Mech Warrior 4: Vengeance
by Microsoft
|
List Price: Category: Video Games See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Video Game Reviews of Mech Warrior 4: Vengeance
Customer Review: Great Game!!! Buy It!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Over the years many games about the battletech universe has appeared,the computer games especially. The games are usually very fun,you drive mechs, giant robots, into the battle field and encounter a diverse set of opponents. The best part of the game is the ability to customize your mech with different weapons, second also there is a good amount of mechs you can choose.The graphics are phenominal, the lasers illnminate the screen, the explosions are nice, the computer opponents are good (not dummys that stand and fire aimlessly), and the missions are challenging. Everything in the game is interactive, stand near a exploding mech you get damaged, destroy a fuel tank while you are near it you get damaged, ram a vhecile you destroy it, damaging a helicopter it falls and crashes (if you're under it while it falls, Uh- oh). Over all the game is nice and worth a while, it's also a great buy.Customer Review: Best in a long series of good games--
Summary: 5 Stars
I have played about all the Mechwarrior games, including MW2, MW2 Expansion, MW3, Mercenaries, and Heavy Gear (which was in the series, but renamed because of copyright problems). This is the best in my view. The graphics are just superior. No other way to put it. As you fire on an enemy mech, the fire, explosions, and chips being blown off the enemy seem very real. The size of mechs is communicated to the player in a variety of ways, including the moaning hum and slow response appropriate to 100 tons of armored vehicle.There's been a real effort to weld the game into the Battletech Universe, which includes a long series of books on the "imaginary history" of the Clans, the Inner Sphere, the wars between the empires, and so forth. Some of the earlier games sort of skimmed by this. In other words, the "future history" is well developed.
I like the way the mechlab limits what changes can be made by separating weapons slots into energy, missile, or ballistic. In the past, a mech like a Catapault that is really a mobile missile platform could be rebuilt into anything-- some custom revisions making it entirely unlike the Catapault in the novels. In MW4, you can customize the Catapault but only within the concept of the vehicle. In other words, you can change the types of missiles, and regroup the missiles, but you will have difficulty adding much by way of ballistic weapons (cannons) since the slots just aren't there. This makes mechlab much more like the "real" aspects of battle mechs.
I like the story line and so far-- being 2/3 through the mission progression, I have not met a mission that I could not achieve. A good thing, because the cheat codes simply don't work. They were derived from the free demo version. The final version of MW4 has apparently been altered to invalidate the cheats. This could be a real problem if certain missions were almost impossibly hard, because you can't go on until you accplish the current mission. However, like I say, the missions have not been all that unreasonable.
I do very much like the placement of mech repair stations in a number of the missions so -- after you are shot up -- you can sneak off and get repaired and rearmed. Although sometimes the placement of these repair stations seems a little loony -- in one mission, you are cruising across barren desert for miles, and suddenly, low and behold, there's a repair station just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Not even a road nearby. But heck, I am not that good a gamer, and I appreciate the help.
To bring this to a close-- great game. As I say, I have played all or just about all of the previous mechwarrior series games and I truly believe this is the best.
No tech problems either. I am at the "minimum requirements," but it plays fine for me. No bugs, no glitches.
Customer Review: Letdown
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this because my computer was too new to run Mechwarrior 3, which in my opinion was a great game. Well, this one surprised me many times over. The graphics were the first surpise. They were on par with games I have from 1995, and were much worse than Mechwarrior 3. The weapons-loudout screen is better in ways...but all mechs can only carry around 1/3 of what they used to be able to. And now hardpoints can only carry certain items (ballistic, missile, beam, and Omni). While I agree to some extent to this (missile racks shouldn't be able to carry Gauss rifles), they brought it to such an extreme that any good loudout is virtually impossible. Many points that should have had the capability of carrying anything (Omni hardpoint), were often limited to ballistic weapons (guns and autocannons), or something like that._The aiming system has switched from the direct mouse cursor control that was in MW3, and gone back to the "center your mech on your target". This makes targeting a pain in the neck, because it isn't as smooth as it was in previous games. It's rather jerky and hard to do anything effective. Using the mouse helps greatly, though.
_An interesting quirk is that it's impossible to tell which weapon group you have selected. Why? Because they set up the controls so you can fire any weapon group at any time. So why would you need to know anyway? Becuase in the middle of combat, it's combersome to reach a hand up and hit a certain key when you're trying to do something...but they have a key where you can just fire the currently selcected weapon group (GREAT help if you're using mouse targeting). But to figure out what you have selected, you have to fire them.
_Overall: if you haven't played a previous Mechwarrior game, get it. You'll have nothing to be dissapointed in. If you really liked Mechwarrior 3 AND it works on your system, save your money. The only thing this game has going for it is one or two new weapon systems.
