BATTLETECH

imma tell my kids this was mech commander

I loved this game. It is one of the best TBS experiences I have ever had. I recently finished the vanilla campaign, and now I've installed the BTA mod and am considering buying the DLCs as well. Highly recommended for anyone who loves lasers, missiles, and giant exploding war machines. [b]PROS:[/b] [list] [*] Great atmosphere [*] Simplified rules (compared to the original BattleTech tabletop game), making it newcomer-friendly while still offering an excellent turn-based combat system [*] Runs well on the Steam Deck [*] Wide variety of mission types [*] No obvious bugs or other serious technical issues [*] Large selection of high-quality community mods [/list] [b]NEUTRAL:[/b] [list] [*] There is an ongoing story that you can either completely ignore by clicking through the dialogue or read for a light RPG/visual novel experience [/list] [b]CONS:[/b] [list] [*] The business dispute between HBS and Paradox is very saddening [*] Most of the text is very small, both on the Steam Deck and even on larger monitors. On the Steam Deck, I had to constantly use the magnifier function. It feels more like a stylistic choice, as there would be plenty of room for larger text. [*] Maybe I just played on too low a difficulty setting, but during the last third of the campaign, the AI didn't seem very capable of using heavy and assault mechs effectively against my own. Once I had built strong lances, battles felt more like stomps than fair fights. I hope the mods and higher difficulty settings will improve this on my second playthrough. [*] There is no official gamepad support, but it is relatively easy to play using the Steam Deck's touchpad as a mouse. [*] In the vanilla game, you can barely zoom out, making it harder to get a good overview of the battlefield. Fortunately, mods like BTA allow you to zoom out much farther and see a larger area. [*] The follow camera is sometimes positioned in very strange ways. It might show only the legs of a moving mech, or even the side of a hill instead of the unit moving behind it. Luckily, you can disable it altogether. [/list]

I've been playing this fairly regularly since the Kickstarter early access was released in...2017/2018, I think? It includes lots of tweaks from the board/miniatures game, but it does a great job of capturing the feel of that turn-based experience. The campaign is good for what it is, though like so many games it always feels odd to imply a sense of urgency that doesn't actually exist. The career or post-campaign play is fun, and the addition of flashpoints in the expansions does a lot to add some extra variety to the gameplay. While the vanilla game eventually just becomes too easy, there's a robust set of mods available in the wild that do everything from add some tweaks to the core experience to completely rebuilding the game.

super fun

Very good SRPG - Stompy Mechs

its battletech, if you like battletech this really good game :>

Great Battletech game. Some of the missions are a bit too random, but the mech building and turn based combat are great.

Awesome Mech turn based combat with great mod support.

its good

If you want a gritty strategic game with Rich lore and a well written plot then this needs to be in your library.