MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - The Forgettable Expansion
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- Опубліковано 10 кві 2024
- Hero or villain? Time to check out MechWarrior 4's first expansion: Black Knight!
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Did you get a chance to play this expansion? Or just the far superior 'Mercenaries'?
Just meh. Played it once and just forgot about it. Just extra missions and mechs, nothing more - the most basic meaning of an expansion I guess lol.
@@Sp3ctre18Gaming It really was! I hope the video was at least somewhat enjoyable though!
Both
Played it back then and it was a blast since it was more of the same things I enjoyed out of MW4 Vengeance.
Played nearly every Mechwarrior game to completion and yeah, I gotta Agree about the Mech 4 Series of games. Mercs was far superior (Which tends to be the case in general XD)
7:00 - In case anyone is wondering the way the added cooling works in table top is that heat sinks present in the legs benefit from enhanced cooling in Depth 1 water. (Height is divided into levels for brevity. Mechs are roughtly two levels high so Depth 1 is about half the mech's height in water.) If the mech stands in Depth 2 water it's completely submerged and all heatsinks benefit from enhanced cooling but you can't really fire or fight in depth 2 water so usually it's heatsinks in the legs that see a practical use of this. (Prone mechs are fully submerged in depth 1 water.) Heat sinks underwater cool at double capacity. So a single heatsink dissipates 2 points of heat in water and a double heat sink dissipates four points of heat in water. There is a maximum benefit of 6 bonus points of cooling from being underwater per turn.
Not all mech designs have heat sinks in their legs, so if you don't put heat sinks there you get no benefit standing in water.
Depth 1 water also provides the mech with partial cover bonuses which makes them a bit harder to hit, and hits that would have hit the legs instead miss the mech and hit the water instead. (Water in real life is actually very good at stopping gun rounds.) Hit locations in Battletech are rolled randomly on a table based on facing so this is like getting an extra chance to avoid damage.
There are downsides to water too. For one you can't just run full speed into water. You have to be at walking speed for the mech. Once you've entered the water you can run again. It takes extra movement points to enter a water hex. Entering into a water hex of depth 1 or more (Depth 0 water exists) also requires a piloting check which if failed causes the mech to fall down, take damage and become prone. Submerged jump jets don't function so you can't benefit from the movement points those jump jets provide to jump out of water. Jumping into water kind of a mess in that you can jump just above depth 1 water and stop your movement there and then you have to make a piloting skill check to see if you stick the landing or if screw up and fall face first into the water.,
The big down side of being in water is hull integrity in breaches. Mechs are sealed so they can go underwater just fine but taking damage risks a hull breach. Any location that is submerged that takes damage has to check for hull integrity and rulls a 2d6 and on a 10+ has a hull breach and the location fills with water. If a location has no armor left and it is submerged it automatically has a hull breach and fills with water. All equipment in a breached area stops functioning. This basically makes that entire body part act as if it's destroyed, though ammo doesn't explode. This is pretty bad if it happens anyplace there are engine critical hit spots. Though arguably it's worse if it's in the head where the mech cockpit is since the pilot drowns and dies. This is why falling in or into water is very dangerous as fallng causes damage and everytime that happens you could have a hull breach.
One of my fav games of all time, MW4 was my intro into Battletech and ive been a fan of every game since. Probably my fav scifi/fantasy universe of them all!
Black Knight specifically, or MechWarrior 4: Vengeance? Either way, not a bad place to start!
Another great video!! I do have to say the voice acting was definitely subpar and for the game graphics, the crystals were the better graphics lol. And way to go shouting out cyberlore after they had been removed, that was an awesome thing to do!!!
Thank you, and thanks for all your continued support ;)
I never really liked Black Knight when I was younger. I think I got... a bit more positive with age? But it still feels like the black sheep of the black sheep to me.
It was certainly lackluster in a lot of ways. Nice story, for sure. But really plain and boring missions all-round. I wish they'd have kept to the plot a lot longer than they did, the betrayal came around way too early!
Great review. Thanks. For a while I have been considering getting this expansion. Just for the story I have now bought a copy for £2.99 delivered. Can't really complain for that price even if it is bad. Lol.
