Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries

Robot flaming death is always good, but George Soropos wonders if flaming death is enough.

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries is the latest installment in what is now the longest running computer game series of all time, and a nod back to Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, which is probably the series most highly regarded episode. Mercenaries breaks from tradition by giving the player far more choice over their allegiances, missions, equipment and support and therefore hopes to be a more immersive experience than the standard Mechwarrior titles.

Unfortunately this doesn’t really turn out to be the case.
From the outset you are told that the ‘style’ of gameplay will be affected by your choice of mercenary sponsor due to their different resources and capabilities, but this isn’t quite true. There are a few unique missions for each sponsor but not enough to justify that claim by any means. The single player missions themselves are really quite basic in design, with most being a matter of moving to each waypoint and killing everything that moves. There are very few surprises in store for those looking for some original mission design.

When you begin your career the Galaxy is a rather empty place with only a limited number of possible destinations. As your reputation builds more worlds offer contracts to your team and more destinations become available. There is one unique world among the others, Solaris VII, the home of gladiator-style arena combat. There are three divisions and several battlegrounds, winning all of them will earn you a tidy sum and swag of Pele-style sponsorship offers for firming lotions.

Mercenaries also boasts ten new ‘Mech designs and some powerful weapons to add to your arsenal. These add some fun to online play, especially for those bored with the game after a year or so of it being on the market. The new ‘Mech types are spread evenly between classes, while the new weapons lean a lot towards the BFG philosophy of gun design. The Cluster Missile for example is perfect for taking out swarms of ground pounders or slowing down a whole lance of light ‘Mechs in one hit. The new Heavy Gauss Gun can hit like a Clan AC20, but at a range of 600 meters instead of 350, but with a much longer reload time. The rotaries are the best however, like hard hitting machine guns they are fun to use and very effective.

On the subject of online play the developers at Cyberlore haven’t really added much at all to the game. Apart from the new chassis and weapon types there is in fact nothing new. A new online game type that reflects the mercenary nature of this expansion should have been included. Many online players have also been dismayed at the inclusion of the Longbow class Mech, a specialist long range artillery unit, and the annoying effects it has on gameplay: namely players sitting at standoff distance blasting everything that moves.

The Mechlab interface is largely unchanged from the earlier incarnation of the game except for the fact that repairs to damaged ‘Mechs now take one or two weeks, during which time the ‘Mech is unavailable for combat. This means that the player needs to always keep a few ‘Mechs in reserve. One significant change to the game is the number of Lancemates available to help out on missions, and the quality of the AI controlling them. Mercenaries allows you up to six Lancemates and they are actually, for the first time since Microsoft took over the franchise, worth having. No longer do they stomp on your toes, blunder into your line of fire or do the chicken dance behind buildings, they actually help.

In most aspects Mercenaries has done a reasonable job of living up to tradition however as a game that has always been at the cutting edge of technology Mercenaries falls a bit short when compared to earlier versions. The game engine is now over two years old and shows it.

The graphics are quite dull, particularly the terrain, and the audio is also rather disappointing in its’ lack of intensity. The other last point we have to make is the overall value of the product. There isn’t really a lot of gameplay time in Mercenaries, the campaign is quite short and considering the developers use of an established game engine Microsoft should have considered selling this at a budget price.