This game has so much personality. It's actually confusing how modern games have less personality than an almost 20 year old game. I still have the box and original disk too and spent many many hours playing through the campaign. I didn't even realize that it was a sequel to other MechWarrior games at the time.
I love the graphics. There's something about that era of 3d that speaks to me. It leaves something for imagination, you can fill the gaps and enjoy the atmosphere instead of focusing on the uncanny valley, not-really-realistic HD graphics. A vast open space, mountains, snow slowly falling, mist in the background... It's so simple, but you don't need anything else.
You should also try Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising for more of this kind of graphics. Loved that game as a kid. Make sure to get the GoG version over steam because it'll probably work better.
The vast open space is it for me. Modern games are usually focused on achieving high density rather than scale, but these expansive polygonal landscapes have their own kind of appeal.
@@TimberWulfIsHere Sorry, but if they couldn't make a solid singleplayer entry that lives up to the name, they should have just stuck to MWO. The randomized missions are dreadful, they feel more like one of those old arcade games that just throw things onto your screen to keep you shooting. The story is terrible, and terribly told, which is the half the point of a SP mechwarrior game. I see no reason this needed to be a MW5 and instead wasn't just made a MWO spinoff w/ bot matches, because that's what the "missions" are in this game, just skirmish bot matches. Being a small dev is no excuse, once you decide to make a main entry into a beloved series, expectations have already been set. At that point you dig your own grave.
@@TimberWulfIsHere I agree that MW5 is a great base to work off of at a fundamental level, but that doesn't remove the fact that the basic mission randomization is still very rudimentary and repetitive. I personally would've preferred 0 main story, and just a wide open space to explore ala Mount and Blade - which I feel fits Mercenaries type MW games very well. Even playing the game with the reworking mods that change up a lot of stuff, adding in new mechs and weapons, it's still just a little bog standard to me due to its foundation - which is to say nothing about what the game would offer without any of the mods. It'd need an obscene amount of modding and dedication to really make the MW5 experience everyone dreamed of, which I suppose isn't impossible given the progress just a year out from release already.
My husband was playing this years ago and got into a rage at one mission. He ejected the disc, snapped it in half, ran out into the garden and ripped all of his clothes off, screaming at the top of his lungs. Our first child was conceived several minutes later against the wooden fence with several neighbours watching and cheering us on. (Some of them even joined in towards the end, guiding him into me when he couldn't see through his tears etc.). Happier times!
I remember this slightly differently- it was an online match and the enemy team kept poptarting with assault mech laserboats; just pure cheese on their part. I heard the screaming and frenzied commotion, but by the time we had all showed up (only minutes later like you said) it was all over but the crying. He did go on to later curb stomp that enemy clan in a lone Urbanmech.
Me in game: "Man, the menu theme on loop for the past 50 hours is kind of obnoxious." Me here: "OH MY GOD HE ADDED THE MENU THEME :D :D :D :D :D :D" This is what I was waiting for from the very first moment I subscribed. Thank you!
I was doing that playing through BATTLETECH and, while obnoxious, is fitting and it stops me from getting absolutely sick of it. "We got 'em on radar, Sol. Moving to intercept." "Oh no!" "We're---" "Riiiight..."
I loved the music in this game, always felt epic playing the Overlord mission with Davion giving his speech, then the metal kicking in. The adrenaline rush was real.
im sorry to ask but do you have any leads on gaining the mektek mod? ELoG provides a clancoyote digital download of the base game it looks like but the mod appears to be MIA.
This one is what got me hooked on BattleTech period. I remember buying it around 02 or so and I was hooked. It started me down the road of buying the books for the fluff and collecting these "Clix" models that I guess were for tabletop gaming. I never played tabletop but I loved collecting the things. Yeah, I guess MW5 feels limiting in comparison to this title but hey, between that and BattleTech, I'm just happy the franchise is back. Here's hoping to more titles in the future. I honestly wouldn't sneeze at a remastered version of this game either.
Interesting note about the Eaton campaigns. If you look at the insignias on the mechs of the escorts, you can see the Black Knight Legion on the Chimeras.
This game is just great, badass. Interface, models, animations and effects - everything looks and feels like a good engineering product with perfect optimization. Sitting on a computer gives u a sense of using this robots on a distance, like u are using them remotely. Probably the future weapons or exploration systems will be the same or almost the same or maybe just training programs
The MekTek packs are really cool but kind of break the balance of the campaign mode over their knee. You can be stomping around in assaults after only a few missions and then just steam-roll the game from there.
I really like your in-depth analysis and review of MW games, I played them all since I was a kid (my first game was Mercs 2, and went from there), my favourite sim-wise and realistic wise is without a doubt MW3, but for me all of them have their good points, others aren't simply bad, they just feel different, all depending on the perspective of who plays it. :) I would love to watch your take on Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries that came out in 2019, since there is a huge time gap since MW4, it would be very cool to watch a in depth review of it, and ya know, you need to complete these series anyways ahahaha! Great job, love your videos! Keep up the good work!
Holy cow I had no idea that this was where Duncan Fisher came from. I played all the other Mechwarrior games up to this point but missed this one. I thought Duncan was a BPL thing.
@Невада большевик the simulation is severely dumbed down, theres no radar, bomes dont affect heat, theres only a few miasion types, ai is bad and runs in circles, enemy forces spawn 20ft infront of the objective, player actions dont affect salvage, soundtrack is horrible. Nobody who made mw5 cared. Only nice thing is starmap. It couldve been good but they didnt care.
