FWIW, the MadCat and Timber Wolf are the same mech in the minis game. Timber Wolf is the Clan's name for it, while MadCat was the ID the Inner Sphere settled on because their recognition software kept getting confused over whether it was looking at a Marauder or a Catapult when they first encountered the Clans. That happens with a bunch of the Clan mech designs - they were even briefly believed to be hostile aliens initially. Like you said, lot of lore to the setting.
Remeber the mission where you infiltrate the word of blake base with the Thor in the snow one time I killed the atlas it did chain reaction killing the other atlas killing the scout mech next to it killing the scout mech next to it
The lore for this series is insane, if you have a remote interest in it I'd recommend looking more into it. Tex Talks Battletech on the BlackPants Legion is a wonderful channel to learn more, and the Sarna Wiki is also phenomenal
@@richmcgee434 I remember the first time I got stuck on Sarna. I went there to look at the Warhammer mech's page. By the end of the next hour I was learning about the Taurian Concordats currency exchange rate vs the C-bill. I had to force myself to close the page when I realized I had a calculator open to see what a Mech's C-Bill value was worth in USD.
As a teen, I was stuck in foster care. I got through the experience by grinding through 3 or 4 of the novels every week. The decline in quality after Victor finally won was always a huge let down.
36 year old here......this was one of the best MP games back in its day.....the ability to destroy cities was great and the banter between players was fire.....I miss this game so much. Im hoping the genre can make a return. Thanks for making this video
Feels good to hear an earth shaking explosion, confirming a pilot died thrashing about in their cockpit, electronics exploding in front of their faces, burning up in their seats, then being heat fused to said seats...ahhhhh, glorious
Aside from the obvious Black Pants Legion, Sven van der Plank has an excellent sub-10 minute primer on Battletech, an excellent point to start with just for the plot and lore. They also have several multihour productions covering important eras!
I spent hours playing this as a kid, I really wish they would reimagine the ragnarok & ymir in MWO. They already started playing with fresh non cannon designs a few years ago. Also, this game used clan / inner sphere naming conventions for alternative loadouts. Aka madcat in the main game, Timberwolf in the multi-player. One had ppc and I think the other has guass or autocannon main weapons.
To give you a sense of how nutty Battletech lore can get the Wolf's Dragoons were a secret scouting force sent by the Clans to spy on the Inner Sphere and prepare the way for the Clan Invasion. Who are the Clans? The descendants of the military of the long dead Star League, which was the first united Galactic Government. Their was a coup that toppled that government, and there was a war so terrible and disgusting that after the Star League military finally won and brought the traitors to justice, they vowed to never let that happen again. The commander of the military saw that various factions were ready to continue waging war to take over the remanents of the Star League so he gathered all those loyal to him and the league and they abandoned the Inner Sphere and went to the far Peripherary so their weapons and soldiers couldn't be used for more slaughter. He sent a radio message that he knew would take hundreds of years to reach Terra basically wishing that the Inner Sphere would find peace and promising that one day the Star League would return. It was a hopeful and inspiring message....except that this group eventually evolved into a strict caste society based all around warfare, and when they did eventually return, they returned to conquer the Inner Sphere. They had come to believe in order to save it they must conquer it. The Wolf's Dragoons were an advance party meant to gain Intel and prepare the way for the clans. Their cover was working as mercenaries. They eventually switched sides and instead helped the Inner Sphere fight the clans.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Mech Assault on this channel. Fun Fact: It's not just Mech Assault, none of the video games based on Battletech are canon. They all take place in different times of the setting, but none of the events and conclusions depicted in any of the games affect the lore. Only the novels and settings books for the tabletop are considered lore. This game gets a bad rep from the greater Mechwarrior community because it doesn't handle like the simulation experience like on the PC, but i think they are a fun arcade alternative! =D
Technically, the HBS game is Canon, mostly, there's some artistic license in there. Mech Assault has the issue that it turns Jerome Blake from a fairly decent administrator and bookworm, into some kind of super knowledgeable prophet, which he definitely wasn't.
@@Jonnyg325 Ah yes, I forgot about HBS's game. I'm pretty surprised they decided to make that one canon. Well, the whole issue with the Word of Blake is that it was the break away group from Comstar when they decided to secularize the organization. Before then, they were very mystical and really did put Blake on a pedistal. I wish Mech Assault's depiction of that era was canon. At least it was fun. The canon depiction of the Word of Blake era was so horribly written because of self imposed restrictions on where and how they advance the timeline of the canon really put the writers into a corner. The result is an era so bad, it's universally agreed by everyone to pretty much just ignore it. =(
@@Jonnyg325 The game itself is not cannon. Catalyst Game Labs released a source book that heavily mirrors the events of the game which is cannon. This is somewhat similar to how Mech Commander 1 is not cannon, but the since released shrapnel periodical has referenced events, characters, and even the odd weight centurions (now a new mech CN10 rather than the CN9) making most of it cannon.
This game can't be judged on its single player experience. I feel like it was literally designed to be the load bearing structure for XBL when it launched. For the time, it was an incredible game. Easy to pick up, fast paced, but also rewarded experienced play and surprisingly balanced (at least if memory serves...)