That is an amazing price! I'd love to have found it that cheap!
@@KeiNova ebay can be great for getting old games on physical media. Most people want digital copies these days. GoG and Steam etc. I have period correct PCs running DOS, Win98, WinXP and Windows 7. So I prefer physical media for those. On my CRT these old games look better than on my modern PC. The main danger is some optical media is useless if the game has online activation requirements. Activation servers are usually offline for old games. That's more of an issue from the mid-2000s. Bioshock was one such game that refuses to install. Borderlands 1 is another.
@@RetroPcCupboard Sadly, getting a physical copy of Black Knight through Ebay for me is outrageous in price. I could get MW4 Mercs much cheaper, but way more then 2.99 Pounds, easy. I wish I had an accurate PC with some way to capture it, but my options are so limited nowadays. Everything has become a collectors item, and CRTs, both monitor and TV versions, are insanely overpriced.
@KeiNova certainly retro hardware can be expensive on ebay now. Especially since the pandemic, as a lot of people got into the hobby then. I was lucky with my 19" CRT and got it locally for a good price (£62) from someone that was leaving the country and needed it gone fast. He said he'd paid £200 for it (it's a fancy model).
Harsh but true. I'm partial to these games out of nostalgia, and tend to give them some slack for the... Tacky screenplay, but as you said coming off the back of mw3 this series is definitely a bit of a slog. The AI really cripples the experience at times
Thank you for being so honest. I sort of run the razor's edge giving honest opinions about these games - so, it's sort of refreshing when someone sees where I'm coming from! Yes! The AI really is dumb as bricks most the time.
Never got to play this back in the day, but I did a few years ago. I thought it was similar in quality to something like. Higher-budget sci-fi channel TV movie (which is right in line for the time period).
I thought the missions were all plenty serviceable and challenging with two exceptions: the solo academy raid and finally getting to kills Ian Dresari. The Academy has you soloing for no reason against unreasonable odds, and the Palace attack is the same thing: going in with one measly Lance when you have a whole Merc company at your back.
Beyond that I enjoyed the plot twist. Steiner doesn’t wanna pay, offers a peace and partnership after pummeling Kentares into submission to avoid paying the bill. I even enjoyed the temporary reset losing most assets and having to rescue fellow Mercs and steal equipment back.
I also really enjoyed the few earlier missions in the Kit Fox light mech. The fact is was on an inhospitable moon felt like a call back to MW3 Pirates moon and it has a feel I don’t think MechWarrior takes enough advantage of. I think MechWarrior 3 and 4 really overlooked the both stealthy recon missions and having exotic locations. Thankfully there are a couple in MW4 Mercs (especially that night sneak one).
I’d say it might have a few drawbacks but the game is still plenty interesting and solid for when it was made.
The solo academy raid has repair facility to help you out with, but yes even with discovering that I recall it being exceptionally hard.
That's a great opinion. My problem was that it was a bare-bones expansion, and the missions were serviceable, but not up to the MW standard. Mission maps are generally flat expanses with a single feature or two. I agree, we need more exotic locations and only the beginning of this expansion and the original MW4 really had genuinely stand-out areas. Well, at least in concept. Sadly, simply because it had a glimor of an okay idea - I can't say it's objectively a good game based on that. The horrible pacing, flat areas and basic missions were less then seen in even MW4's base campaign. That's okay, as it was developed alongside three other projects within 2 years - my bet being that most effort went towards Mercs.
It doesn't make your opinion invalid in any way. And I thank you for such a long and involved response!
@@gaizokubanou I actually figured out a glitch that kept the reinforcements from moving…so I cheesed it 😛
I hate the story in this because I despise games that give my character a major plot decision only to have the opposite choice, in this case a choice I never even seriously considered taking, shoved into the sequel or expansion. The Black Knight is my favorite Mech in the 4 subseries though. What's really weird is there are several Heavy Mechs with jump jets and an all energy weapon loadout used by both sides of the Fedcom civil war for some reason they made a jump jet equipped version of an all energy Heavy that AFAIK never had an official jump jet equipped variant.