@Невада большевик the ai is bad cause they dont use cover or hills, rotate torso to avoid damage. Just run in circles. Not even using jumpjets. Ai from stalker, a game made by 2 slavs in pijamas in 2000s was better and far more advanced. The mission scripting is broken and if you snipe an objective or destroy it before you get within 250m of the marker, gg youve softlocked the game. No gauss or missile sniping allowe, not because of gameplay but lazy devs. Simulation wise no radar systems, no temperature affecting heat, no optics, no coolants, no putting heatsinks on legs and standing in water. Also salvage is unrelated to mission so no legging mechs to be able to salvage them or no coring and exploding a mech and it being unsalvagable etc. Its just shallow and poorly thought out. Everything the experience if piloting a mech is ok.
I just watched the entire MW Tretrospective series. It helped to inspire me to finally build a retro PC machine. I even ordered Merc's 4 on ebay based on this video. I was able to find my old Voodoo5 5500, mounted it to an Asus Motherboard with an Intel Pentium 3, and I installed my old Soundblaster Live sound card. I started to install some of them old games that won't work on newer windows OS. I had all of the Mechwarrior 2 disks, but I never played 4 so I am looking forward to that. I also installed Need For Speed 2se. Mostly because of the good memories, but it's also has a 3DFX exe version :) BTW, the NFS series might be a great retro series. Thank you for posting this video series. I'm looking forward to playing these classic games with my kids!
All these years later and i still do MW4Mercs campaigns every once in a while with the Mekpaks. I was very involved online back then. Started off as a Longbow driving fire support specialist then worked my way onto brawling type mechs. Eventually became a devotee of Lights mechs and was a charter member of The Light Brigade, One piece of advice i'll give to anyone having a go is to is seriously devote yourself to the Solaris games and you can make a whole lot of money to equip your unit with way better mechs than the usual campaign. There's a big difference between fielding a lance of Lights vs a one of Heavy/ Assaults. PS- Totally agree that Templars are shit. They were a shelf mech online and get damaged and destroyed way too easily in the game.
I understand that MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, with the DLC, has become a great game finally. In considering making a purchase of that (it's on sale for about 50% off as I write this), I stumbled across your retrospective series. Great content that shows deep knowledge of the subject matter. Hope you'll add the more recent games to this series some day.
Its fun in small bursts but you see all of the tricks up its sleeve really fast, and the random generated environments make it feel sort of shallow. As a sandbox its not bad, dont expect a good narrative though. Has decent mod support on PC as well.
@@ebookjapan8054 I bought it and played it a lot for a while, then fell out of it. The missions and environments all started feeling repetitive pretty quickly. Agreed on the narrative. When I upgrade my PC later this year, I'll probably reinstall it and put some of the more ambitious graphics/terrain mods on.
Also there was one key reason this game was the best battletech ANYTHING, and it's not even duncan fisher (who is a close second) It's Goblin. "I NEED A NEW TARGET, NHEYEHEHEYEHEYEHEYEHEYEHEYEYEH."
Ahhh yes, the multiplayer... always a weakness of the mechwarrior franchise. still is. When all we ever wanted was coop... just the ability to substitute AI lancemates with your friends... :( Besides that, I still can't tell what my favorite mechwarrior is. They were all different, but legendary games at their time. Mechwarrior 2 - eye-opener, best atmosphere, soundtrack, mission design, clans, simulation aspect, most memorable. MW2: Mercs - dark, dirty, more of everything awesome. Mechwarrior 3 - Saitek FCS, 3D glasses, bushwacker, fishing village, people... imitating the thor from the intro... Mechwarrior 4 - arcady but well done, graphics, dual LBX Loki... MW4: Mercs - dynamic campaign, content, maximum most out of everything microprose balls! Me and my friends loved them all religiously. Whenever a new MW came out, we used to pilgrim 2 hours by train to the next competent import store to grab the totally overpriced UK collectors editions cause those usually came out a few days earlier. MW4 was so expensive I had to share a copy with my best friend (only acceptable with this calibre of friend and holy game lol). In case of MW3, we had already set up a LAN and junk food before the trip and when we returned, everyone installed their copies, got their acne riddled faces curbstomped by the intro mission and then kept bashing each other in multiplayer for the rest of the night, constantly making the most unusual noises a male human in puberty can possibly produce... I don't care if I sound old or what my friend's parents thought about the squealing, those WERE the golden ages! Developers of Mechwarrior games, I praise thee for making my childhood gaming experience glorious and leading me out of console peasantry. Forever, Amen.
I beat the grand championship in the colesium piloting a daishi with to Clan guass cannons and enough ER large lasers to fry a heavy in one shot. 5 minutes before watching this. It's 3 am and I still occasionally grind out the entire campaign on a free day. I love this game
So many memories with this and Vengeance, as well as the two xbox titles. I can only hope that MW5 is successful enough to receive continued support and eventual expansions or dlcs. I have to go find my discs now.
@@Geltance devs never stated that. Bullock already said the game did well and mentioned that due to Epic, actual numbers can't be stated. MW5 Twitter did mention that DLC is planned but no roadmap has officially been published yet.
One thing I really love and/or always get a good laugh out of with this game is how a number of the personnel you can hire look like celebrities and/or other famous personalities. For instance, Goof looks like Pierce Brosnan and Goat looks a wee bit like Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. Oh, and don’t forget Rubius who looks like, if they were to pan down on his portrait, you’d see him wearing some scrubs with the name tag “Turk.”
Oh there were glooooorious online brawls back around launch and up to like 4 years later. Fafnir was insane along with good old catapult and longbows. Firefly with heat on was one helluva tactic to disable 2-3 of the enemy's advancing mechs and let your boys pound them into scrap.