The sound design in this game really is amazing. The launching of missiles, the building destruction, and of course the mechs falling and exploding. This game made me realize I liked anything mecha. Always wanted to get my own copy and finish play it all the way through.
I'm a big Battletech fan. Play the tabletop game(s), love the lore, and have played most of the video games. MechAssault was a goodntime back in the day. My brother and I played the hell out of it and the sequel. It's an arcade shooter funtime game, which is exactly what it set out to be. If you want a more simulationist game, check out MechWarrior 5 (or any of the older Mechwarrior games). But if you really want to get a taste of the Battletech universe (or at least a glimpse since it's fucking enormous), I suggest the game Battletech from Hare Brained Schemes. Absolutely great strategy game that combines my love of big robots and turn based strategy a la X-COM. Great video!
Great vid, i played the demo that was pre-loaded on my original xbox many many.. many times. Dont miss the days of being a kid with a very limited library of games, but atleast they had at neat demo to try out and hey i ended up getting later for little to nothing due to it being everywhere. If i remember correctly this game and Brute Force had package deals when you purchased the console.
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Battletech is literally my favorite setting out there. EDIT: The reason why the Mad-Cat and the Timberwolf are retextures is because its just two different names for the same mech. Timberwolf is the Clanner name, Mad-Cat is the Inner Sphere name (because it looks like a Marauder and a Catapult)!
I know someone else said it but the Mad Cat and Timber Wolf are the same. Inner Sphere vs Clan names. The short version is that the Timber Wolf looks like a combination of the Marauder (MAD) and Catapult (CAT) and the targeting computers couldn’t decide so the flipped back and forth between the two until merging them as one 🤷🏻♂️
Before i was born my dad decided to get me PS One so that once i was old enough, me and him would be able to play together. The PS2 has been out for a while and dad asked around when i was 2 if i wanted a PlayStation 2 since we loved our PS One so much. I told him ill think about then one day we went to my cousins apartment and he bought himself an Xbox and i saw the mechassault demo. Thats when i realized i needed the xbox. Me and my brother loved this game and for sure have more then 3k hours on it. I wish i could have had Xbox Live but more then 14 years later i was able top play on Xlink Kai and then recently played on Insignia. My favorite childhood game.
I love the loki mech. It's 1 of 4 dlc mechs it's similar to the mad dog. But has 2 autocannon and 3 crossbow missiles. Plus it can turn invisible and is fast. I have a short clip of it in action. Ps. The pink pulse laser is my fave thing.
I got this game solely because it was on Xbox live and man I can’t describe how fun it was in multiplayer. The campaign wasn’t too bad, but live was where it shined.
I played Mechwarrior on ps1, Mechassault, and lone wolf. I come from the arcade days, before consoles, so I have seen video games from the start. I still love Mech Assault better than lone wolf. The Appreciation of these games were the culmination of the dream of a 3D universe. This by far my all time favorite game, even in 2024!!!!
I have a copy of the 2nd mechassault and would love to send it to you for review. Thanks for covering this series. It was my favorite video game series growing up.
I remember this game so much. I played the _shit_ out of it. Hell, it what made me fall in love with mecha in the first place. It was the best mecha game at the time.
Thank you for covering this. MechAssault was a much more arcade style shooter, which might explain the mixed reception among the fan base. I highly recommend MechWarrior 3 and 4, MechCommander 2, and the BattleTech turn based strategy game made by the original founder of the franchise.
This game made my 12th birthday. I still remember it even at 30. It was rainy, my mom took my friend and i to a best buy and its cover immediately caught my attention. Definitely a highlight game from my childhood. But beside all that its like a 7/10, honestly.
At my house we had the PC Mechwarrior games and I really wanted to play them as they looked fantastic, but early elementary school me didn't have the mental wherewithal to play something so sim-like so I didn't get very far in any of them. When MechAssault came out I felt like they'd made the super-casual arcade game experience from Mechwarrior that I wanted... but at that point I was a PS2 kid so I could only stare wistfully in MechAssault's direction. Obviously, the PS2 would go on to have plenty of mech-related games - and that console was my introduction to classic Gundam - but nevertheless a part of me was always curious about the MechAssault franchise.
i loved this game, you could play a foot soldier with a jet pack and me and my friends used to do matches with everyone on foot except one smaller weaker mech and have epic fights. probably remembered them way cooler then they were
We call that big ol' explosion "Stackpoling" after the author who made mechs exploding from their reactor a staple, despite that only happening from ammo, because Battltech is (usually) too realistic for random explosions. Radiation is the much bigger danger, but usually only if a mech is exposed to far too much heat, or if the engine is being serviced. The realism is a big part of the fun, since the answer as to why mechs are thing at all is because, "BS honor wars are far better than the irradiated hell holes created from total war, since planets like that that don't pay taxes."
That is an awesome bit of info, especially because after uploading this video I bought the Stackpole Warrior trilogy on amazon. Looking forward to learning some more about the universe.
@@ataraxxxYup. He was, among other things, responsible for the frankly fantastic X-Wing novel series. They were particularly engaging as the cast was almost all original characters, so there was a real tension in fights because we DIDN'T know our favorite characters were gonna make it out of this alright. You can't kill Luke Skywalker in a tie-in novel. You absolutely CAN kill someone who never appeared outside of it.