Customer Review: Could you ever doubt Mechwarrior?
Summary: 4 Stars
The Mechwarrior series has been one of my all-time favourites, having said that, Mechwarrior 4 and MW4 Mercenaries has been a bit of a disappointment for me, the physics and graphics seemed quite unrealistic, very arcade-ish when compared to that of Mechwarrior 3, but thats just my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, this is truely a great game and theres lots to love about it, my favourite being the components slots in mechlab, the fact that you can only put certain weapons on certain hard-points of a mech adds so much realisim to the game. This is how it is in the Battletech world and this is the way it should be in the Mechwarrior world! Hats off to Microsoft for adding this feature. In terms of game play, Mechwarrior 4 shines brightest when you take it online... you will be hooked! Join a house, merc unit, clan or go solo and battle it out against others on the world wide web. Whats better then putting a couple rounds of AC20s through that sucker that just happen to end up between your crosshairs! It gets even better when you discover theres so much more you can do - examples: team battles and co-op battles... the list is large and there is just so much support for this game, its unbelievable. If it weren't for the physics and graphics, I would have given it a 5, none the less Mechwarrior4 is a great game and it holds it own with a very definite 4.Customer Review: An all-around quality gaming experience
Summary: 5 Stars
I get on kicks every now and again. Early last year it was D&D games, before that it was first person sneakers (Deus Ex, Thief, No One Lives Forever, etc.). Right now it's Giant Death Robots. MechWarrior 4 fits firmly into the tradition established by its predecessors: you're given a mission and a selection of 'Mechs (40-foot-tall, vaguely anthropomorphic walking tanks) and lancemates to execute it with. Completing missions successfully and nailing the secondary and tertiary objectives nets you more weapons, equipment, and 'Mechs to employ in future missions. Gameplay feels like a slowed-down, cerebral first-person shooter - it's not so simulation-like that it takes half an hour to learn to walk your 'Mech out of the hangar, but even the nimblest, most trigger-happy player will be quickly stymied unless he learns how to think tactically.
Also, as is to be expected, the game inherits many of its various quirks from its granddaddy, the dice-and-miniatures BATTLETECH game. There's the overriding concern with managing your robot's heat disposal - do you spend those extra five tons on more lasers and missiles, or do you add more heat sinks to keep the machine running longer without stalling out? There's the endless indecipherable acronyms for everything - a term like "Clan Ultra LBX AC 20" may accurately represent the real-life military's preoccupation with senseless acronyms, but the term does little to inform players that it refers to what amounts to a really big gun. And then there's the dauntingly large and impossibly convoluted BATTLETECH backstory, which while entertaining to those with the will to suss it all out, leaves everyone else benumbed and without a frame of reference to appreciate most of the goings-on (aside from Stuff Blows Up Real Good, anyway).
So yeah, MW4 carries a lot of baggage. But that's okay, because, all other considerations aside, it's a great big hoot of a game. Graphics this time out are lovely, even given that the game was released in late 2000. Weapon effects are tops - lasers generate groovy light-sourcing, impacting missiles leave obscuring gouts of thick smoke around their targets (which can be useful to effect a quick getaway), and PPC blasts cause your opponent to spark and trail electric arcs. There's a big selection of gorgeously-rendered environments to stomp around in, from lunar wasteland to snowy peaks to swamps to coastal harbor towns. (A welcome addition: the coastal levels let you wade your 'Mech a couple miles out into the water to do battle with enormous oceangoing battleships and cruisers.) Particularly well-done this time are the urban levels, which are finally done correctly to scale and give a nice tingly feeling of paranoia and claustrophobia (you never know when a 100-ton Atlas might come stomping out from behind a building).
Enemy AI this time is generally very good, with enemies using the right weapons at the right ranges, taking cover behind buildings and hills, grabbing the high ground to pound you with long-range missiles and Gauss rounds, etc. Your lancemates are actually people of value this time around, and they really do behave according to their skill profile (the guy who's a crack shot actually opts to snipe, and the girl with a huge score in piloting actually runs rings around her targets, etc.)
What came as a surprise to me was the quality of MW4's story. Previous MechWarrior games too often felt like abstract military exercises, with mission briefings coming to you in blocks of jargon-filled text that too often failed not only to convey a story, but even to be understandable to people not steeped in BATTLETECH lore. While it's true that MW4 employs dodgy full-motion video backed by even dodgier 'actors', the narrative is clean, focused, and perfectly sensible - your lancemates become actual characters rather than collections of statistics, and your enemies are hissable villains rather than abstract bullseyes under your target reticle. It's admirably supported by a lovely musical score that veers between violent, pounding guitar riffs (like most of the music in MW2 and Mercenaries) and swelling orchestral themes.
It's a great game and I give it an unqualified recommendation to anyone with a muscular enough PC.