Hey, I'm only up to to 17:40, but I just heard your skepticism that full-scale Mechwarrior gameplay complete with vehicles, aero, and infantry could ever really pan out - and I have good news! You should check out the free standalone Mechwarrior Living Legends, which is alive again and under development! Unbelievably, 14v14 Battlefield-style gameplay on huge maps turns out to work pretty darn well, and you can rank up (within the match, there's no persistent ranking) to buy better units. It's a Mechwarrior dream come true. Battle armor are fun and well-balanced, ASFs and VTOLs and tanks are all viable choices, there's artillery and yet Mechs are still king. It's super cool.
I maybe 6 years late to the party but, Mech 4 and Mech 4 Mercs had a huge League presence in the forms of SL, VL, and MWL. VL kind of died off with MSN gaming zone becoming super scarce, while a lot of the other leagues lived on but slowly burned out. Believe it or not, many of the people who participated in those leagues carried over their units and groups are still around either playing Mechwarrior: Online or Star Citizen and it truly is a community where everyone pretty much knows everyone.
The Solaris circuits were fantastic. My go-to Solaris weapon was always the Clan LB/20X. Put one on a Kit Fox/Uller for Light, two on a Summoner/Thor for Heavy, and four on an Annihilator for the Assault circuit and championship. I can never remember what I used for the Medium series. Edit: Oh, man. I actually got to play Mercs 4 multiplayer a few times. It was stupid fun. I even challenged a friend of mine to a duel between two 100-ton assaults with Railguns. He took the Behemoth/Stone Rhino, and I chose the Marauder II.
HOLY SHIT! YES! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO! Still got my copy from 13 years ago, though I lost the box and then promptly got another boxed copy recently. Love this game.
Also, I found out the name of the MFB guy from MechWarrior 3. According to "Trial Under Fire", which is the canonical interpretation of Operation: Damocles and is available for free with the download of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, his name is Thomas Sorenson .
I am quite interested in seeing a MechCommander retrospective video from you, as well as an MW:O review vid. I have to admit, until something better comes out, I am quite the MW:O addict myself.
Any chance of seeing the Mech Commander series reviewed? They would easily fit into this series. I also get the feeling we're building up to opening a can of hate-orade on MechWarrior: Online (which may have been deserved early on, but the game's matured a great deal).
This game is my childhood. Instead of Mario or Sonic my childhood was spent playing this game every day. Experimenting with every outcome and mech in the game. The only thing I missed during that time was the multiplayer because my original retail copy couldn't connect online and as a kid I didn't know how to download the patch for that. This game made my expectations for games high and I still haven't played a single player game as repayable as this game. I still have the box set and original CD, but I don't use it since I have the latest mechtek pack. I still replay this game every month or so and have done so since 2003.
I talked more about it in the Vengeance video, but you can customize electronic equipment, engine, armor, weapons, like in the other games. But it's a bit more refined than just having a bunch of open criticals.
An all in one download is available at clancoyote.com under the download section. We play through Gameranger and are active in the late afternoon/evenings with players online.
Tabletop Battletech is alive and well. It had it's 35th anniversary last year with new products coming out. So really Battletech didn't go anywere and Mechwarrior: Dark Age/Age of Destruction didn't replace it.
Mechwarrior 4:Mercs is my jam! ESPECIALLY with the EPIC, HUGE (and free, including a legal free copy of MW4:MERCS itself!) mod that adds TONS of weapons and over, what, 30+ additional mechs AND elementals.
This is probably the PC game I've spent the most time playing, and it IS the only game that's migrated from my first windows tower ,PC, through houses and apartments and relationships come and gone, from PC to PC with the odd year long detour into zIpdrives, progressively larger burned CD storage, and finally a diverse array of progressively more efficient thrumb drives and laptops right up to this very day. The AMAZING and free release of the high quality hundreds of fan made mechs, elementals, aerospace fighters, tanks, etc. Combined with the highly repayable campaigns and the same single player ai skirmish mode that is EASILY the single most mode I played over the years. The lack of clan mechs and the lack of a centered third person view have severely reduced my enjoyment of the latest installment.
One of the best summations of THE best (play-wise) MechWarrior game of all-time. (To my mind THE best MW game is #3; the only one which really makes you feel you're driving a walking vehicle.)The original #4 - Vengeance - is a brilliant piece of emotional play which includes what I believe to be the finest opening sequence in video-game history: the destruction of Sigma Lance. The opening of #3 is meh; but the beginning of the campaign is electrifying; an assault in force shredded before it begins by powerful land-based weapons. Against these, the beginning of MW4:Merc is forgettable; but the gameplay is the best of the entire series by far. The 'Mechs are strong and well-balanced; smaller chassis can hit well above their weight if handled right. (I typically take a troop of 3 ballistic Bushwackers into Halloran; pick up the 4th at Industry Raid and hold that force until facing Jade Falcon. With a RAC2, an LBX AC/20 and an LRM15; the low-slung Bushwacker is a hard-hitting and hard to hit menace.)Good job dude - let's see how MW5 stacks up. Based on the videos the graphics are nice but I'm not holding out much hope for the game play. :)
Funny because I’ve been replaying MW4mercs recently and the Templar’s actually grown on me. It’s so much faster and more flexible than the fafnir is, though you get both chassis anyway so you win no matter your preference.
