MechWarrior 3

aka: MW3
Moby ID: 284
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Description official descriptions

The Inner Sphere is launching a counterattack on the Clans, and the Smoke Jaguars is the first target! Operation Democles will attack the planet Tranquil. As Connor Sinclair, you're leading the Democles Commando team lance, part of the Eridani Light Horse, on the attack. The op went terribly wrong when one of the two drop ships was hit during descent, and your lancemates have been scattered to the four winds in the frenzied drop. You must attack through Clan territory, meet up with your lancemates, remove any resistance in your path, and try to find a way off the planet, while also accomplishing what you came to do: destroy the Smoke Jaguars!

MechWarrior 3 features detailed mechs (they limp when legs are hit, and destroyed limbs spark and trail wreckage) with slow and ponderous movements, as 100 ton mechs should. Firepower and precise application are the key in winning your engagements. Plenty of mechs are available. You start in a 55-ton Bushwhacker and work you way up to the really heavy stuff in a 20-mission campaign. Full multiplayer is supported with Internet play at Microsoft Zone. Your MFB has limited capacity so you'll need to decide what supplies to keep or dump for your salvage. You'll need to track ammo, weapons, equipment (like heatsinks), and the mechs. Keep the MFB safe or you'll have even less room! Redesign mechs to utilize newly captured weapons or adapt to the changing ammo situation.

Spellings

  • 机甲战士3 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

163 People (131 developers, 32 thanks) · View all

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Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 41 ratings with 10 reviews)

Finally: A reason to complain about realism

The Good
Compared to both its prequels and sequels, MW3 is probably the most physically realistic MechWarrior game. Autocannons create recoil; missiles blind you in their backwash; you can be knocked over by weapon impacts, and it feels like you're actually off balance (as opposed to the other 'Mech games, in which you might fall after a certain quantity of damage is dealt to you in a short length of time, but you have no real warning). The designers of this game did a remarkable job with the physics and graphics, to say the very least.

The missions were also set up brilliantly. Unlike all other MechWarrior and MechCommander titles, there is no form of money in MW3; you have to scrap everything you use. And you can't hold everything you come across, so you will have to decide what you need and what you don't.

The environment effects are far more diverse than what you'll find in any other MW title as well. Buildings don't just explode; they crumble. Trees burn, water slows you down more as you get in deeper, and 'Mechs will explode if overheated beyond a certain point. A whole lot of attention was placed in making this 'Mech game the most realistic, and it seems like the sort of idea that would pay off...

The Bad
...except that it didn't.

There is a reason why MW4 refused to adhere to the realism of MW3: It didn't help the gameplay. The first major flaw involves the Autocannons, which, as I described earlier, have recoil. The first thing you're going to say when you pop off a few shots with this weapon is 'cool!', but don't get too excited: The recoil, especially if the weapon is mounted on an arm, is sufficient to throw the torso into a spin in the middle of firing the three-round burst, thus throwing off your otherwise brilliant shot.

While this looks cool at first, in gameplay it's frustrating. Unless you mount two autocannons, one on each arm, the recoil effect makes your heaviest starting weapon almost pointless. Do I prefer it over the unremarkable, beam-style autocannon shot in MW4? Probably, but just barely, and MW4 doesn't force me into odd autocannon configurations just so that I can land a shot.

The crumbling buildings are pretty cool, but there's a pretty serious issue which stems from the AI behavior. Your allies follow behind you, or can be directed to Nav points. But they don't have very good sense, and there are lots of dangerous things that shouldn't be stepped on or bumped into - mines, collapsible bridges, etc. The AI is inexplicably attracted to these dangerous things and getting them to avoid hazards is nearly impossible. In some missions, I feel less like a lance commander and more like a babysitter. Especially since there are only three allied pilots in the game, and if one dies, well, that's it, you can't have a full lance.

The biggest, boldest reason why realism doesn't pay off involves 'Mech movement. MW4 ended up being superior simply because it was fun to pilot a 'Mech; the torso could rotate with the mouse in order to strafe targets. All 'Mechs had a rotating torso. Guess what? Not here. The torso is fixed, which means that you have to snipe your opponents or make 'bombing runs'. All it really does is prevent you from moving while you fire, which means you just move from place to place, stopping to kill something, then continuing along.

This - and the terrain for most of the game, which is wide open and flat - simply encourages you to load up with the longest-ranged weapons possible. Sitting in one place and firing can be accomplished from 800 meters or 50 meters just as easily; the difference is that, at 800 meters, you're a lot less likely to be hit in return. And the enemy rarely has the sense to rush you, preferring to engage the same way you do, by stopping and firing.

