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The Best Mechwarrior Game ever!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Sometimes I feel the urge to play an older game. I don't know, it's just that today some of the titles require such high-end stats and make you wade through more menus that I yearn for the days of old when games were just much more straightforward. In addition there's just not that many single-player games in production these days and I remember a time when it was the single-player mode that a game was rated by, multi-player being more of a novelty.

Mechwarrior II:Mercenaries is a reasonable translation of tabletop BattleTech to computer gaming. I say "reasonable" because there are finer nuances that have been altered to make the computer gaming experience more palatable. More on that in a second, let's give this game it's due. Building on the slightly older Mechwarrior II and expansion pack this game gave you the viewpoint of the Inner Sphere (IS) domains. Coincidentally most BattleTech players I've ever dealt with play IS in one form or another, and so the first Mechwarrior II, while pretty, seemed a little odd. No Mechwarror game since this one has covered the Clan Invasion of 3051 and it's a crying shame, more classic combat scenarios came out of that era than any other, hands down.

You start out as a mercenary commander (your CO blown away in the awesome, totally BattleTech inspired intro). Over the years you acquire better Mechs and weapon systems, salvage partially destroyed equipment (and even more Mechs), and spend your money wisely upgrading. You can also hire up to 2 Lance mates, although as a BattleTech purist I really would have liked to have had 3, a Lance being 4 Mechs in number. You can also hire a single Aerospace fighter or bomber pilot, flying the classic 3025 models (Stukas, Lucifers, Corsairs, and more). As the game progresses your stature and fame in the IS grows, until strange stories come from the Periphery of a marauding army of souped up Mechs destroying all in thier path. In one of the most memorable game sequences I ever played (ever, to this day) you escape with some Periphery pirates (common enemies make strange bedfellows, eh?) and flee in a stolen Pegasus Light Hovercraft to a perfectly taut soundtrack.

The cutscenes were wonderful and the game exudes pure BattleTech. The new Mercenaries captures a lot of the dynamics of running an independent mercenary company in the BT universe but just doesn't take it from this era, which is a shame.

This game, good as it is, still has some flaws. If you flip through your 3025 manuals you'll see most of the Mechs are here, save for a few notable ones like the Rifleman, Warhammer, Phoenix Hawk, and my favorite, the Hatchetman. My understanding is there is an ongoing licensing problem with some of these designs, basically carbon copied from the RoboTech universe. Weapons don't seem to do as much damage, but I understand that's a necessary evil of the design. On a tabletop the average life expectancy of some units isn't even a full minute, and so while you may expect to obliterate that unwary Commando with your AC20 in one shot it's a little dissappointing to see it take up to 3. Your Lance members oftentimes don't know where they're going, although admittedly they can hit thier targets. The vaunted Aerospace Pilot works for only a few missions and then simply ceases to work, simply hovering in place over the battlefield, regardless of how many times you tell him to attack. And I won't lie, there are a number of impossible missions that will have you scouring the web looking for invulnerability cheats, the first and foremost on my mind being the set of missions on the ice freighter.

This game was so good though, the soundtrack was absolutely incredible, the graphics for it's day were great, that I simply cannot give it anything less than 4 1/2 stars. My hat's off to FASA, Activision, and Hanse Davion. Miss ya bud!

Best Mech game ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is the best of the mechwarrior series. I own them all, so shouldn't I know? You get to choseyour career as a commander for a mercenarie unit, or join someone else's. Then you sign contracts to get your missions. I'd nominate this game for "Best PC Game"...but I can't.

Better than any other game I have

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: December 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The beginning movie is very interesting for me. This mech pilot and the mech try and get back into the dropship, and they either die, dropship leaves and the mech dies, or that the mech gets on, I am not telling you the way it ends.