As a kid I loved Mech 3 and as soon as Vengeance came out I begged my mom to get it for me. After a few missions of Vengeance I was severely disappointed (graphics and gameplay) but for some reason 4 Mercs I played probably 5 times over and over that summer break. It added just enough in crucial places to make it much more appealing
Does the Steiner ending actually twist canon though? After the war ended The Khan of Clan Wolf, who had secretly met and fallen hard for Kathrine/Katrina (The first was her birth name, the second her grandmother's name which she started using after splitting the Federated Commonwealth into the Federated Commonwealth ruled by her brother and the Lyran Alliance ruled by her), swooped in and demanded that she be handed over to him or he would invade so she was taken by Clan Wolf. Isn't the Steiner ending Spectre giving the information on her location to the Clan? (I never actually got the Steiner ending but I remember discussing it with a friend who got all the endings so I could easily be misunderstanding something)
Got a timestamp? It's most likely from the MekTek Mech Packs. The gameplay segments from the MekTek version are in widescreen to differentiate them, but the Mech Lab never displays widescreen.
Well, at least MechWarrior Living Legends is alive again and you can get your massive battle fixes there. Even has battle armor and vehicles. I've been having great fun with that recently.
Xeno426 yeah mwll is awesome. I just miss actually having lasting Progression and salvage mechanics. Other than that though, mwll blows mwo out of the water
Yeah, true. However since the franchise is back who knows what the future holds? I'm hoping for more MW titles which hopefully will evolve in the right way.
I've got one of those click mechs - it came with my copy of Mech4 Merc. It's a Zeus whose pilot is apparently Nikol Brahe. It has some limited posability - torso and shoulder joints. It is heavily dust encoated.
![MechWarrior Cinematics Collection [I, II, III, IV, MWLL, (V), MWO]](/img/n.gif)
Someone wants to do a podcast.
Ghost81 Only if it's about Horse Armor, my favorite gaming topic of all time (apparently).
I'd listen to a weekly podcast about nothing but horse armor.
The Examined Life (of Gaming) Oi!
A podcast about getting this game to work on Windows 10
@@docvaliant721 Eh I'd listen to that.
This game has so much personality. It's actually confusing how modern games have less personality than an almost 20 year old game. I still have the box and original disk too and spent many many hours playing through the campaign. I didn't even realize that it was a sequel to other MechWarrior games at the time.
It baffles me that PGI had 20 years of MechWarrior to draw from, and chose not to. They have intentionally failed it in my opinion.
Heck I'm even more amazed how good the A.I. are in the MW4 franchise. They are not some brain dead A.I. that destroys your defense objective in MW5.
Games used to be made for fun.
@@dudeis2kool975 Mechwarrior 5 isn't even that fun :(
@@teknoman117 And its EVEN MORE soulless than most games nowadays.
I love the graphics. There's something about that era of 3d that speaks to me. It leaves something for imagination, you can fill the gaps and enjoy the atmosphere instead of focusing on the uncanny valley, not-really-realistic HD graphics. A vast open space, mountains, snow slowly falling, mist in the background... It's so simple, but you don't need anything else.
you wrote my exact thoughts.
If you get ever the chance, look up Blade of Darkness - a game from the same age of 3D and drowning in atmosphere.
Very well said. It pays off to focus on the achievable (great gameplay) instead of the impossible (realism).
You should also try Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising for more of this kind of graphics. Loved that game as a kid. Make sure to get the GoG version over steam because it'll probably work better.
The vast open space is it for me. Modern games are usually focused on achieving high density rather than scale, but these expansive polygonal landscapes have their own kind of appeal.
Well said
18 years later and MechWarrior 4 Mercs is still the last real MechWarrior game.
If only somebody other than Piranha had made MW5.
We had all hoped for better.
true
@@TimberWulfIsHere Sorry, but if they couldn't make a solid singleplayer entry that lives up to the name, they should have just stuck to MWO. The randomized missions are dreadful, they feel more like one of those old arcade games that just throw things onto your screen to keep you shooting. The story is terrible, and terribly told, which is the half the point of a SP mechwarrior game.
I see no reason this needed to be a MW5 and instead wasn't just made a MWO spinoff w/ bot matches, because that's what the "missions" are in this game, just skirmish bot matches.
Being a small dev is no excuse, once you decide to make a main entry into a beloved series, expectations have already been set. At that point you dig your own grave.
@@TimberWulfIsHere I agree that MW5 is a great base to work off of at a fundamental level, but that doesn't remove the fact that the basic mission randomization is still very rudimentary and repetitive. I personally would've preferred 0 main story, and just a wide open space to explore ala Mount and Blade - which I feel fits Mercenaries type MW games very well. Even playing the game with the reworking mods that change up a lot of stuff, adding in new mechs and weapons, it's still just a little bog standard to me due to its foundation - which is to say nothing about what the game would offer without any of the mods. It'd need an obscene amount of modding and dedication to really make the MW5 experience everyone dreamed of, which I suppose isn't impossible given the progress just a year out from release already.
@@mattrocde Personally, I'd love to see some mad genius remake mech 3 in the mech 5 engine.
My husband was playing this years ago and got into a rage at one mission. He ejected the disc, snapped it in half, ran out into the garden and ripped all of his clothes off, screaming at the top of his lungs. Our first child was conceived several minutes later against the wooden fence with several neighbours watching and cheering us on. (Some of them even joined in towards the end, guiding him into me when he couldn't see through his tears etc.). Happier times!
Wtf
I can't even process this
Haha. What a story mark!
I remember this slightly differently- it was an online match and the enemy team kept poptarting with assault mech laserboats; just pure cheese on their part. I heard the screaming and frenzied commotion, but by the time we had all showed up (only minutes later like you said) it was all over but the crying. He did go on to later curb stomp that enemy clan in a lone Urbanmech.
