Battletech (post-campaign)
Having finished the campaign, my opinions haven't changed that much. The game overall is best if you're a fan, but good overall.
The story is one of conflict among noble families, political interconnections, and cycles of revenge and rebellion. It is perfectly fitting the setting, though it does feel a little impersonal - both in how you're a mercenary aiding one side in the conflict and how the game is inherently limited in how it can present the story technically (via a few cut scenes and dialog along the way). Lostech features in a fairly satisfying way, though it's a piece of software that has a bit more impact on the story than the more advanced battlemechs.
You get one SLDF mech partway through the campaign and another after the end (at which point, you can still run around doing non-story missions with the whole region map unlocked). They add an element of "special/cool stuff" without really upending anything. And if that gause rifle or those double heat sinks get destroyed, there's no replacing them. You certainly can pull items off and move them to other mechs, though. That's something I didn't take much advantage of, even though the first one comes with more double heat sinks than I ever needed with it. The Argo is pretty cool, too, though I do wish there was a little more tangible benefit to some of the upgrades beyond increased base unit morale.
I found the experience of "graduating" up the mech classes to be interesting. It's not a wholly new experience to me, but still remarkable. You start with light mechs that are fast and rely on that to try to avoid damage more than anything. Then you start getting into medium mechs and you feel the loss of speed, but it's generally worth it for greater firepower and durability. And you face that trade-off again with heavy and assault mechs. I had one regular mobility expert pilot who lingered in a medium Shadow Hawk even as I started getting assault mechs, but that just started feeling too squishy. It had great melee damage, which vehicles are especially vunerable to, but when you start facing vehicles with three PPCs or 2 AC/20s, closing on them gets too dangerous. By the time you're fielding a heavy/assault lance, concentrated and careful fire is very important. Heck, I took down a lot of assault mechs by pilot damage (inflicted by knockdown, side torso destruction, or rare head hits) rather than mech destruction - so much so that I started relying on high-stablity damage LRM swarms over raw damage output. There are a lot of little aspects like that to consider, which is probably a fair bit of what I love about the game.
With the campaign under my belt, though, I'm not sure how much time I'll keep putting into the game in the near-future. I might come back to it if they add more maps and adjust missions (something I've read is in the works) or if there are mods that add something new. But even without story, I like the option to boot up and launch some tactical mech combat.
The story is one of conflict among noble families, political interconnections, and cycles of revenge and rebellion. It is perfectly fitting the setting, though it does feel a little impersonal - both in how you're a mercenary aiding one side in the conflict and how the game is inherently limited in how it can present the story technically (via a few cut scenes and dialog along the way). Lostech features in a fairly satisfying way, though it's a piece of software that has a bit more impact on the story than the more advanced battlemechs.
You get one SLDF mech partway through the campaign and another after the end (at which point, you can still run around doing non-story missions with the whole region map unlocked). They add an element of "special/cool stuff" without really upending anything. And if that gause rifle or those double heat sinks get destroyed, there's no replacing them. You certainly can pull items off and move them to other mechs, though. That's something I didn't take much advantage of, even though the first one comes with more double heat sinks than I ever needed with it. The Argo is pretty cool, too, though I do wish there was a little more tangible benefit to some of the upgrades beyond increased base unit morale.
I found the experience of "graduating" up the mech classes to be interesting. It's not a wholly new experience to me, but still remarkable. You start with light mechs that are fast and rely on that to try to avoid damage more than anything. Then you start getting into medium mechs and you feel the loss of speed, but it's generally worth it for greater firepower and durability. And you face that trade-off again with heavy and assault mechs. I had one regular mobility expert pilot who lingered in a medium Shadow Hawk even as I started getting assault mechs, but that just started feeling too squishy. It had great melee damage, which vehicles are especially vunerable to, but when you start facing vehicles with three PPCs or 2 AC/20s, closing on them gets too dangerous. By the time you're fielding a heavy/assault lance, concentrated and careful fire is very important. Heck, I took down a lot of assault mechs by pilot damage (inflicted by knockdown, side torso destruction, or rare head hits) rather than mech destruction - so much so that I started relying on high-stablity damage LRM swarms over raw damage output. There are a lot of little aspects like that to consider, which is probably a fair bit of what I love about the game.
With the campaign under my belt, though, I'm not sure how much time I'll keep putting into the game in the near-future. I might come back to it if they add more maps and adjust missions (something I've read is in the works) or if there are mods that add something new. But even without story, I like the option to boot up and launch some tactical mech combat.
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