It's an aggravating mid. Some good, some bad.
Pros:
- Compared to most previous games, i.e. MW5 Mercenaries or BATTLETECH (2018), it's a clan-specific story-driven. Although, while that clan or the story is fairly generic, at least it is more cinematic.
- Character cutscenes/animations are fun to watch, especially their lips. They're exaggerated like actors on recording booth. They're well acted (at least for the sub-par writing, which I'll get to later.)
- A more animated lasers themselves. (Though, I miss the metal-melting effect from some of the prior games.)
- Good cockpit animation and design.
- Has top-down teammate control for additional control.
- Battle audio is good.
- Graphic/light effect is good.
- Has hoard or npc deathmatch mode with your teammates with the mechs you have, great ways to test your guns.
- (A bit personal) It finally has Mad Cat/Timber Wolf. My fav from MW3. Been two decades since I saw it in action.
- There are some additional equipment I've not seen before. One of them was a clear benefit.
- While the Mech diversity seems reduced, (which itself is in the con section later,) I'm fine with the diversity that is here. Just having a longer list to read while most of them doing similar things anyway was more of a chore for me. And there are ways to overhaul some part of the available mechs (i.e. making a shoulder to ballistic-focused instead of lasers with counter measures), which is not the same feeling as getting a new car every time, but functionally it's just as good.
- Can have 1 more than usual squad mates, total 5.
Cons:
- Dumb AI, especially the allies, just back and forth for combat maneuvers and staring at cliffs because of an enemy behind it while getting surrounded by 4 enemies, which isn't as much of an issue with the enemies just because of their sheer number. Opted to manually position allies for better control, which was better with the map view, though even then sometime they won't shoot.
- That nicer map view is not usable in tunnels or darker foggier map.
- Dumb AI #2, also allies, somehow moving perfectly in sync to get in between me and my targets very often. The standard formation make them too close to each other, need a wider formation order and need awareness of each other so they'd spread out by default.
- Characters aren't good. My teammates sound like they're naive children half the time, not hardened warriors. I guess they're kid soldiers with a new job. But not sure if it needed to go this low. Maybe that's because-
- Characters aren't good #2. The higher commanding officers don't sound that much better either. Have little to no feelings except ordering angrily. It's convenient that their primary "warriors" are scratchy kids, so they get to bark a lot. They also talk a bit too slow for me. They don't inspire, they don't lead, they don't respect (not their own nor their enemy warrior cultures), they're not efficient, and they don't appear necessary (except for maybe that one who was kicking an assault butt in a Timber Wolf, everyone else just complain a lot when some things they wanted aren't done in ways they wanted that they never talked about prior or have done anything). It might be a sign of their destructive and inhumane culture, it's fairly similar to how often Warhammer 40k are written. Though, I still disagree that it should be written this way. Either way, feels like we're one of the bad guys because we're idiots and I couldn't be motivated with their objectives.
- The player faction/clan say things to sound like they're powerful in the story, has more advanced tech and numbers than even one of the main houses. But in reality, the 5 mechs I'm with are fighting 20+, half of which are heavier mechs, which means they have better number and tech in average, and they're shooting the same gun-techs as we do. The only reason why we're still winning is because the AIs are dumb and I'm busy killing 15+ per mission and always at least twice as more than the other 4 combined, and I can do that only because I'm the only one consistently shooting at enemies. I can't feel powerful about our clan if I'm the only reason why that is.
- Mech diversity seems reduced compared to MW5: Mercenaries or BATTLETECH even when including DLC/NPC exclusive ones, maybe in par with the old MechAssault series. As mentioned before, this is reinforced by other positive factors that came with it, so I don't mind. But just by itself, it doesn't look as colorful.
- Not my favorite UI. Some unnecessary screens, like a confusing interaction between two mech editing screens when only one of them seem to be doing anything which it keeps going to but it's not the default screen, the customized mech presets that need to be saved at another screen to be applied or otherwise resets everything, weapon group edit menu saved by "spacebar" and reset by "esc" key, and etc.
- Crashes fairly often mid-mission, which doesn't save, and need to be done all over. Happened 3 times in 10 hours. It didn't bother me that much because I've seen many more worse from the "industry standard" apps. But many hundreds of games I've played has 0 crash for dozens of hours. So this one doesn't appear to be ideal in that standard.
- Something about the main character's eyes that feel corny and dead inside. Does he have any other expression?
Conclusion:
Maybe play it if you're a fan of the series and just happy to see it in another light. Although, functionally as a game, there are prior games that'll get you going for much longer per budget.