I remember playing this game for hours on end with my cousins and brother when i was like 6-7 years old. It randomly pops in my head sometimes, ill never forget the Mech that shoots purple shots. We called it "purple nurple" and as a 6 year old i thought that was comedy gold lmao
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I played the crap out of this and Unreal Championship growing up. I remember the campaign being impactful because that’s the only way you could unlock 2 mechs for multiplayer. The Thor and ragnork if I recall correctly. My favorite online mode was CTF. All 3 different styles of mechs felt useful. The small ones that could go invisible were fast and good for flag running. The atlas stayed at the base to protect. And a lot of madcats in mid. Most ctf maps had a few different lanes. Outer ones being slower but normally safer after all the buildings in mid were blown up by the madcats. If your atlas was lucky enough to get the juiced purple lasers he would sometimes come out into mid when all the buildings and cover were gone and just decimate. Anyways thanks for the video.
This was one of the funnest games I ever played online back in the day. The single player mode was a good once over. Mulitplayer was legit because they came out with quite a bit of downloadable content. Everyone who was anyone always had a Mad Cat with PPC's unless it was CTF. Then it was just a race of the smallest Mech's. If you weren't playing this online, then it was Whacked! Or Moto GP before Halo 2, PSO and Rainbow Six came out.
I own both physically. I know majority of the lore because I own many of the novels and source books. Never played the table top game but I have played most games since Mechwarrior 2 for the PC. Currently there is a Humble Bundle for 20+ of the novels in digital format.
Luckily those capacitors can be replaced or removed with a little bit of soldering. There are some really detailed guides on line if it's something that you ever need to look into.
Holy shit this game, I remember the sequel very we’ll and I was ranked in the top 100 for a long period of time, such good memories. Granted if you were in a decent clan it was t hard to get up into that level
I’m a big Mechwarrior 2, 3, & 4 for PC fan. I’ve got a few legacy Win98 PCs that I use just for these games. I bought Mech Assault like you did but I have no way of playing it. It looks a lot like MechWarrior 4. Halo came along and the entire gaming world changed forever…. I’m stuck in 2002 forever.
Yes the online play was the crown jewels of this game. And just like Halo, it was at first to be an RTS like MechCommander, but then all things had to be a FPS at that time. Like MechCommander you couldn't change anything on the Battlemechs unlike all the rest of the games in this setting out there. Even the one on the SNES had mech loadout customization.
I actually DO have this game sitting in a box Just completed the second game a little while ago on the hardest difficulty and yeah it was a hell of a fun time playing the horde mode with my sister and seeing how long we could last
I had the sequel disc for a long time, I played it a ton on the 360 and loved it... Until my sister wanted to decorate her room and took a bunch of my old xbox discs and painted the backs of them.
I like the videogame videos! I watched Seed Destiny and a bunch of other Gundam shows recently, so I could watch your videos on them too. You pick interesting stuff to cover! Seed Destiny was so painful though. Lol.
5:08 yeah. I forgot about fracture also. It was definitely one of the games of all time. Now, pariah was a sleeper gem on the og Xbox with an amazing map editor. Too bad no one played it Eta: nobody mentioned pariah I just remembered renting it from Netflix back when they sent you discs in the mail.
Pariah was one of those games I picked up at the game store about 5 times and always put it back down. I should take a look at it nowadays, along with some other old gems like Advent Rising and ColdWinter
I wish this game had a remake or at least a remaster of this spin-off series! Specially for casual mech games who are not vey mush on the side of strategy (for those I recommend 2018 Battletech game). Luckily mecha game fans will have a feast on Armored Core 6.
Mech Assault was one of the first games to let you be an actual pilot, the tabletop was always played from far above, abstracted really. But MA, it let you feel like you were driving an engine of destruction, like you were an unstoppable badass mechwarrior here to leave your mark on the universe. Well, I suppose the Tesla pods did that too, but this didn't cost 300 plus bucks, and this one had clan mechs
That was how I felt renting Mechwarrior on the Super Nintendo(my Blockbuster had the manual, so I was... less confused). The later Mechwarrior 3050 on the same system(but also Genesis) was similar to Mechassault in concept(if not execution).
You have summoned the battletech nerds. Be prepared for lots of requests for more battletech content and a gradual pressure to become "one of us" xD All jokes aside, the battletech community is generally a phenomenal bunch, and an absolute treasure trove of knowledge. If you ever have questions about lore and other things battletech, reach out to us, and we'll be more than happy to help. We've been enjoying this Renaissance of new battletech/MechWarrior content, especially after a 15 year dry spell
They really need to bring this game back.. for the multiplayer… so sad! I actually made the switch from ps2 to Xbox after playing the multiplayer at my cousins place!
For the record though, if you want more mech customization, the 2018 hare brained schemes battletech is pretty great if you want to go turn based, and the mechwarrior titles (five being the most readily available) are solid real time mech games. Online is kinda mixed the core game is solid, but the micro transactions really hurt it.
The microtransactions are annoying, though you can now get a free mech every month and the frequent events mean that as long as you aren't exclusively trying to buy heavies and assaults it isn't too bad. But then, I have been playing for a while and have a massive stable of mechs to choose from already. Kit Fox for life!
