MechWarrior 4: Vengeance

Moby ID: 2795
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Description official descriptions

As heir to House Dresari in the Federation Commonwealth, you will inherit your home world of Kentares IV, part of House Davion. While away fighting the Clans, you've just been informed that House Steiner have taken over your planet. It's time to return and set things right. Once and for all...

Features 21 different 'Mechs (7 of which created just for this game), over 30 missions on 15 different maps, new weapons, new config options, full multiplayer support, and even better graphics.

Spellings

  • 机甲战士4:复仇 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

198 People (196 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 85% (based on 34 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 4 reviews)

The improvements and regressions balance out to make this an average game

The Good
The graphics are pretty good. They're better than the previous MWs and better than Starsiege, but this is to be expected as technology advances. The story is actually pretty good. Instead of fighting in some impersonal military action, as the box says, "this time it's personal". I thought the acting was particularily good, as the actors actually show emotion. This is so hard to find in games, and particularily in 'Mech-type games. So often it sounds like the actors are just sitting there looking into a teleprompter and reading from a script. Towards the end of the campaign the acting is excellent.

The opening movie is awesome. It makes me wonder how far we are away from a MW movie!

I thought the sounds and music were also pretty good. I was impressed to see that they practically had a symphony orchestra doing the music.

They made it so that collision damage occurs. This is something I'd wanted to see for a long time. Now you can ram enemies! Also, you can step on those annoying tanks and other vehicles and crush 'em. That's great!

The Bad
What are they thinking?!?! Why is there no indication of which weapons or weapons group you have selected??? How did this make it out of beta testing? Did those beta testers have a different version of the game? Every previous version of MW gives a clear indication of which weapons group you have selected (they are hilighted or rectangled or something), but in this version there's no way to know. There's also no way to know which firing mode you're in. Previous MWs had a female voice that would say something like "Chain fire selected" or "Group fire selected". In this, there is no voice, and no visual indication! I absolutely can't fathom why they didn't include this.

The next big thing is, of course, the concept of designated hard points they introduce. Now I've never played the BattleTech RPG (the paper version), but I've played through MW2 and 3 and all the add-ons for them. I'm sure the paper version is the same as those two: you can customize your Mech however you want. Each Mech location (head, right arm, etc.) has a certain amount of critical spaces for which to put whatever you want on.

This game completely changes this fundamental part of BattleTech, and reduces it to the miserable level of Earth/Starsiege, by not only limiting the amount of critical spaces available, but by designating most of them for a specific class of weapon (Missile, Ballistic, Laser). Like so many other games, they are slowly dumbing-down the players. Why did they put these restrictions in? Did it make it easier to program? It certainly does not benefit the players. The best thing about MW was the ability to have complete freedom over how to design your 'Mech, and they have taken this from us. Thanks, Bill Gates.

In MW3, when you would blast an arm off, you'd see it go flying and it would land somewhere. In this one, it just disintegrates. Also, they had made it so that if you damaged a leg, it would limp. This, too, is gone. These little details added to the realism, but for some inexplicable reason, they removed them. It's neat that lasers will burn the paint off, and the 'Mechs spark, pour out smoke, and burn (nice effects!), but I'm still waiting on bullet holes!

The combat in general takes forever. It takes a very long time to destroy even small 'Mechs. You and your 3 lancemates can pound an enemy 'Mech, and it can take several minutes for it to go down. I like it challenging, and it's not so bad that it detracts from the game, but they should make the weapons do a little more damage.



The Bottom Line
If you've gotten the previous MW games, you should get MW4. It has some small problems and those 2 inexcusable problems I described above, but hopefully these will be fixed in patches or player MODifications. Overall it isn't that bad.

Windows · by Raphael (1245) · 2000

Excellent Mech game

The Good
But I wouldn't really know since this is my first mech game! I was weaned on old-school adventures and first-person shooters. Anyway, the game is pretty good. Graphics are great, and damage is pretty realistic. The mechs are incredibly tough (as 100 ton metal monstrosities should be) and damage is shown well with smoke and sparks and stuff flying off the mech, and limbs getting shot off. One thing in the other reviews I noticed was griping about no limping. I'm not sure if it's the detail level or what, but the mechs limped for me! I think it has something to do with the tougher mechs in this game (but again, I wouldn't be the best to ask about that) since a leg must be destroyed before the mech limps. Terrain is very nice, houses, trees, just about anything can be blown to bits, but I can't shoot the people or the deer!

