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Not bad, but too easy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The original Mech Commander was very challenging and rewarding when missions were completed, and indeed exhilarating when the campaign was won. Then came Mech Commander Gold (MCG), with all of its newer features and commands for easier gameplay. MCG's new campaign didn't have the oomph that the first, original campaign did, mainly because the new controls made things a little too easy. Mech Commander 2 continues this trend, with an intuitive interface that somewhat oversimplifies the game into something that can be beaten in several days. I won this campaign in two days on the normal setting.

I liked this game because I am a Battletech fan. However, while it has both good and bad points (following below), it just lacked the challenge of the first one. After successfully winning that difficult game, I quickly dispatched this one into the past-game void.

Good Points

1) Lots of Battletech-y stuff to play with and blow up
2) Interesting storyline (albeit some over the top acting)
3) Good LOS rules
4) While the game is rather linear, as noted in other reviews, the idea of being a mercenary band is interesting

Bad Points

1) Easiest setting is too easy, hardest setting is too hard (taking two Bloodasp assault 'mechs against infantry and getting torn to pieces)
2) Campaign is too short, too easy for veteran Mech Commanders
3) Mission Editor is complicated to learn and use
4) All 'mechs (Clan and Inner Sphere) follow limited Omnimech rules, like most other offerings from FASA Interactive

Overall, I would give this a 3 1/2 star rating, depending on one's level of experience with the Mech Commander series.

Concept is there, but the game is lacking

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok, first go read some of the bad reviews which talk about problems with getting the game to run. They are right. I have 2 computers, and for reasons that escape me one of them will not run this game. As a result you may want to borrow it from a friend and see if you can get it to work properly before you buy it.

The Good:

The battle system is very intuitive, and gives a nice ammount of control over your units. You can tell them to aim for different mech parts, concerve ammo, or engage at a specific range. You can almost pick the game right up and start playing it, though you may want to go through the training missions just to be sure you know about some of the finer points.

The mechs are also very well done, though I don't like the customization freedom with them (sure with the clan mechs it is ok since they are all omni, but last I checked most IS mechs were not). They do look a little blocky, however it does not end up detracting from the game.

The actors hired for this did a very good job. Cut sceens are convincing and you actually get to the point where you feel like you know them. The plot is fairly transparent, however it is more than enough to hold the game together and avoids the pitfall of making things too complicated.

The Bad:

The game is much too short, and much too easy. First time I played through I played on normal and it took me 3 days. Second time I decided to play on the hardest difficulty, and I am sad to say I didn't notice any difference. Very few of the missions are truely hard (most that are belong to House Leio, and even they are just what I feel the average difficulty should be). This means there is also very little replay value.

Adding to the little replay value is the fact that the plot is 100% liner. Nothing you do ever effects what you are going to do next or where you are going. Once you have played through once, you have seen it all. This also makes it feel like you arn't really a merc commander. You don't get to chose your jobs or to weigh risk and proffit at all. The game just strings you along, and no matter what your proformance in the mission if you complete it then you move on in the plot.

Mechs come out feeling a little flimsy with few exceptions. This is mostly due to the fact that later on the head is much too easy to hit. My standard tactic became pulling along a few mechs with long range weapons and just targeting the head of the mech. It would kill the mech with little to no dammage to the rest of the mech, making it ready to salvage and giving me that much larger of a force for that mission.

Another thing that this game would have benifited immensly from would be some type of campaign/mission editor to allow players to make thier own games. This simple addition would have pushed this game up to 4 stars overall raiting and a 5 star fun raiting since the problems with the campaign could be overlooked with the addition of player maps and campaigns that would cater to differetn interests.

If you consider yourself a fan of MW I would give this a try, but don't expect the world from it. The campaign is good enough that you won't be appaled by it, and the multiplayer is good (though nothing too terrably special as far as I could see) if you can find someone to play with. If you are just a fan of RTS games you should look someplace else as this will leave you with a wanting feeling.

Horrible Service

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: November 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutly horrible. I have a Radeon 9600 PRO and an Athlon XP 1700+ cpu, 512 RAM, and other good stuff too, and this piece of junk doesnt work. There are no game updates, no tech support from MICROSOFT!, and none of the solutions listed at microsoft tech support make it run. It installs fine, and starts to run the game and then just stops. New drivers were unable to fix it and who knows if I can return it. I give it one star becuase it looked fun and with my RADEON video card Im sure it would have looked sweet too!

Awesome Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Mechcommander 2 is an awesome game. If you enjoyed mechcommander, you will like this one even more. You can add armor and heat sinks, and weapon choices are based on space(and heat). The only part I don't like is that not every mech can have jump jets. Another neat thing is that you sometimes need light mechs to complete missions. 5 medium and heavy mechs can complete a mission that 3 assault mechs can't. You have resource points for each mission and can capture more. These allow you to repair your mechs and gain control over defeated ones. If you like going around in big robots and destroying stuff, you will like this game.

LOVE MECHS!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The graphics, imagination, and detail are all WONDERFUL! I have and always will love anything and everything to do with mechs. This particular title is quite fun to play and I am glad that I bought it. The only thing I don't like is that it can get very choppy at times.

