Mech Merc Company

This is a barely playable alpha with very little content that has not had a development update in 2 years. Avoid.

As an indie product created by a solo dev, costing a modest amount and then being changed to freeware... It's a so-so title. In-game god mode, infinite ammo and no heat mods make it a better experience, but it's not super great at the moment. Clearly inspired by the Mechwarrior series. You start off as the sole captain of a merc company, armed with a single light mech. Not much of a 'goal' aside from building up wealth, completing contracts for cash, collecting mechs from the shop or from salvage, and upgrading mechs with increasing tiers of mech parts. Fun in theory, but the gameplay loop is unpolished. Enemy tanks and turrets can be walked over for instant elimination, which comes in handy (doesn't look like this damages your mech in the process). Enemy mechs are usually at least as durable as your starter mech, and trying to out DPS them is a risky endeavor. Heat management is quite difficult, as your mech will stall and become immobile if you use your lasers too frequently, and it takes a while to get use to aiming your unguided missiles properly. You can by some cheap parts to make your started mech stronger, but the success or failure of your 'campaign' usually depends on acing the first contract. Some missions can be child's play and others can be hell, and a rating of 1-4 doesn't give enough detail to properly inform the player. If you somehow manage to complete your first mission, you get a chance to salvage parts or even mechs by spending some of your income. Though, salvage costs increase exponentially depending on weight, item value and the number of items salvaged, so it's usually best to go for a single high value item like a generator or a damaged mech (the latter is a better deal than trying to get mechs from the shop, $700,000 vs $5,000,000 is a big difference). With more mechs, you can hire additional pilots to pilot the mechs, though this factors into the weekly costs of the company. Given the upkeep costs for mechs and pilots, plus additional costs for transportation, you'll probably have to choose missions that start in 0 weeks from the current date, to minimize upkeep costs. Also, contract hired pilots will leave the party after you are done with the selected mission chain, so you need to hire new pilots each time. Starting off, you'll note that store prices are expensive, especially for the mechs. Light mechs cost around $5,000,000, and heavy mechs cost up to $15,000,000. Doesn't look like there's much of a way to actually obtain that much cash. Money management is very tricky given the various costs for operation, especially mech repairs. Experience feels unpolished, but it's something that can be played around in for a few hours.

Shows promise, if only another dev could make it complete.

Мехи, графика конца 90х как и интерфейс, разнообразие настроек улучшений заданий. В общем неплохо, но очень на любителя

I usually prefer Armored Core-style games but this is a pretty good and fun Mechwarrior-like, it's a shame that development ended but hey, it's free

I was hoping for something really old school like the Atari Jaguars "Iron Soldier" unfortunately it's not even that good and that came out in 1994. Combat is very dull, enemies are hard to see and it just feels unloved and unfinished. As others have said, the menus are terrible. Controls are ok, but when combat is just robots kamikaze running at you until they are in your face whilst you desperately try to find a weapon that will fire, it just feels wrong, not worth the effort.