleyboy is right in the sense that MS prospers if the Mechwarrior franchise regains some momentum.
And also, couldn't the modelling and textures etc for mechs be ported relatively easily to Microsoft's engine of choice?
p_francis_bennett
Jan 30, 2009 4:06 PM
Man it'd be great to jump into a Mech again!!! :)
p_francis_bennett
Jan 30, 2009 4:13 PM
Just_Some Guy:
The Modelling and textures etc were extremely basic and old school for their day. very pixelated etc good but not "sweet" quality.
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