I don't have it and i love it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I had heard some stuff about this game but I only knew it existed. Soon after the holadays my firend showed it to me. I loved it. I had always loved the Mw games and this was perfect. You get to lead up to 16 mechs into battel and anilate everything. I love to fix up slain mech for my own purpases and then capture a repar bay. Great game and a must buy. (Also really cheep!)

How can you not like this game?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've always been a big fan of the Mechwarrior and Battletech universe, and have played all the games they came out with. I absolutely loved Mechcommander 1, and couldn't wait for the sequal. When it came out, I wasn't dissapointed. MC2 has the same interface as the first one, making learning time short for experienced players. The new player can catch on quickly as well, so there's no problems there. The graphics and sound are supperb, and the missions are interesting. Even the characters you see in cutscenes are fun to watch, making the game interesting to follow. The missions are well done, and require some thought to get through. Many are like puzzles; they can't be won the traditional way, but the tools are there to do it if you can find them. My only complaints are that the campaign is woefully short, and the tonnage limitations are abysmal. You can only carry so many 'mechs into combat, and that means you keep using the same pilots over and over. Not bad in itself, but it means you never really develop enough pilots they way you'd like. Expansion packs would be well appreciated, here.

Gimme my own 'mech!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I never really got into the whole 'Mech thing before. To me, they were just big, giant robots with people inside. But, one night, I was bored, or stuck in another game so I loaded up the demo and I was blown away at how much fun it was.

Even though the demo only contained the first two missions from the game, I played them over and over again. The last time that happened was when I tried the StarCraft demo, like two years after it came out.

I didn't buy the game right away, because it was [$$$] at the time and I didn't know if I would play [$$$] worth of the game, as sometimes, I really like the demo but never finish the full game.

So, eventually, the price came down to [$$$] and I'm playing it now. I have an aged PIII 450Mhz with a Voodoo 3 card of some kind, I forget which, and the game plays pretty well most of the time except when there's a real lot of action, but its never so bad as to be unenjoyable.

When I first got the game, it would give me some error message if I tried to start it with a desktop area greater then 1024X768X16. It claimed it was a limitation of the Voodoo card, but now it just starts and loads right away. I looked for a patch in the beginning, but I do not remember ever downloading and applying one.

I consider myself to be a casual RTS player, more inclined to follow the story then the strategery bits and I like this game. I just started making changes to my 'Mechs, otherwise I would just accept the defaults. Sometimes I find a mission to be very tough but eventually am able to figure out how to beat it. I've looked for an online strategy guide but so far have failed to find one, and I'm kind of glad because it feels better when I beat it without looking up the strategy.

The other night, I lost my first pilot. It was very sad at the time, even though I don't remember her name anymore. She was a light 'mech specialist and was so good at not taking damage, I kept sending her in to try to take over turrets and stuff. Finally, in the last mission of the first part, some blockhead wouldn't leave her alone after I ordered her lead him and his men into an ambush. Some people just got no sense of humor!

FORGET MY OTHER REVIEW!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 8
Date: July 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

... DIDNT REALISE HOW MANY GRAPHIC GLITCHES AND BUGS MICROSOFT PUT IN THIS GAME!
MECHWARRIOR 4:VENGENCE AND BLACK KNIGHT AND ALL AGE OF EMPIRE AND KINGS GAMES ROCKED BIG-TIME AND SAVED MICROSOFT FROM BEING ONE OF THE WORST COMPUTER GAME COMPANIES.
EVEN ON THE HIGHEST END COMPUTERS THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS GAME IS ...UGLY. THE ACTORS FACES MOVE SO SLOW THEY CANT EVEN KEEP UP WITH THE CHOPPY SOUND LIKE FORCE COMMANDER.
AND ONCE YOU PASS IT THEIR IS NO REPLAY VALUE WHATSOEVER(NO SKIRMISH MODE AND AN EASY BUT [bad] EDITOR!)
HOW CAN YOU PLAY A GAME THAT JERKS LIKE CRAZY(EVEN ON A PENTIUM 4)AND HAS MORE BUGS THAN THE MOVIE A BUGS LIFE.
THERE IS NOT EVEN AN OFFICIAL PATCH FOR THIS GAME BECAUSE MICROSOFT SAID IT DIDNT NEED IT AND THEIR GAME IS FINE.
...

mech commander 2 needs more umpf...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I played this games mission out in a week, about two hours each day...it would have been nice to have more campaigns right out of the box, or provide expansion packs for retail...I stopped assigning light mechs and sensor mechs during game play because it was just easier to play with the assault mechs and capture a sensor capable one and fix it up.

Microsoft has the capital to develope these games better I think, when it comes to providing extended play...maybe starting over again on the same maps with varient missions and toughers AI's would help...I strongly think dounloading the player created missions is the only great aspect of this game because the create missions are from hungry gamers who know what everyone else is looking for in a game and to be able to create new missions is great...my only question is, is it possible to trade up Mech Commander 1 units to MC2?

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