The outtakes of Duncan “Has Been” Fisher are priceless. And this game owns.
You've never "beaten" MW4 Mercs until you beat the GRAND championship in a FLEA.
It took me over 100 attempts. But I did it.
Doesn't count unless you do that without any energy weapons
Just did the championship but in a flea?????
be careful he's a hero
Machine guns only?
On "Elite" difficulty?
6:45 You want to know why that pilot was so cool. It's freaking Wash flying the Serenity! A firefly class.
one of my great gaming memories is going broke in Mercs 4 and grinding the whole Solaris campaign. It was fantastic. The announcer was perfect.
Me in game: "Man, the menu theme on loop for the past 50 hours is kind of obnoxious."
Me here: "OH MY GOD HE ADDED THE MENU THEME :D :D :D :D :D :D"
This is what I was waiting for from the very first moment I subscribed. Thank you!
I was doing that playing through BATTLETECH and, while obnoxious, is fitting and it stops me from getting absolutely sick of it.
"We got 'em on radar, Sol. Moving to intercept."
"Oh no!"
"We're---"
"Riiiight..."
MekTek mods gave me hours upon hours of fun in this game.
I loved the music in this game, always felt epic playing the Overlord mission with Davion giving his speech, then the metal kicking in. The adrenaline rush was real.
MW5 has none of this. Really kills it for me.
@@dudeis2kool975 yeah
I recently got MW4 Mercs working with the Mektek Mod, 4k resolution graphics, and on Windows 10! Love it!!!
im sorry to ask but do you have any leads on gaining the mektek mod? ELoG provides a clancoyote digital download of the base game it looks like but the mod appears to be MIA.
How to get 4K?
This one is what got me hooked on BattleTech period. I remember buying it around 02 or so and I was hooked. It started me down the road of buying the books for the fluff and collecting these "Clix" models that I guess were for tabletop gaming. I never played tabletop but I loved collecting the things.
Yeah, I guess MW5 feels limiting in comparison to this title but hey, between that and BattleTech, I'm just happy the franchise is back. Here's hoping to more titles in the future. I honestly wouldn't sneeze at a remastered version of this game either.
Hopefully now that Harmony Gold lost their suit against Harebrained Schemes we will get more Battletech content.
i have such fond memories playing this game and working with the guys at mektek
Interesting note about the Eaton campaigns. If you look at the insignias on the mechs of the escorts, you can see the Black Knight Legion on the Chimeras.
This game is just great, badass. Interface, models, animations and effects - everything looks and feels like a good engineering product with perfect optimization. Sitting on a computer gives u a sense of using this robots on a distance, like u are using them remotely. Probably the future weapons or exploration systems will be the same or almost the same or maybe just training programs
The MekTek packs are really cool but kind of break the balance of the campaign mode over their knee. You can be stomping around in assaults after only a few missions and then just steam-roll the game from there.
Agreed.
you can choose not to buy/play assaults at all until later
I really like your in-depth analysis and review of MW games, I played them all since I was a kid (my first game was Mercs 2, and went from there), my favourite sim-wise and realistic wise is without a doubt MW3, but for me all of them have their good points, others aren't simply bad, they just feel different, all depending on the perspective of who plays it. :)
I would love to watch your take on Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries that came out in 2019, since there is a huge time gap since MW4, it would be very cool to watch a in depth review of it, and ya know, you need to complete these series anyways ahahaha!
Great job, love your videos! Keep up the good work!
here just to relive my childhood, while downloading merc 5.
Playing it now
You can still play MW4:M and mekmatch is back for multiplayer. some play via Gameranger also.
I give MW5 a solid, "It's OK."
Maybe it's just my nostalgia, but I'm really impressed by Mechwarrior 5 and I'm surprised it even got made...
25minutes of Roland talking Mech action???
Fuck yes. I speak for all when i say you make some of the best gaming content on UA-cam
You barely speak for yourself.
God that was enjoyable! Thanks a lot for this entertaining coverage of one if my all time favorites.
Gotta get some horse armor now..
You: "If you only play one Mechwarrior game, play Mechwarrior 2."
Me: FILTHY CLANNEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!
*DFA*
Holy cow I had no idea that this was where Duncan Fisher came from. I played all the other Mechwarrior games up to this point but missed this one. I thought Duncan was a BPL thing.
Today is the day when MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is coming :)
shame it was trash
@Невада большевик the simulation is severely dumbed down, theres no radar, bomes dont affect heat, theres only a few miasion types, ai is bad and runs in circles, enemy forces spawn 20ft infront of the objective, player actions dont affect salvage, soundtrack is horrible. Nobody who made mw5 cared. Only nice thing is starmap. It couldve been good but they didnt care.
@Невада большевик the ai is bad cause they dont use cover or hills, rotate torso to avoid damage. Just run in circles. Not even using jumpjets. Ai from stalker, a game made by 2 slavs in pijamas in 2000s was better and far more advanced. The mission scripting is broken and if you snipe an objective or destroy it before you get within 250m of the marker, gg youve softlocked the game. No gauss or missile sniping allowe, not because of gameplay but lazy devs. Simulation wise no radar systems, no temperature affecting heat, no optics, no coolants, no putting heatsinks on legs and standing in water. Also salvage is unrelated to mission so no legging mechs to be able to salvage them or no coring and exploding a mech and it being unsalvagable etc. Its just shallow and poorly thought out. Everything the experience if piloting a mech is ok.
And its so much worse then 4...
mechwarrior 4 + mw5's starmap = best MW game ever
Am I the only one who would want to see a mechwarrior game set during the Amaris Civil War?
For me this was the best video in this series so far. Good work.
