MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries

Moby ID: 8000
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The sequel to Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance. When you're a 'Mech Mercenary, you call the shots. You don't fight for honor - you fight for cold hard cash, a fierce reputation, and the heart-pounding thrill of the kill. Your allegiance goes to the highest bidder. You answer only to the call of fortune. Your fate is in your hands alone. Select from 4 of the most notorious mercenary units, Kell Hounds, Wolf's Dragoons, Northwind Highlanders, and Gray Death Legion, to alter your missions, with different outcomes based on your victories. Choose from over 35 different 'Mechs, including 10 new ones. And for the first time ever, your secondary lance allows you to muster 8 'Mechs into battle simultaneously. Or make a killing in the infamous Solaris VII arenas, where fighting dirty can make you filthy rich. Includes 'Mechs from the Black Knight expansion for Mechwarrior 4, and is fully compatible with Mechwarrior 4 'Mech Packs. Fight for fame. Fight for fortune. Fight as a Mech Mercenary!

Spellings

  • 机甲战士4:雇佣兵 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

73 People (71 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

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A special thanks to all
  • at FASA Studio [for creating the original MechWarrior 4: Vengeance and assisting with MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries]
  • Peter Mayberry (Pete Von Mayberry; for all his help)
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 23 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 16 ratings with 4 reviews)

This Merc title did everything right about BTech

The Good
Mercenaries managed to capture the flair from the first Mechwarrior title, except the contract negotiation and dynamic campaign with extended missions. You are in charge of a new merc outfit and depending on YOUR performance you can grow at the optimum rate, or even go to Solaris VII to prove your own worth as a Mechwarrior. Loads of weapons, "Black Market" to trade weapons and mechs, loads of mechs, multiplayer, it's almost a Btech player's dream

The Bad
No graphical upgrades, still balanced toward the larger mechs (i.e. a bit too powerful), many mechs are in the extra cost expansion packs, as are some of the weapons (though you don't need them for SP), no true dynamic campaign (the whole thing is multi-branch scripted) not enough reference to the existing "lore" other than the initial bits.

The Bottom Line
Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries is the last iteration of the Mechwarrior 4 series. After introducing Mechwarrior 4, Black Knight, and the 2 mech packs (Inner Sphere and Clans), Mercenaries is basically what FASA and Microsoft has learned from the entire series distilled into a single game.

The graphical engine did not get upgraded, as they need to maintain compatibility, but all the bugs have been fixed and performance tweaked. The MW4 series is a bit faster than MW3 and a bit more action oriented, and the new engine works well enough for that.

Sound remains about the same as well. Nothing major, though some of the new weapons sounds pretty good.

The main difference is you are now running your own mercenary company, instead of working for someone else, or a planetary government / alliance. You are really on your own, work for the highest bidder. You start your career allied with one out of four sponsors, which basically gives you a default orientation and bonus. One starts with more cash, one with more techs, one with better mechs, and one with better weapons! From there on, take on the various missions, try to earn as much money as possible by fulfilling mission objectives, and try to obtain salvage. Capture enemy weapons and sell them.

When time is right, Solaris VII becomes available, where you can choose to fight on mech to mech action in various classes, and hopefully be crowned "grand champion". Winning gives you a huge bonus paycheck.

As missions get harder, you'll need to hire additional help, and you can take many mechs into the battle, subject to mission drop weight limits. You'll need to hire mechwarriors to pilot them and weapons / ammo to outfit them, of course. Employees cost money. As it is your company, it is all up to you.

At the end, you can choose your allegiance toward Davion, Steiner, or neither, as you have fought from one end of the known galaxy to another in this long campaign, and you do need to choose sides, as choosing one side will preclude missions on the other, and so on.

Some missions require tactical finesse, while others rely on speed, teamwork, and more.

Single Player campaign, as mentioned, is quite good, with lots of branches and lots of apparent freedom. Individual battles can be hard, but not overwhelming, at least not after a bit of practice.

Multiplayer has no "commander" view, it's basically every one for himself, though there is chat support which would offer some sort of coordination.