IMO if you are going to have a major decision made by the player in a game then you either need to be sure any expansions or DLC plots work regardless of the choice made or you need to have versions of the expansion or DLC plot for every option the player could have chosen. The former would have been easy enough just set the expansion on a different planet. Its not like there weren't tons of planets to choose from in this conflict.
Alright, so when it comes to the MechWarrior games - none of it is actually cannon. It is based on the events in the sourcebooks, but it's not actually the true Battletech universe events. Because of that, some liberties are taken with configurations and whatnot. MW4 was considered non-cannon due to all its changes to configs and weapons and whatnot.
That being said, I do agree that making an additional experience based off of a bad ending is stupid. It's what killed the Condemned series before it could actually be something decent. Cyberlore likely did it here because it follows cannon, but they ultimately had the Black Legion winning against Ian instead of fending off Steiner and retreating. So, it's a weird case of 'why bother'. You know?
@@KeiNova I know. Its still annoying to play a game then get the expansion and get stuck fighting your former self because the writers decide your decision didn't count.
You hit the nail on the head when you said it was limited at the time, especially considering the hardware at the time. And budgets for games back then were no where near what they are now. So although you are disappointed now by the games storyline, cast etc there wasn't anything else out there that was any better, even the Wing Commander plot looks cheesy now but back in the day when a new WC came out you would usually have to upgrade your computer just to play. But basically what I am trying to say is it was a different time with different available possibilities, just like Asteroids or pac-man, at the time awesome, but really poor plot lines 🤭
I'd say that the previous game was better in a lot of regards, and quite a few other games. Narrative wise, it was okay. But this is past the time of MGS, Deus Ex, Baldurs Gate II, Diablo II, RE: Code Veronica, Shenmue, etc. Storytelling had already evolved quite a bit, especially in video games. So, there was a lot better stuff out there at the time. For a MechWarrior game, it did at least do something - which isn't always the case with this series. But the more I play these - the more I feel like, perhaps, MW4 was dormant for so long for a good reason.
@@KeiNova Yes and no as far as similar games in the genre, the Devs really put more money into the mechs than the story, much less the Actors ( looking at Wing Commander with Mark Hamill) so.....well, I am biased since I was directly involved with the Dev team and I actually know how much was put into the mech models. Oh one other thing, MW3 multiplayer had such awful lag that we were actually having to shoot away from the enemy to hit it, the hit animation did not match with the real hit box, up to 300ms lag was norm, so again what the Devs did with MW4 and the expansions for multiplayer were a miracle. I personally believe though that if MW4 and it's expansions were made now with all the advances in tech/budgets that it would be absolutely awesome, but, for its time it still was a great game, especially considering it was made by Microsoft and whatever the heck the company was called ;) The turning of its (Microsoft) back on PC mech games for its xbox I will never forgive, that pissed me off totally. O yeah, one other thing, you heard of www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior4 for mektek and other mods for MW4?
Ah, so you're another developer or team member? I am honored to get to talk to so many, though I really wish I could do an interview with one for the channel. That would be great, I just don't have the numbers yet. I'm playing through a game made by one of the MW2 devs right now, it's just been tight. They worked on something else big too, I can't remember.
Yeah, I do recall a lot of model work was very expensive. I remember a Halo 2-extra I had where the Bungie staff were saying that they had to pay $32,000 just to get the Pelican models made. So, I suppose putting resources into the titular BattleMechs made sense. I was 3D modelling back at that time, so I do recall it being really hard. Especially when the Skeleton frames were very complicated. Max Payne had the most insane Skeleton I've ever seen, ever. I don't know how Remedy managed it. Things weren't so easy back in those days, especially when you had to use things like Mana to render cutscenes.
