| Mechwarrior 3
by John Reynolds |
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Imbued with such virtual power, one might think a gamer would come away with the desire to transpose this destructive might onto the perceived penumbra of the real world. . .but any healthy gamer would also tell you that there are few things more cathartic than winning a particularly tough mission or even gibbing your best friend. And the fact that Mech 3 gave me this feeling of power- a feeling that began in the very first mission as you wash up on a shoreline and plow recklessly into a small fishing village- speaks volumes for its immersivity. But what is it about Mech 3 that gives a player the trappings of power, besides being clothed in an armored shell? Well, how about being able to fine-tune your mech before each mission with a plethora of weaponry until it bristles with bad intentions. Starting with limited weapon selections, the player acquires stronger armaments as the campaign unfolds through salvaging battlefields. Somewhat straddled with a new feature, the MFB or Mobile Field Base, you acquire salvage through the course of the campaign and must pick and choose what you take with you, since your MFB has limited cargo space. This attempt by the designers to add a logistical ingredient to the game through salvage acquisition and selection felt at times more like a burden to me, since you're required to constantly protect the carriers that comprise your MFB. Of course I was always quite happy for its presence after a particularly nasty engagement, thanks to the mobile base's ability to repair a damaged mech.
 Aside from the campaign missions, the game also includes an instant action option. Though limited in its selectable mission areas, or maps, this feature allows you full access to all of the included mechs and weaponry and thus serves as perhaps better practice grounds than the four training missions. In fact, I used the instant action mode to acquaint myself with Mech 3's look and feel, spending long minutes customizing my controls until deciding upon a final scheme. And speaking of controls, were it not for my familiarity with Mech 2, I might've felt just a tad bit daunted by all the options, especially once you begin making changes. And matters aren't made any better by just how customizable the game really is, allowing players to configure their controls to pretty much any scheme imaginable, from mouse and keyboard, to joystick/keyboard, joystick/mouse/keyboard, and so on. But once you spend the time to get yourself situated and comfortable, you won't regret it. |
 Video Sequence Yet as much as Mech 3 may give you a sense of being a one-man army, there might come a time when you would like to replace the sorely lacking AI of your squadmates. Unfortunately, multiplayer comes in only two flavors: deathmatching and team deathmatching. Don't misunderstand me, DMing is great for first person shooters, but sims cry out for cooperative multiplayer, especially in a game like Mech 3 that offers several extremely long, and grueling, missions. I simply do not understand such an omission from the multiplayer suite. Looking back over the review up to this point, I can see where a reader could come away thinking I disliked Mech 3. I've written of its short campaign of canned missions, repetitive music, poor AI, and mediocre multiplayer options, yet in spite of all these failings I can't help but think of it as a good game. While I bemoaned the emphasis of technical glitter over solid gameplay earlier, there's still something to be said for a game's code when it never once locked-up or crashed back to the desktop during hours of play. And though I played the game on a P2 400 with 128mg of RAM and a V3 3000, it still ran very smoothly at a 1024x768 resolution for such a graphically sophisticated title. Yet while I admire the quality of its technical underpinnings, the unrealized potential of Mech 3 is glaringly painful. Most obvious is the short campaign, from which most gamers will come away feeling jilted; had the mission structure been even remotely dynamic the game would've possessed a much greater feeling of depth and replayability. The next issue is the lackluster AI of your computer opponents, who will obligingly take long-distance hits with joyful aplomb or charge mindlessly head-on, easily outflanked and outmaneuvered. Finally, and to me most criminal, the deathmatch-only aspect of Mech 3's multiplayer options prevents this reviewer from giving the game an unreserved recommendation; the lack of cooperative multiplay strikes me as such a negligent omission as to be almost unforgivable. Perhaps these shortcomings will be fixed in the promised expansion pack, with possibly a new campaign, tweaked AI, and added multiplayer features, but a game shouldn't be reviewed based on promises or potential, patches or packs. . .it should stand or fall as is, right out of the box. As such, Mechwarrior 3 arrives standing firmly on one leg when it could've hit the ground running on both had the men behind the mechs only taken the time to inject just a bit more gameplay into an otherwise delicious candy shell.
Core Rating=75 Overall Rating=80 Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking HERE.
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