One of the reasons the first game isn't playable on the 360 but the second one is that the first runs of the first game have an exploit with the saves that allows you to hack the console (soft mod) so they blocked it to prevent people attempting to break out of the sandbox environment on the 360s emulator.
Well I loved this short series back in the day. I still play the 2013 online version of the game... which I'm surprised is still standing now, ten years later; considering how short lived most mecha games last with online servers. But Mechwarrior Online is punishing by comparison to mech assault
I can't wait for your retrospective of the Battletech cartoon series. Please bear in mind that it's been officially retconned as in-universe propaganda aimed at children.
the reason mech assault 1 was not included in backward compatibility is because its infamous as being able to jailbreak the console DRM on an unmodded console if you mess with it.
YES I actually was able to play a few matches during PAX east in boston a few years ago. They had a bunch of Original Xbox's set up with Steel Battallion so we got to play some 4v4 matches. I sucked but the game was incredibly cool.
Been getting back into Mechwarrior Online as i wait for Armored Core 6. I gotta say that the Cougar from the box art is among my top five favorite Battlemech designs. In the lore There's an experimental variant with wings that the Inner Sphere thought was actually a macross style tramsformable battlemech...
To be fair, LAMs were and technically still are a thing. Made back when Battletech was still trying to figure what exactly it wanted to be. So yeah, literally transformable macross style battlemechs are a thing, thaaaat most would prefer we forgot about lol
@randomfurrygirl548 it's just funny that the Inner Sphere was like, "Wait, the Clans are making LAMs?" And then it turned out it was a Cougar with Shilone wings bolted to its side torsos. The Cougar XR was the testbed for the partial wing system that Clan Jade Falcon would become obsessed with.
ooh 360 era! Dude Cover the lost planet series.... it's got mechs, bugs, guns and even an anime spin-off on the ps3 and 3ds😂👍Pretty great game coverage dog keep it up 🫡
Hey Retcon. I never wrote to tou. But i joined a couple months ago. And i fucking love your channel. From the retrospect, to the music you use. (My god the music❤) Don't know if you have. But would you be interested in reviewing " Robotech Battlecry" I fucking love and miss that game. Thanks dude. Keep up the great work
FWIW, the MadCat and Timber Wolf are the same mech in the minis game. Timber Wolf is the Clan's name for it, while MadCat was the ID the Inner Sphere settled on because their recognition software kept getting confused over whether it was looking at a Marauder or a Catapult when they first encountered the Clans. That happens with a bunch of the Clan mech designs - they were even briefly believed to be hostile aliens initially.
Like you said, lot of lore to the setting.
I'm a monster with the timber wolf
The sound of that mech reactor explosion unlocked a core memory for me. Damn. That was a sound I heard so much in my childhood.
That explosion sound gives me tingles. Especially if you could cause a mecha chain reaction. It was _glorious._
Remeber the mission where you infiltrate the word of blake base with the Thor in the snow one time I killed the atlas it did chain reaction killing the other atlas killing the scout mech next to it killing the scout mech next to it
@@johnballentine6638
That was a fun little moment.
That and the fully powered gauss rifle are iconic
This whole video gave me a nostalgia high so powerful
The lore for this series is insane, if you have a remote interest in it I'd recommend looking more into it. Tex Talks Battletech on the BlackPants Legion is a wonderful channel to learn more, and the Sarna Wiki is also phenomenal
Sarna is as dangerous to look at as TV Tropes. You'll never hit the bottom of either rabbit hole once you start digging. :)
@@richmcgee434 or Lexicanium for 40k lore
@@richmcgee434 I remember the first time I got stuck on Sarna. I went there to look at the Warhammer mech's page. By the end of the next hour I was learning about the Taurian Concordats currency exchange rate vs the C-bill. I had to force myself to close the page when I realized I had a calculator open to see what a Mech's C-Bill value was worth in USD.
@@Cousin_Uli Yeah, been there, done that. :)
As a teen, I was stuck in foster care. I got through the experience by grinding through 3 or 4 of the novels every week. The decline in quality after Victor finally won was always a huge let down.
Power armor fights were the best thing in this game online back in the day, good time
36 year old here......this was one of the best MP games back in its day.....the ability to destroy cities was great and the banter between players was fire.....I miss this game so much. Im hoping the genre can make a return. Thanks for making this video
How was the online play? Sadly the game ran its course by the time I started playing Xbox as a kid and I didn’t have internet.
@@Kris-kf5zh Online for the OG Xbox is back with Insignia, the replacement Xbox Live servers
Retcon_404 and battletech, what a pleasant surprise :D
What's the next surprise going to be, Akklaim's Heavy Gear game? :)
Yeah I’m here from the Gundam series and as a fan of this universe I’m hopeful he’ll cover the rest of the Mechwarrior/Assault/Battletech franchise
@@yoshi5I4 eyy same. haha..
Feels good to hear an earth shaking explosion, confirming a pilot died thrashing about in their cockpit, electronics exploding in front of their faces, burning up in their seats, then being heat fused to said seats...ahhhhh, glorious
This is one of my favorite games ever. When i got the MadCat i mained it for the rest of the game. Nothing could stop me.
