MechWarrior 3

The Good
Right from the opening cinematic you can tell that playing this game will be like opening one extra large can of whoop ass...the fighting is explosive, with huge war machines going at it with missles, lasers, and cannons.

The mission variety is pretty good...Yes, it has its share of the regular old "eliminate all threats in the area", but some missions are refreshing, and the salvage system keeps you on your toes and attentive to where you are hitting.

The visual and audio effects are stunning...hit a mech with a PPC, and that part will be faintly glow blue for a while, shoot a limb off of a mech and you can see wires hanging out of the mech...Explosions are beautifully rendered, and missiles leave realistic smoke trails...the battle chatter from the radio makes you feel like you are actually sitting inside of a mech, and the sound effects and music really immerses you in the game...

Heat management has been drastically improved and adds to the strategy...You can flush your coolant, and fire from water to keep your heat from rising too quickly...the MFB's are a nice touch as well...reloading ammo, coolant or refitting damaged parts have never been easier...

The weapon variety and balance have made the game very challenging multiplayer wise...everything has its use (except for the flamer...I have no idea why they keep putting it in the game everytime when no one uses the damn thing), and the accessories like AMS, narc beacons and the targeting computer fill the battle with new tactics and surprises...

The mission briefing is the best in the business, period...while the mission data is loading, you can already be planning your moves, as the tactical map is right on the screen...flyby drones and your mission coordinator makes the planning stage a snap by providing you with usefull information such as enemy placement...

Your lancemates, are quite helpful, as opposed to most other teammate AI in the gaming business. They are quite capable of keeping themselves in one piece, and enemies off your back while you go for a quick reload in the MFB...granted, they are not as good as humans, but if you give them the right orders, they will bring in their share of the kills...

The Bad
The game has a serious location damage problem...anyone can strap on some autocannons and win by blowing off people's legs. This creates the extremely unrealistic scenario of an assualt mech getting the crap blown out of it in one alpha strike to the leg by a wimpy little light mech with autocannons...that however, can be circumvented if all players agree to hit "above the belt"...

Jumping has some serious disadvantages...Although it looked pretty cool in the cinematic...Death From Above was such supposed to be a kick ass move, but most people only end up using jump jets defensively, to avoid missiles. I think the developers should have put more into jumping and make it a lot more powerful than it is...

The campaign is totally linear...If you screw up, you gotta play it over and over and over and over...maybe players could decide to move on, with some penalties of course, like more enemies next round...but having a total linear campaign turns many gamers off...Also maybe if players can choose to play the Clanner side...that would increase the playability of the game by leaps and bounds as well as let the players get into some clan mechs that they weren't able to salvage...

Lancemate commands can be improved and more specifics should be added in, like "attack from far range with ER laser", or "conserve ammo," or "automatically rendezvous with MFB when all parts are in/past condition yellow"...this could add much more depth into the game, and you as a lancemate can execute better missions...

The Bottom Line
Mech fighting at it's best...there is so much action that the FPS fan in me really got into this kind of gaming...FASA has a real winner on its hands, and for those of you who are into "bigger is better," MechWarrior 3 has bigger guns, bigger mechs, and gives you a bigger bang for your buck than the any Earth/Starsiege game or any other Mechwarriors in the series...