All in all, MW4:Mercs is the most satisfying of MW4 series, giving players a true taste of being a mercenary (Black Knight expansion doesn't really count in that sense) and adding Solaris VII is a brilliant touch. Multiplayer is a lot of fun if you find the right people. All in all, a great time to be had, just wish they added more of a "dynamic campaign" to the MP.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2007

One of the best Mechwarrior games

The Good
The gameplay is the same good ol' fast paced 'Mech action, and now you get to trade 'mechs, weapons, and pilots on the market. I liked how you could buy 'mechs fully equipped rather than be limited to what you could salvage from the battlefield. And now eight pilots can go into battle at one time! And if you want a break from the normal action, you can always go to Solaris VII for some gladiator 'mech battles. It has a great story too. The voice acting was done well, and the dialogue was great.

The Bad
The Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance engine is a bit dated, and the graphics could use an update. Heat is very annoying, as always, at least you can turn it off. I really hated it when I was in a huge 'mech and smashed into a lightweight 'mech and the smaller one wouldn't fall over, which isn't realistic.

The Bottom Line
If flight sims intimidate you, this game won't. It's got all the greatness of any other action-sim game, but it's a lot more fun then spending five hours learning how to fly a virtual plane ever will be. If you're a fan of flight sims, use your joystick with Mercenaries. If you like first-person shooters, Mercenaries is fully compatible with keyboard and mouse, and is extremely easy to get into. If you've never played a computer game before, Mercenaries is still fun! PLAY THIS GAME!

Windows · by Zack Green (1162) · 2002

The best of the MechWarrior series

The Good
MechWarrior 4 falls somewhere between the stark realism of MechWarrior 3 and the pyrotechnic comedy of MechAssault.

It strikes a very good balance between the two. For MW4, a completely revised weapon loadout system was invented, in which 'Mechs have points of varying size upon which weapons can be mounted. Although simplified from the MW2 and MW3 systems (which are about as close to Classic BattleTech rules as you can get without pulling out a pen and paper), the system is limiting in a way that makes sense. Missile boat 'Mechs, like the Catapult, should never be able to mount Autocannons on their missile racks. Some 'Mechs have 'Omni' points which can mount two or three different types of weapons - this is the clear distinction which makes Clan 'Mechs better when stripped of equipment.

Yet, on the subject of Inner Sphere versus Clan technology, the game designers decided to blur the advantages a bit. In MechWarrior 2 and 3, as well as MechCommander, Clan weapons were simply better versions of Inner Sphere weapons. In MW4, there is a trade-off that must be considered. While there are direct Clan revisions of Inner Sphere weapons (like the Ultra Autocannons and the missile weapons), most of the Inner Sphere weapons are favorites at close range due to favorable damage to heat ratios, while the Clan weapons typically extend range at the cost of increased heat output. Inner Sphere has the Medium Laser, while Clan has the ER Medium Laser. The Clan version has 33% better range and 20% better damage for the same size and weight, yet it creates double the heat of the Inner Sphere counterpart. Which is better? It depends on the mission.

And the missions are very well crafted. The terrain in MechWarrior 3 was, for the most part, horribly flat and boring. With all the attention spent on terrain detail - buildings, trees, roads, bridges, et cetera - there was very little attention paid to topography. The terrain in MW4 is, by contrast, varied greatly. There are dense urban landscapes, rolling plains, mountain passes, tropical peninsulas, and more. And since the terrain affects the range at which you're bound to engage the enemy, it also affects how you load out your 'Mechs between missions. Stacking up with ERPPCs and Gauss Rifles is no longer an end-all solution.

Maxing out your weapons payload at the expense of speed is no longer useful. I mentioned in the MechWarrior 3 review that 'Mechs weren't allowed to twist their torsos (or at least, not using the mouse), and as a result, fights played out more like turret matches. There was no point in being fast because strafing was not an option. MW4 has fixed this in a very simple way - the mouse controls aiming AND twists the torso. And since the enemy is going to engage you as such (light 'Mechs tend to be frustratingly fast and dodgy, as they should be), you'd better learn how to do the same. Hooray, a 'Mech game in which piloting matters!