Gameplay
When you first begin, choose a name, there, then comes some a letter from the mech who just died. Later on you get information. You board the dropship, go to different planets, see your missions (or choose your contract in mech commander or whatever it is called). There are over 10 missions (forgot to count how many), with 4 arena missions where it is 3 against 1. There are mechs, ranging from 1 ton to 100 tons. Different weapons for usage, limited ammo for most.
Pros of this gameplay is that you get to customize and choose your mechs and teammates and formations and such. There are missions like search and destroy, recon (I never figured out what to do), escort, and defend.

Sound
This is either what I call an advantage or disadvantage. When you aren't battling, you keep hearing the sound of the object rotating which can lead to it being annoying. Battling, hear your mech start up, walk, launch missiles (same noise), and projectiles and jumpjets (projectiles don't have as good of a sound as missiles)

Controls
Aren't that many controls. Jumpjets, arrow keys, full scale attack, attack, etc. They are customizable, and simple to learn.

Mechs
Some mechs are annoying, some are not (can't stick some good weapons on it). What I usually do is take out everything Kodiak (the fastest 100 ton mech in the game) has like weapons, and replace them with Ultra A/C 20 (major damage!). Naga, a mech you can only use in battle mode (1 mission, practice), is equipped with arrow IV missiles (take a long time to reload, don't know if it is worth the time). There are other mechs like Awesome, Urbanmech, jagermech, you get the picture.

Cons:
Sound needs work
The background (wish it keep extending)
If you love this, the aftermath and information (about 3 long paragraphs)
The information when you dock
graphics need a bit work (it is good since it has been out for over 5 for me when I got it)

Pros:
The missions
The mechs
The weapons
The controls

I would recommend this game, and I never did buy this game, it came with my computer I bought 5 years ago.

Cool and tons of fun!!!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This games just about has all a robot game needs. This game is loads of fun. I never get tired of playing this game. If your looking for an action pack game Mechwarrior 2: Mercenares is that game!

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Mechwarrior 2:Mercenaries is the very first game I've ever played in the series, long before I started reading any of the books. Needless to say I was unfamiliar with the whole plot.
Mw2:Mercs puts you in the cockpit of awesome, powerful, 80-ton humanoid warmachines with enough firepower to level a city.
This is one of the few fps games that kept me glued to the monitor from beginning to end. Well worth the money.

The last great Mechwarrior game (Mech fans, read this)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Mechwarrior II - Mercenaries is the last of a rare breed: the Battletech series produced by FASA and Activision. Headed by many of the same developers who gave us the almost legendary Mechwarrior II - 31st Century Combat, Mercenaries combines the epic scope of 31st Century Combat, the excellent and creative level design of Ghost Bear's Legacy, and hurls the player into the world of actually managing a working mercenary crew.

Whereas in 31st Century Combat and Ghost Bear's Legacy the player was simply given a fresh mech after each battle, Mercenaries allows the player to manage every detail of repair, inventory, and missions. Money takes the place of the "Honor" system, which is now used to purchase mechs, weapons, parts, ammunition, and hire crew members. While this may seem overwhelming, it's done extremely well. The player can even choose which mission he wants to undertake: harder missions result in better payoff and therefore bigger guns, while easier missions barely cover repair costs. Of course, the natural desire to earn more money will probably result in fairly linear gameplay, and the missions seem designed as such. Mercenaries has been designed around these big campaign missions, but the myriad of smaller missions not only allow the player to pick up some extra cash, but spell out excellent replay value: there's a huge array of missions on many different worlds (all of which are assembled in a mind-boggling map display via the Instant Action screen), all of which have been designed with careful detail. Such a system not only allows for ridiculously deep customization not found in any other Mechwarrior games, it focuses the scope almost exclusively on the player's little band of mercenaries. The storyline is immediate, engaging, and probably the best-written in all of the Mechwarrior series.

The gameplay itself is nothing to scoff at, either. 31st Century Combat is known for throwing the player into a gigantic, powerful war machine capable of mowing down entire cities with a few taps of the keyboard. Mercenaries, however, is based not in the highly advanced Clan society, but instead in the dilapidated wastelands of the Inner Sphere. The mechs of the Inner Sphere are bumbling, unwieldly machines that seem to have a hard time killing much of anything, forcing old Mechwarrior vets to quickly change their entire piloting style to conform to the archaic mech controls. Not that the actual controls are bad: they're very tight, accurate, and true to the original control scheme. The difference is in the mechs themselves.