Aside from the obvious Black Pants Legion, Sven van der Plank has an excellent sub-10 minute primer on Battletech, an excellent point to start with just for the plot and lore. They also have several multihour productions covering important eras!
I spent hours playing this as a kid, I really wish they would reimagine the ragnarok & ymir in MWO.
They already started playing with fresh non cannon designs a few years ago.
Also, this game used clan / inner sphere naming conventions for alternative loadouts. Aka madcat in the main game, Timberwolf in the multi-player.
One had ppc and I think the other has guass or autocannon main weapons.
To give you a sense of how nutty Battletech lore can get the Wolf's Dragoons were a secret scouting force sent by the Clans to spy on the Inner Sphere and prepare the way for the Clan Invasion.
Who are the Clans? The descendants of the military of the long dead Star League, which was the first united Galactic Government. Their was a coup that toppled that government, and there was a war so terrible and disgusting that after the Star League military finally won and brought the traitors to justice, they vowed to never let that happen again. The commander of the military saw that various factions were ready to continue waging war to take over the remanents of the Star League so he gathered all those loyal to him and the league and they abandoned the Inner Sphere and went to the far Peripherary so their weapons and soldiers couldn't be used for more slaughter. He sent a radio message that he knew would take hundreds of years to reach Terra basically wishing that the Inner Sphere would find peace and promising that one day the Star League would return. It was a hopeful and inspiring message....except that this group eventually evolved into a strict caste society based all around warfare, and when they did eventually return, they returned to conquer the Inner Sphere. They had come to believe in order to save it they must conquer it.
The Wolf's Dragoons were an advance party meant to gain Intel and prepare the way for the clans. Their cover was working as mercenaries. They eventually switched sides and instead helped the Inner Sphere fight the clans.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Mech Assault on this channel. Fun Fact: It's not just Mech Assault, none of the video games based on Battletech are canon. They all take place in different times of the setting, but none of the events and conclusions depicted in any of the games affect the lore. Only the novels and settings books for the tabletop are considered lore.
This game gets a bad rep from the greater Mechwarrior community because it doesn't handle like the simulation experience like on the PC, but i think they are a fun arcade alternative! =D
Technically, the HBS game is Canon, mostly, there's some artistic license in there. Mech Assault has the issue that it turns Jerome Blake from a fairly decent administrator and bookworm, into some kind of super knowledgeable prophet, which he definitely wasn't.
@@Jonnyg325 Ah yes, I forgot about HBS's game. I'm pretty surprised they decided to make that one canon.
Well, the whole issue with the Word of Blake is that it was the break away group from Comstar when they decided to secularize the organization. Before then, they were very mystical and really did put Blake on a pedistal.
I wish Mech Assault's depiction of that era was canon. At least it was fun. The canon depiction of the Word of Blake era was so horribly written because of self imposed restrictions on where and how they advance the timeline of the canon really put the writers into a corner. The result is an era so bad, it's universally agreed by everyone to pretty much just ignore it. =(
@@Jonnyg325 The game itself is not cannon. Catalyst Game Labs released a source book that heavily mirrors the events of the game which is cannon. This is somewhat similar to how Mech Commander 1 is not cannon, but the since released shrapnel periodical has referenced events, characters, and even the odd weight centurions (now a new mech CN10 rather than the CN9) making most of it cannon.
Oh gods, even here there's no escape from the Word of Blake idiocy. They truly are Space AT&T. :)
This game can't be judged on its single player experience. I feel like it was literally designed to be the load bearing structure for XBL when it launched.
For the time, it was an incredible game. Easy to pick up, fast paced, but also rewarded experienced play and surprisingly balanced (at least if memory serves...)
If you know what you were doing you could get some really awesome battles going.
The sound design in this game really is amazing. The launching of missiles, the building destruction, and of course the mechs falling and exploding. This game made me realize I liked anything mecha. Always wanted to get my own copy and finish play it all the way through.
That description of the visuals is spot on, it does look like those action games people have made using the Starcraft 2 map editor.
Would love to see your review of the Battletech cartoon series (if you can find it) and or the Mechwarrior series of games.
I'm a big Battletech fan. Play the tabletop game(s), love the lore, and have played most of the video games.
MechAssault was a goodntime back in the day. My brother and I played the hell out of it and the sequel. It's an arcade shooter funtime game, which is exactly what it set out to be.
If you want a more simulationist game, check out MechWarrior 5 (or any of the older Mechwarrior games). But if you really want to get a taste of the Battletech universe (or at least a glimpse since it's fucking enormous), I suggest the game Battletech from Hare Brained Schemes. Absolutely great strategy game that combines my love of big robots and turn based strategy a la X-COM.
Great video!
Great vid, i played the demo that was pre-loaded on my original xbox many many.. many times. Dont miss the days of being a kid with a very limited library of games, but atleast they had at neat demo to try out and hey i ended up getting later for little to nothing due to it being everywhere. If i remember correctly this game and Brute Force had package deals when you purchased the console.
Good video man. It's always great to hear your perspective on things. You gotta check out the old ps3 Gundam games.
Dude I remember playing this game when I was a kid. I had a ton of fun with it :D
This guy really used the Alien 3 videogame soundtrack lol awesome
Oh hey, I'm going to paint my Crusader and Atlas to this video.
