MechWarrior 3

The Good
Terrific graphics, and good control. The missions, while not astounding, were varied and fun. Multiplayer is good, but a lot of that comes from the fact that you're able to play in FASA's universe rather than any outstanding move by the developers. The environment is great, and you can interact (blow up) many of the things in it. Weather and terrain really make a difference. Finally, it captures the feel of the board game better than its predecessors.

The Bad
Fairly short. 20 missions aren't really enough, and while they are fairly varied for this type of action game, they're rather dry compared to missions from MechWarrior 2. The enemy AI can be somewhat braindead at times. The initial release was somewhat buggy, and had a serious multiplayer issue -- you could shoot off one of someone's legs and they'd die immediately.

The Bottom Line
While not as much sheer fun as MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (for me, at least), it captures the feel of the board game quite well. If you don't care about the differences between an autocannon/20 and a medium pulse laser, though, MechWarrior 2 is probably a better bet if you haven't played it already.

The Good
Well, I have to thank ATI for getting me into Battletech. My ATI video card came with an ATI version of MechWarrior 2, and I loved it so much I got the BattlePack version of MW2, MechCommander, and then I got MW3 as soon as it came out.

This is easily the best Mech game I've ever seen, and it has some of the best graphics of any game I know of. The game runs smooth as silk, and the sound effects are really impressive. The voice acting is good, the choices of Mechs are great, and the multiplayer rules. It can use the Joystick/Mouse combination of controls that MW2 had for legs/torso twist, which I love. You can also customize the controls.

When your Mech is hit by bullets, it will pitch over, and can actually fall over if the conditions are right. This is a real pain, but it adds to the realism. Also, if your leg is damaged, it will limp. :) The MFBs (Mobile Field Bases, which let you rearm & repair) are really nice. I wish MW2 had had them!

The Bad
Even though the voice acting is good, the storyline is hard to follow, typical of the other MW games I've played. Basically, I end up finally getting the story after playing it through about 3 or 4 times.

It would have been nice to be able to play on the Clan side. But I guess that would have doubled the price, huh? :)

And even though the graphics and sound are great, I wish the "results" of the impact of the projecticles would be more realistic. I'm waiting for a Mech game that shows bullet holes in the Mech! Also, when missiles hit, they make a big ol' crater in the ground. Now that's neat, but the craters are like perfect circles... it seems like they shouldn't look so "sculpted".

Even though patches have tried to rebalance the effects of the weapons, I still think bullets knock Mech's down too easily.

Also, the single-player is too easy to win. They need to have more enemy Mechs coming at you!

The Bottom Line
You definitely should play MW3 if you are interested in Mech games. It's awesome!

The Good
Stomping around in a 50 foot tall robot is always fun, and I've always liked the Mechwarrior series. I was very excited to get my hands on this title, having played Mechwarrior 2 several years back I had high expectations. The graphics had been improved greatly since the last hit out, the hills roll on and your mech' leaves foot prints as you stomp across the map. Arms get blown off and leave mangled tentacles of steel while damaged legs cause limping and hamper your turning circles. The sound is fairly well done, I'm not sure if the computer voice is performed by the same person as in Mechwarrior 2 but it sounds similar and works rather well. Radio messages are all fairly well done but seem to lack any real urgency in them, especially the 'Need a little help here!" message. The mech' has convincing power up/down, warning alarms and rotation sounds. Some of the weapon sounds are spot on but others seem to be lacking something, unlike the walking sounds which really give you the impression that you are controlling something truly massive.

The Bad
Salvage plays a big part in the game, it dictates what weapons and ammunition you have available but it is handled in a pathetic manner. The salvage and stock list is no sorted at all, you have to search through the list to find the item you want to keep or to ditch then you can only select an item one at a time, weapons in any of a mechs' pre configurations are not included on the salvage screen, but still take up some of your salvage tonnage. Selecting items is done badly, If there are 5 ER Lasers (L) (Clan) you have to click 5 times, if you have 100 rounds of SRM 2 ammo you have to click 50 times to get rid of it all. You are limited to 900 Tonnes of salvage but no weights are listed for the items in the salvage selection, making it a guessing game to get the most out of you 900 Tonnes. This entire section could have been made far better with a 'drag and drop' interface, a sorting tool like on the mech' equip screen, check boxes to select all or a box to type a value of each item you want to allocate to trash or storage. Your Lancemates are fairly stupid, there is no formation select so they follow behind you in a column. There is only an attack my target command and mechs' will only attack a target on their own if someone attacks them. One annoying thing is stomping ground vehicles and ramming other mechs' does no damage, a 75 Tonne robot running at 80 MPH would certainly take some stopping, crushing puny APCs would seem an obvious result from such a collision. While the sound is fairly good the radio chatter causes the game to collapse, you receive both friendly and enemy radio messages, sometimes both at the same time but even when the messages aren't received at the same time, it's almost impossible to tell who is sending each message, sub titles are a must for this type of thing and show a glaring deficiency in the overall completeness of the game.

The Bottom Line
This game falls well short of being spectacular, but still manages to be fun. Look at the sequel or maybe even the similar Earth Siege series instead unless you're an obsessive fan who must own all Battletech related material.