As I just finished the story campaign of BattleTech after thirty-plus hours of grief and delightfulness, I feel I have seen enough of it to give it an honest and comprehensive look-see. Of course, everything I do say and think about this is going to be biased by my love for stompy mech action and grimdark future settings. Whether or not I'm qualified to give games like this reviews, well... that'll have to be up to the reader. I've been a gamer since the C64, and consider myself a veteran of every genre outside of MOBAs and dating simulators, and have pretty much seen and played what there is to play. This genre, turn-based strategy with strategic campaign and "overworld" resource/asset management is one of my favorites. So, let's get on with it.
What is BattleTech?Well, the
intro cinematic does a remarkably good job of setting the tone.
Originally a tabletop strategy game, BattleTech is a future setting where humanity has explored and settled the stars, and lived through a golden and idyllic era that to absolutely no one's surprise went completely tits over arse. Challenges in communication and the tendencies humanity have for feudal and tribal societies to grow under such conditions eventually caused enough friction for countless wars, followed by wars of succession and eventually a rather splintered humanity. In this setting, there's several time periods you can end up playing in depending on the game, and this particular game is set in 3025, during one of the murkier parts of the timeline. Technology is in decline, as the successor wars have caused terrible damage both to manufacturing capabilities and even knowledge repositories. The finest war machines of humanity, the BattleMechs, are in many cases considered LosTech, relics and heirlooms from a better era. And those manufactured today are often of lower quality and worse capability. The rise of new and better Mechs are still decades away, when the Clans come along.
Harebrained Schemes, the developer, and the brilliant original minds behind the setting successfully kickstarted a PC game and here we are.
So, in this delightfully Dune meets Game of Thrones meets 40k meets Animu Bullshit Done Right setting, you get to play the role of a Mercenary Commander plying your violent trade among the stars. Setting the story aside for a minute, this means you will be in control of a ship carrying your mercenary company around, doing basic management of finances, reputation, crew, ship upgrades, mechs and mech outfitting and the meat and bones of the game: Turn Based Tactical Combat in Big Stompy Mechs versus other Big Stompy Mechs, Turrets, Vehicles and what have you. You'll negotiate contracts with your employers, seeking the best jobs for your capabilities and figuring out if you prefer cold hard cash or higher stakes in the salvage, or perhaps do jobs for less reward but more reputation.
When jobs go bad, you may even find it a real challenge just to keep your mercenary company afloat, as your crews are hospitalized, your mechs ravaged and needing a lot of repair time, and bills are piling up. This isn't a job for the faint hearted or nervous of disposition. Welcome to BattleTech, you may want to strap in and nut up.
GameplaySo, here we'll have to mention the storyline a little, but it'll have a section of its own further down. I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum. The game starts you off in service to Lady Kamea Arano, on her way to her coronation, things go horribly wrong and long story short you barely survive and end up in the company of mercenaries who are also fleeing. Years passing by, you end up in charge and in the situation of having huge debts from just getting out of dodge - jump ships and their services aren't cheap - and from funding the gear you need just to keep the company running.
After finding and taking a risky opportunity, you find yourself again working for Lady Kamea Arano. Whether it's because she'll cover all your debts and provide steady work, or because you feel honor bound, or simply want your own slice of the revenge pie from the events in the beginning will be up to you.
What this means is that you will continue to do your mercenary work, but you're also on retainer for her and her effort to retake her throne. Your job is to improve your own lot, make money, get more and better Battle Mechs, upgrade and fund your ship and company, train your mechwarriors and answer the call when the Arano Restoration have need of your services.
Now, BattleTech is not a forgiving game. If you've ever played XCOM/XCOM2, you will be familiar with the basic formula. Pick from the available contracts/missions. Choose your BattleMechs and pilots, hopefully having given them a good loadout/fitting and training the mechwarriors properly. Drop a lance of Mechs (one Lance is four Battle Mechs of various sizes) onto a battleground and fulfill the contracted objectives and bonus objectives before extraction. Pick and choose some salvage and get paid. Then spend that pay and salvage on unfucking your horribly fucked up BattleMechs and stress out over how long your Mechwarriors are going to spend in the hospital. Maybe you're good enough that you easily grow your company, maybe you'll have to sell off Mechs just to stay afloat. That's up to you.
Oh, you noticed I barely even mentioned what happened on the ground, huh? Yeah, that's because I am slightly at a loss for how to describe it properly. If you've played the other recent games from HBS like Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong (if you haven't, I highly recommend them all) or XCOM/XCOM2, you know the gist of it. You'll be in turn-based control of your units, versus hostile forces under various conditions.
BattleMechs come in basically four different classes. Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault, ranging from itty bitty gnats weighing in at barely 30 tons, through colossal murder machines weighing in at 100 tons of armor, weaponry and pure unadulterated terror. Some can make great use of Jump Jets, scaling mountains and buildings with ease and repositioning in ways that makes the enemy weep as their weak spots are now vulnerable. Others have hardpoint configurations that makes them excellent brawlers, and others still will excel as snipers or fielding indirect fire support from behind a hill. It will be up to you - and the contents of your mech bays - what kind of lance you'll be fielding and what they'll be wielding. Some missions benefit from a well rounded lance with scouts, high maneuverability and so on, while others will benefit from a giant wall of steel and firepower. You'll also want to match pilots (mechwarriors) with mechs suitable for their skillset, which you'll be leveling as they gain experience on the field.