I mean, your love for it is perfectly valid. I just look at this from a consumer viewpoint, and I did grow up with a lot of it. I wasn't judging it by modern standards at all but seeing as Cyberlore had 4 projects dumped on them so that Microsoft could use FASA as a consultant for Day One Studios (so they could make the Assault spin-offs) - I think there was some hint in the air that MechWarrior was on its last legs. It could have been the market, dumping so many games on players that it diluted sales, or the fact that nearly 3 games were technically 'MW3' - those being MW2 Mercs, which Activision only named Mercs because they couldn't legally call it MW3, Zipper's MW3, and MW4 - which had, technically, begun development as MW3 as well. It's a crazy story, someone should write a book - that is, if any of the developers were willing to actually talk about it.
Thank you for that link, I was actually looking for the MekTek packs! You just solved an issue for me.
@@KeiNova Alpha and Beta tester, the Devs played against us testers and actually listened to our feedback, it is the reason shell casing come out of autocannons and a few other little things like separate arm movement. I personally bought software to program force feedback and the profiles I made ended up in game. Glad you like the link, mektek was what I was pointing towards when I mentioned mods that kept the game alive till MWO got finished. Will be interesting to see your opinion.
If Vengance and Black Knight is all that MW4 got, it would have been a complete failure of a game, but Mercenaries remains a timeless masterpeice to this day and completely redeemed MW4.
I've yet to play it enough to really know that, but I'm hoping. This statement is probably pretty accurate, if I'm to go by what most people say.
@KeiNova - Some reasons why, not in any order:
1. I did not like the cheesy acting in the first two. I think the voice work is significantly better with a far wider range of lancemates you can recruit from the start.
2. I am personally glad the cheesy 90s style video clips are gone, and like Black Lnight, we just have audio briefings.
3. I like almost all of the maps and how they are mostly fully utilized in most missions.
4. Branching mission orders and choice impact ypur story path, includong sub mission objectives.
5. The free market is more enjoyable than ever before.
6. I know that you didn't like the mech lab [at first?] but I found it to be one of the best parts of MW4 games. Weapon types + weapon sizes. Mercenaries gives us more weapon types and more mechs for more versatility and things to play around with.
7. You have a drop cost. If you want to semd the best and heaviest mechs out there, it will cost you more which means your profits will be lower. This only matters in the early and mid game, as money won't be a problem in the late game, but it was still nice to see.
8. A second lance. There lance leaders and a few missions in, you can command two lances of idiot AI teammates.
So, I like to have house rules for further replay value.
• Dead is dead. Your playthrough ends when you die. Start a new character. Silaris VII doesn't count.
• Same for your lancemates. Don't save scum to get them back.
• Be a mech commander. Help your lance, but let them do a lot of the work, even when they are bad at it. Don't just try to be the Call of Duty main hero.
Sure, you have to take out buildings & drop ships, and sometimes fight duels with clanners, but a lot of the work should be done by the people you are paying to do said work.
That way, you can give them some of the best equipment and manage loadouts and will probably have to hire new lancemates after some die.
• Don't just simulate cycles to your advantage while mechs are in the shop. If your favorite mech needs 2+ weeks to repair, then deal with it and take lesser mechs on the next mission while the other is getting fixed.
Just talking about it makes me want to play again.
Sent straight to 4 mercenaries
Hmm?? What was? I am doing that next time I do a MechWarrior video.
I liked 4 better than 3. For some reason I really didn't like 3. Always weird seeing 4 today, back in the day it look so amazing, tough to look at now.
This is the expansion specifically, but I understand what you mean. It's really all down to player choice, really. It has some positive qualities for sure.
Back when this was released most people were using CRT screens. This display type makes these older games look much smoother than they do on modern displays. But, yes, certainly there's no arguing that graphics have evolved hugely and most games of this era do not hold up graphically. It can take a while to look past the graphics to enjoy the gameplay itself.
This expasnion was really forgettable for me, at least partly because I was in college at the time and just had stuff to do. The main thing I remember is how much I disliked the titular mech.
Oh yeah, it was a little... chubby? I don't know. I put it in puke yellow for irony, but I didn't think it was worth mentioning how lackluster it was in comparison to any of the reverse joint designs I like. You're right, this was a 'nothing' expansion. But, as Battletech crowd goes - they'll viciously protect it, because it's the only 'Mech piloting sim there is. By the views on this video, I think everyone got tired of me 'saying it how it is'.