Still the best even after playing MW5
Hands down, pal.
I just watched the entire MW Tretrospective series. It helped to inspire me to finally build a retro PC machine. I even ordered Merc's 4 on ebay based on this video.
I was able to find my old Voodoo5 5500, mounted it to an Asus Motherboard with an Intel Pentium 3, and I installed my old Soundblaster Live sound card. I started to install some of them old games that won't work on newer windows OS. I had all of the Mechwarrior 2 disks, but I never played 4 so I am looking forward to that.
I also installed Need For Speed 2se. Mostly because of the good memories, but it's also has a 3DFX exe version :) BTW, the NFS series might be a great retro series.
Thank you for posting this video series. I'm looking forward to playing these classic games with my kids!
Gosh that sounds awesome! If I ever get the time and funds I might build a retro gaming pc!
That recon jet was a Firefly. Prove me wrong. O.O
I think you did the game justice, even thinking it was THE closest game to Battletech. Now I must check MW2 out. Cool videos, keep em' coming!
Lol, dat Firefly reference.
I still have Mechwarrior 4 and all the expansions in their original boxes. I loved this game back in the day.
All these years later and i still do MW4Mercs campaigns every once in a while with the Mekpaks. I was very involved online back then. Started off as a Longbow driving fire support specialist then worked my way onto brawling type mechs. Eventually became a devotee of Lights mechs and was a charter member of The Light Brigade,
One piece of advice i'll give to anyone having a go is to is seriously devote yourself to the Solaris games and you can make a whole lot of money to equip your unit with way better mechs than the usual campaign. There's a big difference between fielding a lance of Lights vs a one of Heavy/ Assaults.
PS- Totally agree that Templars are shit. They were a shelf mech online and get damaged and destroyed way too easily in the game.
Hop... is that you? I feel as if I've entered a parallel universe
The voice acting was very memorable in this game. Hell, they even brought back Duncan Fisher in MW5.
I understand that MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, with the DLC, has become a great game finally. In considering making a purchase of that (it's on sale for about 50% off as I write this), I stumbled across your retrospective series. Great content that shows deep knowledge of the subject matter. Hope you'll add the more recent games to this series some day.
Its fun in small bursts but you see all of the tricks up its sleeve really fast, and the random generated environments make it feel sort of shallow. As a sandbox its not bad, dont expect a good narrative though. Has decent mod support on PC as well.
@@ebookjapan8054 I bought it and played it a lot for a while, then fell out of it. The missions and environments all started feeling repetitive pretty quickly. Agreed on the narrative. When I upgrade my PC later this year, I'll probably reinstall it and put some of the more ambitious graphics/terrain mods on.
Get the mod (Yet Another Mech Lab).
Also there was one key reason this game was the best battletech ANYTHING, and it's not even duncan fisher (who is a close second)
It's Goblin.
"I NEED A NEW TARGET, NHEYEHEHEYEHEYEHEYEHEYEHEYEYEH."
Ahhh yes, the multiplayer... always a weakness of the mechwarrior franchise. still is.
When all we ever wanted was coop... just the ability to substitute AI lancemates with your friends... :(
Besides that, I still can't tell what my favorite mechwarrior is. They were all different, but legendary games at their time.
Mechwarrior 2 - eye-opener, best atmosphere, soundtrack, mission design, clans, simulation aspect, most memorable.
MW2: Mercs - dark, dirty, more of everything awesome.
Mechwarrior 3 - Saitek FCS, 3D glasses, bushwacker, fishing village, people... imitating the thor from the intro...
Mechwarrior 4 - arcady but well done, graphics, dual LBX Loki...
MW4: Mercs - dynamic campaign, content, maximum most out of everything microprose balls!
Me and my friends loved them all religiously. Whenever a new MW came out, we used to pilgrim 2 hours by train to the next competent import store to grab the totally overpriced UK collectors editions cause those usually came out a few days earlier. MW4 was so expensive I had to share a copy with my best friend (only acceptable with this calibre of friend and holy game lol). In case of MW3, we had already set up a LAN and junk food before the trip and when we returned, everyone installed their copies, got their acne riddled faces curbstomped by the intro mission and then kept bashing each other in multiplayer for the rest of the night, constantly making the most unusual noises a male human in puberty can possibly produce...
I don't care if I sound old or what my friend's parents thought about the squealing, those WERE the golden ages!
Developers of Mechwarrior games, I praise thee for making my childhood gaming experience glorious and leading me out of console peasantry. Forever, Amen.
...poor fishing village people.....
Mechwarrior Living Legends will solve all your multiplayer woes.
Holy shit, are we the same damn person??
Have you heard of Mechwarrior 5 Mercs my guy
MW5 sucks with no multiplayer and available at EGS
What an informative and thoughtful video man. I guess I'll start on Part 1 now.
I can always appreciate a review where the reviewer simply states "big fucking waste of time" thank you for that honesty.
I found these videos today by chance, cool to see you JUST released it.
I beat the grand championship in the colesium piloting a daishi with to Clan guass cannons and enough ER large lasers to fry a heavy in one shot. 5 minutes before watching this. It's 3 am and I still occasionally grind out the entire campaign on a free day. I love this game
Made my day when i saw this video in my feed
So many memories with this and Vengeance, as well as the two xbox titles. I can only hope that MW5 is successful enough to receive continued support and eventual expansions or dlcs. I have to go find my discs now.
The devs already said that they aren't gonna do anything to the game after Feb or so
Geltance I was just watching the first circuit podcast, they most likely will be doing dlc and a free update.