Around the last few missions, you'll find yourself facing 'Mechs which have similarly long-ranged loadouts. Though the expansion would fix this using a 'light-amplification' feature, some of these missions take place at night, and the game designers decided that this means a 'fog of war' has to be placed at roughly 500 meters. So you can lock onto an enemy, and even see your target reticle turn red when it passes over the enemy, but you can't see the enemy unloading its ordinance in your face. It's mildly frustrating, to say the least.

The Bottom Line
Every now and again I return to this game, play through a few missions, and stop at a reasonable point to continue playing MechWarrior 4. This game could've been brilliant, but it's also a lesson in how realism doesn't necessarily improve gameplay.

Windows · by Jackson Schwipp (18) · 2010

I said to myself, "I think I'm about to be blown away..." - and I was...

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!

Windows · by Raphael (1245) · 1999

Bigger, but not that much better.

The Good
Good graphics, decent net connectivity, plenty of weapons and mechs, good briefing videos, good mech design interface, good missions (those that are there).

The Bad
Horrendous AI (you can snipe at enemy and they don't chase you). AI relies on triggers, so if you avoid the trigger, nothing happens. Horrendous interface to manage MFB inventory, nothing's sorted. Too few maps, too few missions (only 20). No mission editor, no mission saves. Inability to export/import the custom mech configs to share with others.

The Bottom Line
MW3 is better than Mechwarrior 2, but it's merely an evolutionary step forward. The story is less grand (you're just a grunt raiding the Clans), and game mechanics are nearly identical. The ability to gain salvage is fine, but the interface to manage the salvage is horrendous. The rest of the game is filled with "could have been better" things like that. If they had just spent a bit more time on it... It's worth playing, sure, but it could have been much better.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2000

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Need Help configuring... Bob Bob Jul 16, 2013

Trivia

German version

The German version of the game has been censored: Foot soldiers disappear as soon as one aims at them or one is in an position to smash them with the mechs' legs.

Graphics

This game has its own unique style and is, in some places, technically superior to MechWarrior 4: Vengeance. For instance, MechWarrior 3 features landscape mesh transform when you hit the terrain with a weapon. This means that you don't just leave a char mark, the terrain actually changes when you strike. MW4 leaves a decal and that's it. The decal then fades or disappears suddenly after a period of time. In MechWarrior 3, if you leave a crater, it's there until you leave the map.

OEM release

MechWarrior 3 was the bundled software that came with the second production run of the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro 1.0 joystick. The first release was bundled with Urban Assault.

Rights and development

Activision was unable to develop a sequel to MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat after the FASA Corporation, the creators and then-owners of the BattleTech universe, refused to renew the licensing contract after the delays and troubled development of the game, despite its subsequent success. However, this did not prevent Activision from creating and patching the two expansion packs, Ghost Bear's Legacy and Mercenaries.

Initially, development on MechWarrior 3 was influenced by another 3D BattleTech game from the mid-1990s, created by the Virtual World Entertainment Group, which featured eight mutually connected cabinets called "Tesla pods" where players would fight in 'Mechs against each other. FASA acquired this technology to be used in a full-blown video game that was to become MechWarrior 3, under the publishing of MicroProse. For this reason, the FASA Interactive Technologies (FIT) division was formed to develop it. The process was delayed, however, due to struggles with the engine incompatibilities with concurrent hardware.

In 1996, Spectrum Holobyte, MicroProse's parent company since 1993, lays off much of the MicroProse staff and renames itself into MicroProse, and is purchased by Hasbro Interactive in 1998. FASA Interactive merged with Virtual World Entertainment Group, but their version of MechWarrior 3 is eventually put on hold, as Zipper Interactive was called to finish the game. They used a combination of the already developed assets and their own engine, most likely from the 1999 game Recoil.

Meanwhile, Microsoft bought the Virtual World Entertainment Group, but only kept FASA Interactive, and by transition, they now had the rights to the BattleTech license and MechWarrior games, hence the Microsoft logo's appearance in the MechWarrior 3 back cover art and intro.

The original MechWarrior 3 project would be the base of FASA Studio's MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, released a year and a half after Zipper Interactive's finished MechWarrior 3.

Information also contributed by Zaghadka.

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Related Sites +

  • Mech 3 Community Project
    A nice and big Community Website with a good Download-Section (official patches/fanpatches), a good program (gameRanger.com) for playing Mechwarrior 3 online and a well sorted Forum with a very good support.
  • www.mechwarrior3.org FORUM
    The forum-site for Mechwarrior3.org. Very good support regarding technical problems.

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  • MobyGames ID: 284
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Raphael.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Kasey Chang, Unicorn Lynx, BostonGeorge, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added September 20, 1999. Last modified March 6, 2024.