Recall the former. Mechcommander

Life is a circle of equal. There, fate seeks to subjugate the wolf clan and loses. There, fate wants to break the bear clan and is humbled. There, fate wants to make the clan of the crew and heed the clan herself to listen to her speeches.

Recently, the BatTletech tactical strategy has been published about combat robots, which became a sip of fresh air in moldy from the time of the universe. The game came out with its pros and cons, but took a place of honor among other games that came out earlier. Of the worthy, or truly cult games (in my modest opinion), only a little can be listed:
1. Mechwarrior 3
2. Mechewarrior 4 Merceenaries
3. Mechcommander
The first two games belong to the simulators of the fighting robot pilot, which go along the verge of casuality and real deep games. As they say, Easy to Learn Hard to Master. But we’ll talk about them later, it requires a separate article, because the nuances in these games are just a lot.

Now let’s talk about the first RTS (real -time strategies) on the BatTletech universe – Mechcommander.

It was a distant 1998, it was then that the disk fell into my hands and soon went to the CDROM for installation. I am still grateful that my acquaintance with the world of combat robots began with this strategy. She, like other games, offered moderate complexity, a fairly simple interface and a quick understanding of what should be done from beginning to end.

It all starts with a briefing. According to https://ukcryptocasinos.co.uk/review/aztec-paradise/ the plot, we fly up to a certain planet, we are set tasks that need to be completed, assigned starting capital, supply the first three robots (furs). The next analogy with modern games can be drawn with XCOM, but taking into account the battles in real time and the fact that there are no buildings in the game, but there is a rather detailed manager of the furs for the strategy.

It’s funny that even the view from above (the classic type of RTS strategy) is due to the fact that our base is in the orbit of a certain planet, and we, as the squad commander, are and commander fighters directly from there.

Briefing before the first sortie.

You can buy any weapon in the store and put it on your fur. Restriction is only the weight of your murder car. (the heavier the fur, the more weapons you can load it, but the less your mobile will be your fur). However, there are rather interesting individuals who combine an acceptable amount of weapons and a pretty good speed and mobility of movement. Basically, such furs must be captured on the battlefield from the enemy, since by default, what you can purchase in a store on your base (no matter the fur, weapons or equipment) is much worse than that of the opponent, thereby you are always interested in finding any additional resources on the map or “captivating” enemy fur on the map. You can capture it triviously killing it, the enemy’s pilot is catapulting, and the fur, depending on how many shells you let into it, or remains facelessly on the ground, or explodes to the hell, leaving you absolutely nothing. That is why various tactics should be used during the battle, shoot the least powerful weapon, or aiming at the legs, so as not to destroy the vital organs of fur. Weapons in the game are divided into three distances – near, middle, distant. But the varieties of guns are just a million – here you have lasers, auto -shoes, ordinary and homing missiles, various emitters, and many more in many things.

Blood the enemy base was successful.

Each mission in the campaign is a manually written script with certain conditions. For example, in one of the missions, you need to attack the enemy base, but the main condition is that you can take furs for the battle with a total weight of up to 80 tons. By the way, the lightest robot begins with a weight of 25 tons and it is useful only in the initial stages, or as a distraction of attention in future missions. At other tasks, agricultural farms will be required to protect you, the enemy will advance in waves and each such wave will be a certain surprise that will force you to re -reproduce the mission by a different composition, or change your armament. A certain “patfainding” also did not cancel, you can start exploring the card, mining new weapons, but there is a great chance to run into dangerous enemies, which you can not meet at all if only the main task is engaged in the main task. The whole game consists of this – it is interesting what is around the corner, but scary, since the forces are already running out, and you also need to return to the evacuation point and it is not known what awaits us ahead. The game contains 30 missions, every task will give you sweat, but every loss does not choose, but only makes you say – well, now I will definitely go, I’ll just put this gun and change the pilots. By the way, it is impossible to persist during the assignment, if you have lost the robot, then you can’t return it anymore – you can choose it after the task, fix it and send it to battle if it has not exploded. By the way about pilots – they have their own pumping system, albeit quite simple. The more often you take the pilot for tasks, the faster, in automatic mode, it pumps 4 characteristics: shooting, piloting, jumping, sensors. To pump jumps on furs, you need to put special jump-jets, and for the latter to put updated sensors that help to denote enemies on a mini map, distinguish them by species from afar. If your fur is destroyed, then the pilot, depending on the damage of the fur (or critical can fly) either he is ejected or dies the hero inside the combat vehicle. Such losses usually make us involuntarily reach for the restarts button of the mission. In order to avoid this, it is recommended to take a repair machine with you on the task that repair your furs, but you always have to balance between the choice of fur or machine, because sometimes the limitation in the maximum weight on the task makes itself felt. During the assignment, it is possible to strike a blow from orbit with heavy weapons. Such shells are given a certain amount (usually the whole couple), you need to spend them wisely, because they can glorify the situation on the battlefield.

Music in the game is just the best in a series of games on Battletech. It is saturated with a certain pathos, a sense of gigantism and tension, in which she holds the whole task from beginning to end. Even in the menu, when planning a mission, a very correct atmosphere is created, which has tactical thoughts. And during the fighting, this music is diluted with remarks of pilots, which (in the English version of the game) are voiced at the highest level. They are constantly talking, tell you about your condition of fur, which is happening to them at one time or another. By the way, the actors were called to shoot the introductory video for the game, which speaks about developers’ ambitions in 1998.

If anyone wants to get acquainted with the BatTletech universe, then the first series of books by the author Robert Torston, Roman about Aiden Pride, will be a great beginning. It is the first three books that are the most interesting – the path of clans, the path of a warrior, a crew clan.

What do we have in the end?
We have just an excellent tactical strategy that would not hurt to get a remaster, because the graphics can scare away many players, but believe me – this game can still tighten you for long evenings, surprise you with a depth of tactical thoughts and a variety of situations. Be sure to overcome the aversion to the schedule, otherwise you will miss this masterpiece. The second part of this game is absolutely not that … Mehi have become more toy, and I am generally silent about the combat system, the tactics there are completely killed … But this is a completely different story.