Review

As I said in my Heavy Gear 2 review, I've had the top two mech games of 1999 on my 'to play' list for a long time. Well, having blitzed through Heavy Gear 2 just before the holidays, I took advantage of the long winter break to scratch Mechwarrior 3 off the list as well. Whereas HG2 left a sour taste in my mouth, MW3 delivered the goods, providing pretty much exactly the kind of experience I look for in a mech game. What do I look for in a mech game? Specifically, a 'simulation' feel, a strong focus on heat/weapons management, meaningful tactical loadout decisions, and that big, lumbering, "I'm in a 50 ton machine" feeling. The allure of mech games, for me, is the simulation of futuristic (outdoor) combat with gameplay that's decidedly different than just a first-person-shooter. That's part of why HG2 didn't work for me, though I would have enjoyed it on its own terms if it hadn't failed so bad (and focused so much) on the stealth aspect. However, while HG2 stumbled technically, it possessed one thing which MW3 lacks: ambition. MW3 is a very well-implemented mech simulation, but with not nearly enough game wrapped around it.

Good

• The single player campaign (which is going to show up in the 'Bad' column as well) is thoroughly enjoyable. The designers stuck to the sweet spot, and you (almost) never have to do things that the game and the game engine just aren't very good at. I signed up to pilot mechs across big maps and duke it out with other mechs, and that's what I got.

• The salvage feature is a lot of fun. It's automatic, which for practical reasons might be the only way to go, but nevertheless it's fun to rummage through a pile of hardware at the end of each mission and pull out what you want. The weight limits of your mobile field bases impose some restraint, though I always had more gear than I could possibly use. I could never tell whether or not my actions during the mission had any impact on the variety and amount of the subsequent salvage. It would have been neat to know that I needed to disable enemy mechs in particular ways in order to improve the likelihood of their salvage-ability.

• The mission briefings are excellent. They're very 'techy' and contribute significantly to the sense of immersion.

• Location-based targeting. The ability to focus damage on a specific area of an enemy mech makes combat more realistic, strategic, and fun all at the same time. Generally, you'll be aiming for the legs, but sometimes you might want to take out a mech's arm quickly because he's hammering you with a particularly nasty weapon, or you've got the drop on someone and you line up a heavy cockpit barrage. Good stuff!

• The command-mode is good, though I think I would have preferred a more practical top-down view, or even just a plain map overlay.

Bad

• The arch-nemesis of mech games, flat terrain, plagues MW3 as well. Fortunately, the maps are complex enough that position is still a factor in tactical decision-making. Nevertheless, I yearn for the day when I can pilot a mech around terrain that actually looks like it needs a mech.

• Not enough urban engagement. Looking back on the single player campaign, I can't recall a single mission that takes place in a city. There's one where you enter a city briefly to accomplish one of the objectives, but overall urban combat is AWOL. I mention this not because I'm in love with urban combat, but rather because I think it's much easier to create interesting tactical situations in a city, with its multitude of conveniently low-poly structures, than it is in the 'great outdoors', given the limitations of the game engine.

• The single player campaign (which I enjoyed) was a tad mundane. It didn't convey any feel for the greater scale of the war. Also, the ending is a letdown. Similar to the urban complaint above, I also don't recall much nighttime engagement.

• No mid-mission saves. As with HG2, this annoyance is mitigated by the fact that missions are relatively short.

• In between missions, things are a little sterile. The loadout screens feel very console-ish, as though the designers were unduly concerned about space. There's no opportunity to interact with your squadmates, who amount to nothing more than a voice on the radio during missions. As an alternative, I envisioned being able to explore the deployed mobile field base in 3D in between missions. What would have been very cool is to have one of your mechs (ideally whichever one you used last mission, or whichever one you've chosen for the next mission) in all its gargantuan glory inside the deployed MFB, with little tech guys on the scaffolding, repairing and retro-fitting new hardware on the mech. Sure, this is mostly superfluous to the game, and the 2D menus work just fine, but the contribution to immersion would have been a thousand fold. All these years later, I still recall fondly chatting with wingmates in the bar in between missions in Wing Commander I.

Ugly

• No co-op. There's no option to play the campaign cooperatively, nor can you use bots in multiplayer games. God, I get tired of harping on this. Co-op could take a mediocre game (particularly one like this which is designed around small squad combat) and make it a great game in the blink of an eye.

• The instant action (skirmish) options are woefully anemic. There are four (4) maps available. Just four. This, combined with the lack of multiplayer bots results in an extremely short lifespan for the game. How short? About four days, in my case.

Beautiful

• It feels like I'm piloting a giant mech. Zipper interactive just plain got it right. The feeling manifests from the combination of graphics, audio, and most importantly interface. As with most mech games, MW3 is nearly unplayable without a good HOTAS rig (I'm using a stick/throttle/pedals combo from CH products). Sure, you can play it with just the mouse and keyboard, but you'd better grow a third hand, and you'll miss the real point of the game which is to simulate mech piloting. (Incidentally, that's why mech games, like hardcore flight sims, will never be blockbuster sellers.) Anyway, with a good HOTAS setup, you can take full advantage of the excellent interface and exploit the subtlety of mech control to its fullest. The extremely well-implemented virtual cockpit mode, which allows freedom of view consistent with the pilot's perspective, is what really frosts the cake, in my opinion. You're able to move the targeting reticle independent of both the mech's motion vector, as well as its torso orientation (which in most of the chassis involves two axes of freedom - pitch and yaw). The real kick here is that the game actually takes into account the limitations of the weapons movement based on their mount points. I.e. if you've moved the reticle too far to the left, then any weapons mounted on the right arm of the mech become inactive. It's things like that which keep me mentally in the cockpit of a giant mech, and not just sitting in front of a monitor with a HUD between me and the terrain.

Summary

Mechwarrior 3 is a good mech game. It succeeds well at what it sets out to do, though it also suffers from some common ailings (boring terrain, weak multiplayer). While the piloting experience sets the standard as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't help but feel that the game, as a whole, was willfully restrained. By that I mean that MW3 is not a very ambitious game. It may have succeeded at what it set out to do, but I don't think it set out to do nearly enough. The single player campaign is constrained and 'safe' from a designer's point of view. The skirmish options are dismally thin, so much so as to be nearly pointless. Lastly, the multiplayer is tragically underwhelming. The total package then is like a gourmet recipe made from only the finest ingredients, but which amounts to little more than a few bites. I'd have settled for a weaker simulation in order to get a whole meal. The perfect mech game, of course, is one which drives like MW3, but has a full tank of gas, if you'll pardon my haphazard mixing of analogies.