The Bad
It had a very high learning curve. The mechs (or is it mecha?) aren't very responsive, and getting the hang of the torso-twist took a while. If you haven't played earlier games in the series and don't want to have to learn new movement skills, and/or have a crappy joystick or one with out a twist axis, then you might want to pass on this game. Also, the acting was kinda cheesy, but I didn't really mind that too much. The biggest problem is that the sound effects are loud. My neighbors would complain if I turned up the game too much (thin walls), and if someone was talking (in the game or in real life) during a battle, I'd have a hard time hearing them.

The Bottom Line
A great game for those who are fans of the series, or who don't mind trying to get used to the controls.

Windows · by Ryan McAndrews (61) · 2001

A big step forward in the MechWarrior series; a great, great multiplayer game

The Good
Technically, MW4 is an awesome experience. The graphics and sound are a huge step up from previous 'Mech games; experienced with a half-decent 3D card and a force feedback joystick, the your-are-thereness of the game is stunning. Smoke and lighting effects are excellent; the only oversight was the lack of persistent damage on landscape, but you can live with that. The maps provided are terrific, and Microsoft releases new ones every now and then.

MW4 is basically two games, the campaign game and the online multiplayer game. The online multiplayer game is one of the thinks I like about MW4; it's a load of fun. With sixteen 'mechs duking it out over a big map, you've got the potential for major combat fun, especially if your teammates display at least some level of cooperation and tactical knowledge. Online sessions are missile-launching, cannon-shooting explosion-creating fun at its best.

Mech design has also been changed, IMO vastly for the better. Previous Mech games made mech design essentially a pack-as-many-weapons-on-the-mech-as-you-can exercise, so that all mechs were more or less the same as other mechs of equal size. MW4 limits the type of weapons a mech can carry on each appendage, however, so some mechs are severely biased towards being missile duellers, while some are best suited for close-in whompfests, while others are better at carrying lasers. While thsi sort of limits mech design option, in a way it expands them. In previous games, a mech that didn't adopt the load-em-up-with-everything stretegy was overmatched, but MW4 rewards specialization and experimenting with mission profiles. This, of course, helps multiplayer immensely. Far better to have a team with a mix of scouts, missile mechs, brawlers and assault mechs and have to work as a team than just have everybody driving the same vehicle.

The Bad
MW4's main drawback is the campaign game, which is simply an uninteresting series of missions (and not that many of them.) The backstory is colossally stupid and totally irrelevant to anyone who doesn't much care about the intricacies of the Battletech universe. For what it's worth, you play a guy claiming his birthright (it's always about birthright in Mechwarrior) against a family called "Steiner." Fighting a bunch of "Steiners" over a jerkwater planet does not strike me as being a terribly interesting or epic conflict, or really fitting a game involving driving 100-ton robots into apocalyptic battles; it's like flying jet fighters in combat over the rights to a dry-cleaning business.

There is absolutely nothing different, innovative, or even remotely interesting about the campaign. Why they have not yet implemented an improved "mercenaries" single-player game is completely beyond me; it defies explanation.

The Bottom Line
Cruddy single-player, but the multiplayer's worth the price of the game twice over!

Windows · by Rick Jones (96) · 2001

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Also FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (soon) xroox (3895) Jul 20, 2009
where are the servers for multiplayer games Andyrands Jul 14, 2009

Trivia

Development

Originally, this game was supposed to be MechWarrior 3. When it was delayed, Zipper Interactive was brought in to create the interim Mechwarrior 3 as a stopgap measure, and this game was re-designated as Mechwarrior 4.

Endings

The game has two different endings depending on one critical choice near the end.

Online servers

The game's online servers (which were hosted on MSN Gaming Zone) were shut down on 19 June 2006 in the wake of MSN Games' shift from "CD-ROM matchmaking service" to casual online games.

References

In the final operation, one of the missions, there is a building that is identified as "FASA Interactive", the developer of the game. And it is ID'ed as hostile.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2001 (Issue #201) – Sci-Fi Sim of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Simulation Game of the Year
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 02/2001 – Best Simulation in 2000

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kasey Chang.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added December 15, 2000. Last modified March 25, 2024.