@@chimpman3496 woop. :) but I already got tired of the game but might revisit
Geltance i’m just doing a single play through until they add more mission types and a career mode
@@Geltance devs never stated that. Bullock already said the game did well and mentioned that due to Epic, actual numbers can't be stated. MW5 Twitter did mention that DLC is planned but no roadmap has officially been published yet.
One thing I really love and/or always get a good laugh out of with this game is how a number of the personnel you can hire look like celebrities and/or other famous personalities. For instance, Goof looks like Pierce Brosnan and Goat looks a wee bit like Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. Oh, and don’t forget Rubius who looks like, if they were to pan down on his portrait, you’d see him wearing some scrubs with the name tag “Turk.”
Duncan Fisher's voice does some battletech videos to this day.
This is still my favorite game of all time.
Oh there were glooooorious online brawls back around launch and up to like 4 years later. Fafnir was insane along with good old catapult and longbows. Firefly with heat on was one helluva tactic to disable 2-3 of the enemy's advancing mechs and let your boys pound them into scrap.
Firefly was in the game?
Hey, I'm only up to to 17:40, but I just heard your skepticism that full-scale Mechwarrior gameplay complete with vehicles, aero, and infantry could ever really pan out - and I have good news!
You should check out the free standalone Mechwarrior Living Legends, which is alive again and under development! Unbelievably, 14v14 Battlefield-style gameplay on huge maps turns out to work pretty darn well, and you can rank up (within the match, there's no persistent ranking) to buy better units. It's a Mechwarrior dream come true. Battle armor are fun and well-balanced, ASFs and VTOLs and tanks are all viable choices, there's artillery and yet Mechs are still king. It's super cool.
Late to the party but thanks for this mech retrospective series,took me back to when nothing but gaming and girls mattered to me 🤟
What’s your opinion on merc 5?
I maybe 6 years late to the party but, Mech 4 and Mech 4 Mercs had a huge League presence in the forms of SL, VL, and MWL. VL kind of died off with MSN gaming zone becoming super scarce, while a lot of the other leagues lived on but slowly burned out. Believe it or not, many of the people who participated in those leagues carried over their units and groups are still around either playing Mechwarrior: Online or Star Citizen and it truly is a community where everyone pretty much knows everyone.
A great video, I love the laze-fair way of unboxing the discs.
The Solaris circuits were fantastic. My go-to Solaris weapon was always the Clan LB/20X. Put one on a Kit Fox/Uller for Light, two on a Summoner/Thor for Heavy, and four on an Annihilator for the Assault circuit and championship. I can never remember what I used for the Medium series.
Edit: Oh, man. I actually got to play Mercs 4 multiplayer a few times. It was stupid fun. I even challenged a friend of mine to a duel between two 100-ton assaults with Railguns. He took the Behemoth/Stone Rhino, and I chose the Marauder II.
MechWarrior 4 the best game when all the clans and severs were up and the mech load outs were spectacular, legends were made in those days.
Hey I just wanna say these videos are great, keep them up!
HOLY SHIT! YES! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO!
Still got my copy from 13 years ago, though I lost the box and then promptly got another boxed copy recently. Love this game.
One of the best games I played and to this day still play My old clan has multiple servers up, and weekends get busy with a lot of players.
do you still play it??
I still play the campaign. It's a great game.
MW5 Mercs Review when
Now I guess you can do a Mechwarrior Living Legends and Mechwarrior 5 video? :-)
I once took on those two stars with nothing but two lances of Timber Wolves with invincibility off.
I won.
I think I did it in a Hellbringer once, but that was by hiding behind my beefier lance mates like a total scrub.
I faced them off in honorable combat, out in the open, with PPCs flying, and the will and determination that all Wolf warriors have.
#ClanWolfForever
Also, I found out the name of the MFB guy from MechWarrior 3. According to "Trial Under Fire", which is the canonical interpretation of Operation: Damocles and is available for free with the download of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, his name is Thomas Sorenson .
Wouldn't be much of a retrospective, but PLEASE do Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries!
I am quite interested in seeing a MechCommander retrospective video from you, as well as an MW:O review vid. I have to admit, until something better comes out, I am quite the MW:O addict myself.
Any chance of seeing the Mech Commander series reviewed? They would easily fit into this series. I also get the feeling we're building up to opening a can of hate-orade on MechWarrior: Online (which may have been deserved early on, but the game's matured a great deal).
Damn, this needs a remaster. This would make a great game.
This game is my childhood. Instead of Mario or Sonic my childhood was spent playing this game every day. Experimenting with every outcome and mech in the game. The only thing I missed during that time was the multiplayer because my original retail copy couldn't connect online and as a kid I didn't know how to download the patch for that. This game made my expectations for games high and I still haven't played a single player game as repayable as this game. I still have the box set and original CD, but I don't use it since I have the latest mechtek pack. I still replay this game every month or so and have done so since 2003.
Drive on!
how does one go about getting this game?????
what's the customization like? just swapping weapons?
I talked more about it in the Vengeance video, but you can customize electronic equipment, engine, armor, weapons, like in the other games. But it's a bit more refined than just having a bunch of open criticals.
ok i gotta ask- can you actually play as a teeny tiny mech the size of a mini cooper, or is that just a mod?
An all in one download is available at clancoyote.com under the download section. We play through Gameranger and are active in the late afternoon/evenings with players online.
Tabletop Battletech is alive and well. It had it's 35th anniversary last year with new products coming out. So really Battletech didn't go anywere and Mechwarrior: Dark Age/Age of Destruction didn't replace it.
Hey it's been a while, but I was curious if you were going to cover Mechwarrior 5 now that it's released?