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Battletech is literally my favorite setting out there.
EDIT: The reason why the Mad-Cat and the Timberwolf are retextures is because its just two different names for the same mech. Timberwolf is the Clanner name, Mad-Cat is the Inner Sphere name (because it looks like a Marauder and a Catapult)!
Really think its great how you look into the fandom to know how it is thought of by people who follow the franchise.
Dude, you should do more retro game review, this one was very well made, you’re killing it!
I know someone else said it but the Mad Cat and Timber Wolf are the same. Inner Sphere vs Clan names.
The short version is that the Timber Wolf looks like a combination of the Marauder (MAD) and Catapult (CAT) and the targeting computers couldn’t decide so the flipped back and forth between the two until merging them as one 🤷🏻♂️
Xbox Live and games like this were my main motivations for talking my parents into getting broadband internet. Ah, the memories...
Ooooh, more Battletech/Mechwarrior stuff in the future? I appreciate your retrospectives and it’s neat to hear your take on my favorite universe!
3:17 So long as your ripped your own ISO, emulation isn't piracy.
Before i was born my dad decided to get me PS One so that once i was old enough, me and him would be able to play together. The PS2 has been out for a while and dad asked around when i was 2 if i wanted a PlayStation 2 since we loved our PS One so much. I told him ill think about then one day we went to my cousins apartment and he bought himself an Xbox and i saw the mechassault demo. Thats when i realized i needed the xbox. Me and my brother loved this game and for sure have more then 3k hours on it. I wish i could have had Xbox Live but more then 14 years later i was able top play on Xlink Kai and then recently played on Insignia. My favorite childhood game.
I love the loki mech. It's 1 of 4 dlc mechs it's similar to the mad dog. But has 2 autocannon and 3 crossbow missiles. Plus it can turn invisible and is fast. I have a short clip of it in action.
Ps. The pink pulse laser is my fave thing.
I got this game solely because it was on Xbox live and man I can’t describe how fun it was in multiplayer. The campaign wasn’t too bad, but live was where it shined.
I played Mechwarrior on ps1, Mechassault, and lone wolf. I come from the arcade days, before consoles, so I have seen video games from the start. I still love Mech Assault better than lone wolf. The Appreciation of these games were the culmination of the dream of a 3D universe. This by far my all time favorite game, even in 2024!!!!
Loved this game as a kid, i loved MechAssault Lone Wolf as well. I remember when it came out i was so excited 😄wish i still had both games.
I have a copy of the 2nd mechassault and would love to send it to you for review. Thanks for covering this series. It was my favorite video game series growing up.
I remember this game so much. I played the _shit_ out of it. Hell, it what made me fall in love with mecha in the first place. It was the best mecha game at the time.
Thank you for covering this. MechAssault was a much more arcade style shooter, which might explain the mixed reception among the fan base. I highly recommend MechWarrior 3 and 4, MechCommander 2, and the BattleTech turn based strategy game made by the original founder of the franchise.
This game made my 12th birthday. I still remember it even at 30. It was rainy, my mom took my friend and i to a best buy and its cover immediately caught my attention. Definitely a highlight game from my childhood. But beside all that its like a 7/10, honestly.
Wait.. a thing will inevitably eat my motherboard??? Crap, what do I have to do?
At my house we had the PC Mechwarrior games and I really wanted to play them as they looked fantastic, but early elementary school me didn't have the mental wherewithal to play something so sim-like so I didn't get very far in any of them. When MechAssault came out I felt like they'd made the super-casual arcade game experience from Mechwarrior that I wanted... but at that point I was a PS2 kid so I could only stare wistfully in MechAssault's direction. Obviously, the PS2 would go on to have plenty of mech-related games - and that console was my introduction to classic Gundam - but nevertheless a part of me was always curious about the MechAssault franchise.
God this game. I almost forgot about it. What a trip down memory lane
I had so much fun playing this as a kid…just got into mech 5
Not one mention of how you can hijack enemy player mechs was probably my all time favorite part
I'm all for more mech game reviews and retrospectives =D
i loved this game, you could play a foot soldier with a jet pack and me and my friends used to do matches with everyone on foot except one smaller weaker mech and have epic fights.
probably remembered them way cooler then they were
The soundtrack was so good! I played this before i found out about MW4, so it was super cool
We call that big ol' explosion "Stackpoling" after the author who made mechs exploding from their reactor a staple, despite that only happening from ammo, because Battltech is (usually) too realistic for random explosions. Radiation is the much bigger danger, but usually only if a mech is exposed to far too much heat, or if the engine is being serviced.
The realism is a big part of the fun, since the answer as to why mechs are thing at all is because, "BS honor wars are far better than the irradiated hell holes created from total war, since planets like that that don't pay taxes."
That is an awesome bit of info, especially because after uploading this video I bought the Stackpole Warrior trilogy on amazon. Looking forward to learning some more about the universe.
Didn't he write a lot of Star Wars novels too?
@@ataraxxxYup. He was, among other things, responsible for the frankly fantastic X-Wing novel series. They were particularly engaging as the cast was almost all original characters, so there was a real tension in fights because we DIDN'T know our favorite characters were gonna make it out of this alright. You can't kill Luke Skywalker in a tie-in novel. You absolutely CAN kill someone who never appeared outside of it.