My final and biggest praise of this game has to be in the mission progression. From the start, you get to choose between multiple planets upon which you can run your missions. Eventually, missions will favor either Steiner or Davion, and inevitably you have to choose a side to fight with against the other in the FedCom Civil War. Though this conflict is central to the game's plot, you have other choices to make as well - play arena matches on Solaris? Fight the Clans? Join the Clans? There are rewards and costs to every decision you make along the way. But you can definitely expect to play through this game at least three or four times before finding yourself bored. Replay value is a great plus.

The Bad
I mentioned before that the slight loss of realism between MechWarriors 3 and 4 was an acceptable loss. But there were still some things lost that I would've liked to keep.

Weapon effects, for starters, are either just as nice or downgraded from MW3. The Autocannons, Gauss Rifles, and Lasers are virtually identical in graphic. Yes, you do notice that Autocannon and Gauss rounds don't travel instantaneously, but that boring beam graphic really doesn't do justice to a 180mm slug smashing into your opponent's chassis. I greatly preferred the 'burst of fire' style graphic seen in MechWarrior 3, though I hated the way recoil would throw off the bulk of the burst.

Every 'Mech blows up. I'm pretty disappointed by this because MechWarrior 3 got it right: Most 'Mechs are disabled when the pilot either ejects from the 'Mech or is killed in the 'Mech. You can cause a 'Mech to explode in MechWarrior 3 by grossly overheating it with flamer weapons, but the resulting explosion is exactly what it's supposed to be - a small thermonuclear detonation, and as such, it cripples anything within a large radius. In MechWarrior 4, every 'Mech explodes when it is killed, regardless of whether you did so by blowing off both of its legs or busting the engine. And the explosion is so small that you have to be at spitting range to be affected by it, but this is still frustrating when the AI decides to hump your leg (as the light 'Mechs are bound to do). It's neither realistic nor fun: It's just frustrating.

I only have one gripe about the missions: They're too easy. Yes, the end missions can be difficult, but there's no curve. There's just a flat line of 'pew pew, everything's dead' up until the end of the game, and then suddenly things get ugly. This is because the Solaris matches can be played to generate as much money as you could possibly want or need for the best 'Mechs, pilots and guns, and you can do this very early in the game. If you want a challenge, you can ignore the Solaris missions, avoid using Clan tech, play with one hand tied behind your back, etc. But I like a game which can reward me for being resourceful while still presenting a challenge. The reward for being resourceful in this game is a cakewalk.

The Bottom Line
This is definitely my favorite MechWarrior. It's not perfect, but it gets about as close as possible without alienating either arcade FPS players or hardcore BattleTech junkies. Plus, nowadays you can download it for free from Mektek.net, and it gets patched frequently with new 'Mechs and features. So not only is it a good game which stands alone; it's a good game which is still getting better.

Windows · by Jackson Schwipp (18) · 2010

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Freeware release

On 9 July 2009, it was announced that MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries would be released for free by Studio MekTek. Shortly after, the company stated that Microsoft's legal department held up this release. After Microsoft gave the project a go on 22 April 2010, it was finally released on 30 April 2010. MekTek thanked its partners Smith & Tinker (the would-be developers of MechWarrior 5), Virtual World Entertainment and Catalyst Games (the current owners of many of FASA's tabletop games, including Battletech, on which the MechWarrior series is based) for "pressing Microsoft to allow for the release."

The free release includes all of the original content, as well as additional bug fixes, features, and Battlemechs. A link can be found in the Links/Searches section.

Multiple endings

There are three different endings. Which one the player receives depends on which branch of the campaign they take (i.e. join House Davion, House Steiner, or remain neutral).

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.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Zack Green.

Additional contributors: Kasey Chang, Longwalker, Unicorn Lynx, Cantillon, Titan10, Plok.

Game added December 23, 2002. Last modified March 27, 2024.