To put it lightly, BattleTech is a
very information dense game and it takes time to get to grips with all of its little intricacies. Everything matters. Your mechs' facing, armor complement, weapon ranges, stability, evasion - which is coupled with movement speed and how far you moved them this turn - elevation, cover, heat generation and dissipation and some of these things are further complicated by the map itself. Some maps are hot or cold, seriously affecting your heat sinking, along with specific strategic points on the map. Swamps may afford you a little more stability, lakes will cool you off faster, swirling dust devils can obscure you from a target but also reduce your own aim, and whether you're in an arctic blizzard or searing desert will have huge implications for your ability to use high-heat alpha strikes or make you regret not building your mechs for low heat generation.
Making it even more difficult, you will start off knowing very little about what you're about to face. The difficulty level of a contract is on a one to five 'skulls' scale, and
it lies. A lot. Intel can be... shall we say
imperfect and you'll get surprises as reinforcements double up on what you have to face, and sometimes the configuration of the enemies can counter your setup with ease. Fighting a lance of four mechs while another four enemies hammer your mechs with huge volleys of long-range missiles from far beyond your ability to even see can quickly turn a fight into an impossible mess. Just trust me when I say that some of the difficulty spikes will come as severe surprises of the whiplash inducing varieties.
The rounds themselves are divided into five levels of Initiative, where the lightest mechs/units alternate, then the medium units alternate, etc. You can also choose to reserve units into later initiative rounds, creating situations where all your mechs can act in unison at the last level of initiative, then your lightest mechs can act again in the next round before the enemies can. Managing initiative and turn order through mech choices, how you level and skill your mechwarriors etc is a complication I'll leave up to you to figure out. Don't neglect it either, because it can have a huge impact if you let it.
In addition, the various contracts will have differing kinds of objectives, ranging from assassination of specific targets through assaulting and destroying bases, or perhaps defending them from attacks and so on. There's no shortage of things that might complicate any given mission, although there
is a finite amount of maps to play on.
It's taken me thirty hours to be able to say I have a solid grasp of the UI and what all the various mechs and enemies you'll face are capable of, but while I've left teethmarks in my keyboard and gotten a washcloth to wipe froth and spittle off the monitor at some of the "Bullshit! That's SO bullshit!" moments I've encountered, I can't deny that it's a very satisfying feeling to get to this point in the campaign. Every mech bay full of great BattleMechs, a barracks full of competent and fun Mechwarriors, and the galaxy is my playground. XCOM and XCOM2 have very solid competition in this game, facing the same kind of merciless philosophy and challenge, while also having giant stompy mechs and an incredibly rich and intriguing setting.
Graphics and Audio, Technical stuffDon't really have much to offer in this section, really. It's a Unity Engine game, which means it'll never quite compete with the highest end Star Citizen/Unreal Engine/Whatever games in terms of sheer fidelity, but at the same time I have no complaints about what I've seen on the screen so far, or heard through my HD650s or Micca MB42x speakers. The mechs are faithfully recreated and look great, weapon effects and impacts are solid and meaty both in terms of visuals and audio, and everything is delightfully stompy stomp.
What should be mentioned, because it certainly had a huge impact on me, is the absolutely fantastic story cinematics. Check the intro I linked up above for an example of the artstyle they used, which to me is genuine evidence of how vastly superior that kind of animation is to 3D animated cutscenes. It's evocative, gorgeous and provides impact in a way that's rare to find.
Sadly, the fact that it's a Unity Engine game also comes with a problem. It's not very well optimized. When you can make my i7-6700 4Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 1080ti system chug down to 25-40 fps in a few short spots, something isn't done right. Sadly, this is common in Unity Engine games, and I really wish devs would stop using that terrible piece of crap.
That said, it was never a problem during gameplay, just during moments like between rounds or hitching while initially loading things, etc. Of course, in a turn based game, it'll have even less of an impact.
Storyline CampaignI've touched on this already, and this section isn't really going to add much since I want to avoid spoiling it, but this section will still contain spoilers so skip it if you want a pristine playthrough. What I can say is that it's a very solid exploration of the setting, setting up a traditional hero's journey. It's full of hardships and tragedy, joyful and bitter victories and defeats. It'll explore the vast differences between low and high borne, rationality and furious vengeance and more. There won't be anything you haven't seen before, as it's both traditional and classic in nature but I have no complaints about that.
What struck me as I finished the storyline and was set free into the universe to make my own way unfettered and unleashed, was just how competently done it was, even if blatantly obvious in retrospect. You go through the hero's journey, seeing all kinds of challenges and tribulations, seeing development and a rise to great power.
... and it isn't
your journey. You're in the supporting cast. The journey is that of another, while you are the one making the journey possible. I personally highly enjoyed that fact, and while the story is pretty traditional it felt solid and well written.
ConclusionVery enjoyable, highly addictive, delightfully complex and in-depth turn-based strategy with marvelous stompy and pew-pewy BattleMechs in a setting that has earned its accolades a hundred times over. Even if I hadn't backed this a year and a half ago on Kickstarter, I wouldn't hesitate to pay full price for this today, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a taste for this sort of setting, and for turn-based strategy. It's not flawless, and it's going to drive some people to drink through the rollercoasters of frustrations and elation, but what it does do flawlessly more than makes up for the minor drawbacks.
This'll stand the test of time as one of the best games of the year, and one of the best turn-based strategy games of our era. I even hear that if it does well, there's already plans in place for continuing the BattleTech saga in those other delightful parts of the setting. That sound you just heard was the veterans of BattleTech and Mechwarrior collectively creaming themselves at the thought of a campaign set in the Clan timeframe.
Multiplayer Eh, don't care. I hear it's solid and enjoyable, but I genuinely couldn't care less.
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Topic: BattleTech, a singleplayer review. (Read 1241 times)