I remember playing this game for hours on end with my cousins and brother when i was like 6-7 years old. It randomly pops in my head sometimes, ill never forget the Mech that shoots purple shots. We called it "purple nurple" and as a 6 year old i thought that was comedy gold lmao
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I played the crap out of this and Unreal Championship growing up. I remember the campaign being impactful because that’s the only way you could unlock 2 mechs for multiplayer. The Thor and ragnork if I recall correctly.
My favorite online mode was CTF. All 3 different styles of mechs felt useful. The small ones that could go invisible were fast and good for flag running. The atlas stayed at the base to protect. And a lot of madcats in mid. Most ctf maps had a few different lanes. Outer ones being slower but normally safer after all the buildings in mid were blown up by the madcats.
If your atlas was lucky enough to get the juiced purple lasers he would sometimes come out into mid when all the buildings and cover were gone and just decimate.
Anyways thanks for the video.
This was one of the funnest games I ever played online back in the day. The single player mode was a good once over. Mulitplayer was legit because they came out with quite a bit of downloadable content. Everyone who was anyone always had a Mad Cat with PPC's unless it was CTF. Then it was just a race of the smallest Mech's. If you weren't playing this online, then it was Whacked! Or Moto GP before Halo 2, PSO and Rainbow Six came out.
Mechassault 1 & 2 lotta good childhood memories with both games
I own both physically. I know majority of the lore because I own many of the novels and source books. Never played the table top game but I have played most games since Mechwarrior 2 for the PC.
Currently there is a Humble Bundle for 20+ of the novels in digital format.
I got this game in 02' or 03' and for a 9 or 10 year old at a time it was a blast.
Still rock...recently bought an xbox original play this game first time
I think the UA-camr BigTa1k might be able to help a bit with the playing online issue...
I really hope you can find a copy of #2 as it is a really fun game
Already have a copy on the way from ebay and it was surprisingly cheap!
I did not know about the Xbox deteriorating issue. I keep one exclusively for Steel Battalion, that makes me worry
Luckily those capacitors can be replaced or removed with a little bit of soldering. There are some really detailed guides on line if it's something that you ever need to look into.
I loved mechassault 2 so much
Holy shit this game, I remember the sequel very we’ll and I was ranked in the top 100 for a long period of time, such good memories. Granted if you were in a decent clan it was t hard to get up into that level
I remember loving this game for many reasons, mostly because you could buffer overflow through a save and softmod the xbox, and FTP in a XBMC GUI.
I’m a big Mechwarrior 2, 3, & 4 for PC fan. I’ve got a few legacy Win98 PCs that I use just for these games. I bought Mech Assault like you did but I have no way of playing it. It looks a lot like MechWarrior 4. Halo came along and the entire gaming world changed forever…. I’m stuck in 2002 forever.
Yes the online play was the crown jewels of this game. And just like Halo, it was at first to be an RTS like MechCommander, but then all things had to be a FPS at that time. Like MechCommander you couldn't change anything on the Battlemechs unlike all the rest of the games in this setting out there. Even the one on the SNES had mech loadout customization.
You can customise your weapons load out in Mechcommander 1 and 2
I actually DO have this game sitting in a box
Just completed the second game a little while ago on the hardest difficulty and yeah it was a hell of a fun time playing the horde mode with my sister and seeing how long we could last
Hands down one of the funnest games ever made
Definitely childhood memories 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I had the sequel disc for a long time, I played it a ton on the 360 and loved it...
Until my sister wanted to decorate her room and took a bunch of my old xbox discs and painted the backs of them.
I like the videogame videos! I watched Seed Destiny and a bunch of other Gundam shows recently, so I could watch your videos on them too. You pick interesting stuff to cover! Seed Destiny was so painful though. Lol.
I played this game SO much
always liked yer content and now yer talkin my fav IP
😍😍😍
This game was soooo much fun online
Will you play and review Armored Core 6?
Im definitely going to do some sort of video on it, not sure if it will be a review or not but there will definitely be something.
@@Retcon404will you cover front mission series too. Also the 1st game's remake dropped on steam
I have the DS mech assault game. With a Action Replay you can have unlimited ammo and rapid fire. so fun.
5:08 yeah. I forgot about fracture also. It was definitely one of the games of all time.
Now, pariah was a sleeper gem on the og Xbox with an amazing map editor.
Too bad no one played it
Eta: nobody mentioned pariah I just remembered renting it from Netflix back when they sent you discs in the mail.
Pariah was one of those games I picked up at the game store about 5 times and always put it back down. I should take a look at it nowadays, along with some other old gems like Advent Rising and ColdWinter
@@Retcon404 cold winter surprised me, a very good little espionage story with old school fps level styling.
Oh the memories are back
Would love to see a video about Federation vs Zeon. Got into gundam by wing and g gundam but that game is how I learned about the Universal Century
I wish this game had a remake or at least a remaster of this spin-off series! Specially for casual mech games who are not vey mush on the side of strategy (for those I recommend 2018 Battletech game).
Luckily mecha game fans will have a feast on Armored Core 6.