Interesting video, will you be doing one for Mechwarrior: Living Legends?
MWLL is what he basically wished MW4 online would be .
@@stiltskino4009 According to whom?
@@stiltskino4009 yes to whom?
I know it wouldn't be much of a retrospective, but have you considered giving MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries a review ?
Mechwarrior 4:Mercs is my jam!
ESPECIALLY with the EPIC, HUGE (and free, including a legal free copy of MW4:MERCS itself!) mod that adds TONS of weapons and over, what, 30+ additional mechs AND elementals.
This is probably the PC game I've spent the most time playing, and it IS the only game that's migrated from my first windows tower ,PC, through houses and apartments and relationships come and gone, from PC to PC with the odd year long detour into zIpdrives, progressively larger burned CD storage, and finally a diverse array of progressively more efficient thrumb drives and laptops right up to this very day. The AMAZING and free release of the high quality hundreds of fan made mechs, elementals, aerospace fighters, tanks, etc. Combined with the highly repayable campaigns and the same single player ai skirmish mode that is EASILY the single most mode I played over the years. The lack of clan mechs and the lack of a centered third person view have severely reduced my enjoyment of the latest installment.
One of the best summations of THE best (play-wise) MechWarrior game of all-time. (To my mind THE best MW game is #3; the only one which really makes you feel you're driving a walking vehicle.)The original #4 - Vengeance - is a brilliant piece of emotional play which includes what I believe to be the finest opening sequence in video-game history: the destruction of Sigma Lance. The opening of #3 is meh; but the beginning of the campaign is electrifying; an assault in force shredded before it begins by powerful land-based weapons. Against these, the beginning of MW4:Merc is forgettable; but the gameplay is the best of the entire series by far. The 'Mechs are strong and well-balanced; smaller chassis can hit well above their weight if handled right. (I typically take a troop of 3 ballistic Bushwackers into Halloran; pick up the 4th at Industry Raid and hold that force until facing Jade Falcon. With a RAC2, an LBX AC/20 and an LRM15; the low-slung Bushwacker is a hard-hitting and hard to hit menace.)Good job dude - let's see how MW5 stacks up. Based on the videos the graphics are nice but I'm not holding out much hope for the game play. :)
Funny because I’ve been replaying MW4mercs recently and the Templar’s actually grown on me. It’s so much faster and more flexible than the fafnir is, though you get both chassis anyway so you win no matter your preference.
Is Clan Coyote still the best place to pick up the game and Mektek mod? One of the files on there is 4,198TB and that seems kinda sus
This is my personal fave.
Fucking thank you, baby. Waited for this for forever.
As a kid I loved Mech 3 and as soon as Vengeance came out I begged my mom to get it for me. After a few missions of Vengeance I was severely disappointed (graphics and gameplay) but for some reason 4 Mercs I played probably 5 times over and over that summer break. It added just enough in crucial places to make it much more appealing
You mention the MW4 compilation pack. Do you know if that fixes the issue with most Black Knight ISOs floating around where you can't use the mechlab?
Does the Steiner ending actually twist canon though?
After the war ended The Khan of Clan Wolf, who had secretly met and fallen hard for Kathrine/Katrina (The first was her birth name, the second her grandmother's name which she started using after splitting the Federated Commonwealth into the Federated Commonwealth ruled by her brother and the Lyran Alliance ruled by her), swooped in and demanded that she be handed over to him or he would invade so she was taken by Clan Wolf. Isn't the Steiner ending Spectre giving the information on her location to the Clan? (I never actually got the Steiner ending but I remember discussing it with a friend who got all the endings so I could easily be misunderstanding something)
What version of mercs is that? I don't have blue mech outlines or the background and camos you do.
Got a timestamp? It's most likely from the MekTek Mech Packs. The gameplay segments from the MekTek version are in widescreen to differentiate them, but the Mech Lab never displays widescreen.
Mech lab background at 2:59 and the blue silhouettes at 3:09
Hmm. Weird. That's just normal vanilla Merx 4.
2:20 Always called it MechFourrior, myself.
I love this series, but this is my favorite in the series by far.
I've put probably over 200 hours into this game.
Is that Firefly at 6:44?
Why is the Serenity in Mechwarrior 4 Mercs? Seriously watch at the 6:30 minute mark.
"no heat no ammo matches" so what, like just slam into each other until you explode?
He is talking about not generating heat or losing ammo.
Well, at least MechWarrior Living Legends is alive again and you can get your massive battle fixes there. Even has battle armor and vehicles. I've been having great fun with that recently.
Xeno426 yeah mwll is awesome. I just miss actually having lasting Progression and salvage mechanics. Other than that though, mwll blows mwo out of the water
Its a shame how limited MechWarrior 5 mercenaries is when it comes to how many mechs can be in play compared to MechWarrior 4 mercenaries.
still a lot more than the base battletech game on steam
Yeah, true. However since the franchise is back who knows what the future holds? I'm hoping for more MW titles which hopefully will evolve in the right way.
MW5 has more mechs actually. You are accounting for mekpaks in MW4 which were basically mods.
One of my favorite games ever
Back when PC games were still PC games, and games in general weren't focus-grouped to death.
Yep.
I've got one of those click mechs - it came with my copy of Mech4 Merc. It's a Zeus whose pilot is apparently Nikol Brahe. It has some limited posability - torso and shoulder joints. It is heavily dust encoated.
I have replayed this game extensively but never even knew about the DLC. I shall have to find a pirated version of it.
Are you considering doing an episode on Living Legends as well?
Roland are you using an Uziel? I thought you hated that mech lol
jaylex666 I'm a disgrace!