7/10
The greatly anticipated real-time strategy from microprose. Following the story line of Battletech,
Mech-Commander puts you into action as commander of a not
so talented lance of mechwarriors.
Your job is to expand your paltry lance into a full company and bring the fight to the Smoke Jaguar Clan on
port arthur. The intro cinema is nice, but lacks the
authenticity of an actual cockpit looks like or the
uniforms. I think they should of gone with total
animation instead of spliced in live action. The game
itself needs a bit more work. The missions are quite
easy to accomplish, but salvaging gear is nearly
impossible. I had to replay almost every mission to get
that coveted Clan Omni-Mechs/weapons. I haven't been
able to play the multiplayer aspect of the game, but it
seems worthless, since all you are doing is fighting one
battle. The graphics are great if you zoom in, but it is
practically impossible to command without seeing as much
as the battlefield as you can.
Maybe we have been spoiled by such games as Warcraft 2, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft, but I think
Mechcommander would have benefitted by including a base
to gather resources, research clan equipment, and build
mechs. Having equipment made available at certain points
of the campaign is frustrating when you only have a
medium Inner Sphere mech and you are going up against
heavy Omnis.