Mech Assault was one of the first games to let you be an actual pilot, the tabletop was always played from far above, abstracted really. But MA, it let you feel like you were driving an engine of destruction, like you were an unstoppable badass mechwarrior here to leave your mark on the universe. Well, I suppose the Tesla pods did that too, but this didn't cost 300 plus bucks, and this one had clan mechs
That was how I felt renting Mechwarrior on the Super Nintendo(my Blockbuster had the manual, so I was... less confused).
The later Mechwarrior 3050 on the same system(but also Genesis) was similar to Mechassault in concept(if not execution).
Great vid as always man
You have summoned the battletech nerds. Be prepared for lots of requests for more battletech content and a gradual pressure to become "one of us" xD
All jokes aside, the battletech community is generally a phenomenal bunch, and an absolute treasure trove of knowledge. If you ever have questions about lore and other things battletech, reach out to us, and we'll be more than happy to help. We've been enjoying this Renaissance of new battletech/MechWarrior content, especially after a 15 year dry spell
Freekn love this game and the 2nd one wish they had made more
They really need to bring this game back.. for the multiplayer… so sad! I actually made the switch from ps2 to Xbox after playing the multiplayer at my cousins place!
The first Xbox game I ever played
For the record though, if you want more mech customization, the 2018 hare brained schemes battletech is pretty great if you want to go turn based, and the mechwarrior titles (five being the most readily available) are solid real time mech games. Online is kinda mixed the core game is solid, but the micro transactions really hurt it.
The microtransactions are annoying, though you can now get a free mech every month and the frequent events mean that as long as you aren't exclusively trying to buy heavies and assaults it isn't too bad. But then, I have been playing for a while and have a massive stable of mechs to choose from already.
Kit Fox for life!
One of the reasons the first game isn't playable on the 360 but the second one is that the first runs of the first game have an exploit with the saves that allows you to hack the console (soft mod) so they blocked it to prevent people attempting to break out of the sandbox environment on the 360s emulator.
Well I loved this short series back in the day. I still play the 2013 online version of the game... which I'm surprised is still standing now, ten years later; considering how short lived most mecha games last with online servers. But Mechwarrior Online is punishing by comparison to mech assault
I can't wait for your retrospective of the Battletech cartoon series. Please bear in mind that it's been officially retconned as in-universe propaganda aimed at children.
Hey, Tharkid broadcasting made trillions off the merchandise alone, it's not just in universe propaganda, it's a toy commercial
You should review danball senki (lbx) game series and its anime. They are pretty good
the reason mech assault 1 was not included in backward compatibility is because its infamous as being able to jailbreak the console DRM on an unmodded console if you mess with it.
Best explosions ever!need to be on Xbox store👍
Everyone, Mechassault 1 is now able to be played on PC using XEMU, an original XBOX emulator
Its WOB. Its not extreme enough!
"Pay your phone bill or we nuke your planet!" - Space AT&T
@@richmcgee434 I cast wolves
Have you played Steel Battalion? Heads up, controller is $400+ alone, and it's integral to the appreciation of the game
YES I actually was able to play a few matches during PAX east in boston a few years ago. They had a bunch of Original Xbox's set up with Steel Battallion so we got to play some 4v4 matches. I sucked but the game was incredibly cool.
@@Retcon404 Good to hear, a must try for any super mecha fan
Been getting back into Mechwarrior Online as i wait for Armored Core 6. I gotta say that the Cougar from the box art is among my top five favorite Battlemech designs. In the lore There's an experimental variant with wings that the Inner Sphere thought was actually a macross style tramsformable battlemech...
To be fair, LAMs were and technically still are a thing. Made back when Battletech was still trying to figure what exactly it wanted to be. So yeah, literally transformable macross style battlemechs are a thing, thaaaat most would prefer we forgot about lol
@randomfurrygirl548 it's just funny that the Inner Sphere was like, "Wait, the Clans are making LAMs?" And then it turned out it was a Cougar with Shilone wings bolted to its side torsos. The Cougar XR was the testbed for the partial wing system that Clan Jade Falcon would become obsessed with.
@@justinjacobs1501 To be fair, the partial wing system is also quite neat
You absolutely MUST do a review of R.A.D.
Robot
Alchemic
Drive
ooh 360 era! Dude Cover the lost planet series.... it's got mechs, bugs, guns and even an anime spin-off on the ps3 and 3ds😂👍Pretty great game coverage dog keep it up 🫡
Love lost planet and wish that Capcom would bring it back! I still have the whole trilogy on the 360
@@Retcon404 people still play 2 to this day ua-cam.com/video/Yr8r4ADxVvo/v-deo.html 🥺 beautiful dedicated gamers 🤣
Hey Retcon.
I never wrote to tou. But i joined a couple months ago. And i fucking love your channel. From the retrospect, to the music you use. (My god the music❤)
Don't know if you have. But would you be interested in reviewing " Robotech Battlecry"
I fucking love and miss that game.
Thanks dude. Keep up the great work
I think this game had a built in demo or trailer in the Brute Force game.
Hope you talk about mech assault phantom assualt on ds sometime later
It's actually not an xbox exclusive series, the third one was a NDS exclusive, and it was a full on mech assault game, fully featured and everything.