While this de-evolution may seem unnecessary, it's really an amazing change of pace that brings the Battletech saga into an entirely new focus, one that the series never seemed to let go of. Nearly every aspect of Mercenaries is tied into basic Battletech history, right down to the way the mechs themselves are handled. Because of this, Mercenaries is not only comprised of excellent gameplay that we've all come to expect from Activision and FASA, but is also a surprisingly engrossing experience. The gritty atmosphere, the top-notch soundtrack, the heavy "foom" of each step from your Battlemech, all of it contributes to the game as an experience.

The mechs themselves seem almost infinite in number. Many of them are sadly useless (and you might have to settle for buying one if you're low on cash, so make sure you go for the cash), but every single one is capable of becoming a ruthless, 80-ton killing machine with the right piloting and weapons. Thankfully, each mech is fully customizable (as long as you've bought the weaponry, that is), and many merchants will even sell different variants of the same mech to you so that you can swap weapons, equipment, and chassis as you please. It's an incredibly efficient, flexible system definitely worth checking out. Mercenaries also boasts a long line of exclusive mechs, many of which, put simply, kick ass.

New chassis include the Flashman, which utilizes a configuration based on lasers and flamers to create heat overloads in enemies; the Atlas, the greatest war machine of the Inner Sphere; the strange-looking Stalker that somewhat resembles a wingless jumbo jet on legs; the Urbanmech, a stout little bugger armed to the teeth with Autocannons; the fairly useless but nice-looking Hamato-Chi which sports a full PPC configuration; the Crab, a medium-sized mech with a surprising punch; the sharpshooter family (Clint, Vindicator, Javelin, Bombadier) which relies heavily on ammunition-based weapons (the Bombadier is completely ammunition-based. Run out of ammo and you're out of luck); and yes, the lovable little Jenner is back to kick ass and take names.

Of course, that's not to say that you'll be piloting these inferior mechs for the entire game. Notice that 31st Century Combat is set in 3051. Mercenaries is set in 3049. Anyone who's read through the history volumes of 31st Century remembers the epic invasion of the Inner Sphere, right?

;)

What's also important about Mercenaries to many mech-heads is the fact that Mercenaries was the last game produced by Activision and FASA. Mercenaries is possibly the last great Mechwarrior game: while its basic gameplay tenets have been passed down through Micropose and Microsoft, the newest developers never really captured the atmosphere and attention-grabbing storyline that made the Mechwarrior series famous.

Activision and FASA combine the classic gameplay of 31st Century Combat, creativity of Ghost Bear's Legacy, an excellent storyline, a deep, highly customizable management system, an amazing soundtrack, and one hell of a final showdown to create the beast known as Mechwarrior II - Mercenaries.

If you're a Mechwarrior fan, you'd be foolish to not get your hands on a copy of Mercenaries.

As for any newcomers to the series, Mechwarrior II - Mercenaries should give you a thorough history lesson as well as a great challenge compared to modern Mechwarrior games.

Whether you're an old hand or a green horn, Mercenaries is certainly worth every cent.

Alas...I wish i had a 95 to play the best PC masterpiece...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played this game since I was 5, and i miss it so much...Now nobody in my family has a 95, we've all got XPs so I can't play it anymore...WAAAAHHH!!!!! oh well Hey Mech Freaks if you put the game in your CD player (or at least the Titanium Trilogy Edition) of the Mechwarrior 2 games, it plays music- maybe it's just my copy but it's awesome! I love this game to death...

More of the same plus more

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Mercenaries was the bridge Battletech game - it combined the action of MW2 and Ghost Bear's Legacy with the off-battlefield logistics that were further honed in later titles. But Mercenaries was the first, and thus is rightly held in high esteem.

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