Like most people living here in the West I am party to the
glitz and glamour of the First World.
Champagne, caviar, murdering the occasional prostitute and passing off
the storage locker in which I keep their remains as a business expense. Yet, the greatest example of my bourgeois
pride is undoubtedly my Steam account, with its 248 games and backlog so
mountainous it contends with Snowden for Britain’s highest peak. So, of course, I’m here to talk about
MechCommander, a now freeware RTS that you can download for nothing off the
web. To those reading in less developed
nations you have just pinpointed the weakness in our soft, consumerist
underbelly; but before the proles of the
world rise up and cast our wasteful asses into the sea let’s wax lyrical about
giant robots doing battle across the stars.
For those
of you born after the great PC revolution that sowed the seeds of all video
game greatness (this may be revisionist history), there used to be this little
table top game called Battle Tech. Set
in a universe of warring houses, political intrigues and galactic conquest it
demanded the use of miniatures, dice and hours of commitment. Luckily, the good fellows over at FASA Studios
(may they rest in peace) recognised that even humble folks like myself needed
to exercise generalship over an elite cadre of Battle Mechs in pursuit of
ultimate victory, sometimes. And in 1998
they delivered the dream of every layman out there with the first
MechCommander.
Battle
Tech has a rich backstory which I encourage you to look into; unlike many other
sci-fi universes it hasn’t fallen to the predations of money making and general
enfeeblement that typifies much of Games Workshop’s and Star Wars fair. MechCommander opens with the invasion of the
planet Port Arthur, currently held by the forces of Clan Smoke Jaguar and
follows your war of liberation from start to finish. It’s worth noting that for the diehard fans
out there MechCommander is a great addition to the lore, fleshing out the backstory
to the reformation of the Star League and retaliation following the original
Clan Invasion. While for the uninitiated it
offers a perfect backdrop for shooty, shooty fun with substance, thereby
catering for everyone. The intro is full
motion video gold and much like Wing Commander shows how FMV’s should be
used. While the acting isn’t perfect
it’s better than most and adds a dramatic flair to the proceedings that
traditional computer rendered video just couldn’t match. If you doubt it, check it out below.
Following the model of a squad based combat system whereby you enter into
each mission with a specified drop weight limit, each ‘Mech and pilot you lose can
have a catastrophic knock on effect further down the line. Of the two, the latter is typically more
difficult to replace, for as each mission goes by those same pilots gain
valuable skill improvements in areas like gunnery and sensor management,
eventually achieving veterancy status.
As such, you end up with a core group of elites capable of handling the
heaviest and deadliest of your war machines.
Their deaths are therefore cause for genuine mourning as your lance is
accordingly diminished by their loss.
When losing ‘Mechs however, it’s all about what you can salvage from the
battlefield and hock between missions. Whether that be the battle damaged steed
of a former opponent or from numerous enemy caches scattered around the combat
zone. Everything adds up, with you
typically choosing the choicest pieces of hardware for yourself, selling the
rest to turn a profit and reinvesting in new weapons, pilots and ‘Mechs along
the way. Although it must be noted that
while I’ve had units taken down (usually by prestigious amounts of weapons
fire) I’ve almost always salvaged what I’ve lost, leading to a rather low attrition
rate in my mechanised death machines. Therefore, once the maintenance crews finished scraping the remains of the last occupant
from between the dashboard they were ready to be forced back into the fight.
This is in no way to suggest that the game is easy, with creating the
right mixture of ‘Mechs and loadouts to complete mission objectives sometimes
being an empirical process. I reloaded…
a lot and given that you can only save between drops it can really eat up the time
and be a tad frustrating. Especially
when you get almost to the end of a mission and run into, say, a Madcat. Are
you ambushing multiple convoys? In which
case compact firepower and fast ‘Mechs are your best friend. Or are you holding a forward base against
staggering odds? Your only hope being
your heavies, with thick armour and overwhelming ordinance. There are also a variety of limited special
abilities such as artillery strikes (both large and small) and sensor probes,
which accentuate your overall capabilities. These are allotted during your
mission brief and cannot be changed.
There’s nothing quite like maneuvering an enemy vehicle into your kill zone
and bringing the rain. Add to this the addition
of support like minelayers and scout vehicles and you can really have some fun
figuring out the best way to meet your objectives.
When looking at MechCommander I’m filled with a certain nostalgia,
partially from the use of FMV’s but also the general feel of the game. It’s been a good while since I played a new
RTS of the same calibre that also made me feel like I was part of a real universe, that was truly immersive. MechCommander
achieves this in a variety of ways, from each set of missions being broken up
into separate “operations” and the fact that while you’re the invading force,
your enemy still outclasses you in a fair fight. Clan ‘Mechs are where the action is at, trust
me. This, coupled with the variety of
mission types and complexity makes you rely on outwitting your opponent as much
as outfighting them. The feeling you get
bringing down a Catapult heavy packed with LRM’s (Long Range Missiles) up close
and personal is hard to beat. It was
like watching a pack of dire wolves bring down an oliphaunt. Most importantly of course, it’s free and will cost you
nothing to try. At best it might
introduce you to a new and interesting sci-fi universe; at worst you’ll be
unable to get it working and be out ten minutes. But since this can easily be avoided by just
copying all the game files into a folder and running the game from there, I
doubt it.
