When I was a kid, like in the late 80s, a neighborhood friend had a PC and thus a wider variety of games available to him, unlike the Apple IIGS that I had. He had the game Mechwarrior, which was related to the ‘board game’ Battletech.

I though Battletech was a role playing game, because it had so many manuals I’d see at hobby shops, along with various paperback books about whatever in-universe adventures writers would make up. I did not know this until recently, it’s pretty much a game where you just position your miniatures representing giant heavily armed mechs and then roll dice to inflict damage on your opponent’s miniatures. I mean, what would the equivalent of a “dungeon master” in this world do? “You come across 3 Jenners, likely hired by House Kurita.” “Let’s talk to them. Roll for charm.” No, Paul, you dummy.

Maybe that’s not the case, and you talk to your opponent about who you’re working for, your standing with them, etc. That’s a factor in the Mechwarrior video game, which was basically a first person shooter via IBM 286 hardware, where you piloted giant robots to blow up other giant robots on behest of five galactic feudal societies. There’s also a text-based story in there where you are searching for clues, planet to planet, between contracts, so you can find out who deposed your small feudal ruling clan from your planet. You have FIVE years in-game to do this. When you travel, months go by, and it costs money to drag your giant robots (often needing repair) planet to planet, so you get maybe 10 to 15 jumps across the galaxy to get this right in that time frame, and in the meantime you haven’t acquired enough in-game money or skill to have your giant robot squad built up to win the final battle. Can’t I just blow stuff up, buy and sell kick ass robots, and not worry about the story?

A few decades later, Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries (I think it came out in 2018 or 2019? not to be confused with the latest game, MW 5 Clans) has a similar plot, I think. I don’t really know what the plot is. The idea is pretty much the same, you just have a wider variety of robots, some chance to customize them if you obey the robot’s weight and heat restrictions, and better graphics.

I should add a caveat as well: I haven’t finished the game, or at least whatever the plot is. There are definitely moments where you’re reminded to pursue that path, to go to this planet or that planet, take this contract, and launch your robot squad into a fray and when you win, you meet with your NPC guide, “good job! It turns out that there’s another group of robot bad guys in another star system who MAY know what happened to blah blah blah,” and repeat. SO FAR, not having finished the game, you don’t converse with anyone to expand the dialog beyond pressing “x” or whatever to just get the NPC to stop talking so you can check out the damages on your robots, sell the scrap you’ve picked up, maybe buy a cooler robot, and then on to the next mission.

The combat is pretty awesome. I should add that I’m playing on a PS4, and this is the kind of game that might require the skill of a PC keyboard warrior. The hardest part is sending commands to your squad (if you have them, that is) during a battle. Sometimes the programming in the game doesn’t send them on the best path. Or, you yourself are trying to navigate your giant robot up a hill that’s it’s not designed to climb, and your hired team just stalls behind you. That’s tough to do on the D-pad of a controller because you have to go through so many options in order to get to “choose all members” then “follow me” and that’s tough because usually that’s when I’m being fired on, or trying to flee part of an area that I just completed the basic mission in so I can get us all back to the drop ship before the expensive robots I bought these knucklehead NPCs I hired are blown up, and them with it.

But, oh joy, is blowing up other giant robots a hoot. And then there’s the whole micromanaging of your inventory before and after a battle. Figuring out what to do with certain weapons from robots you’ll never buy. Can you risk a lower payout from a likely punishing battle so you can maybe salvage an entire enemy robot…or two? Can you keep your NPC team alive long enough so that they maybe level-up in their piloting attributes? Can you maintain a profit from buying parts, doing repairs, and flying to the next planet, paying monthly storage fees for the robots you aren’t using? Things like that…that’s a fun part of the game, and not tedious office work (IN THE FUTURE!).

The difficulty rises pretty quickly. I don’t know if that’s how it’s supposed to be, you Get Gud right away, or do you just linger in certain areas building yourself up along with your in-game finances and robot stock, taking on as many missions as you can at that level. There’s also “side quests,” missions with higher rewards, including pilots who decide to work for you after you team up or rescue them. Depending on how you start, some of the feudal galaxies will hate you, so when you DO advance the plot, which takes you to other parts of the galaxies, contracts will be sponsored by the feudal galaxy you were just fighting for the first few levels of the game, so the money and salvage offers are much lower, and by then your in-game costs are much higher. It’s easy to hit a brick wall as you try to advance the plot and suddenly the enemy mechs are far more powerful than the last mission just a few planets away, not to mention the variety of tiny tanks and helicopters which should be easy to shoot down but just end up distracting you as the meanest giant robot (you haven’t seen on the market at all, several levels & galaxies in) is unloading all its missiles at you.

(Whoever pilots the tanks, they do the worst job, usually ramming into the nearest mountain the tank can’t climb. Whoever pilots the helicopters, what a thankless, doomed task for the easiest to shoot down enemy. If I lived in this world, it’d be the last job I’d want to take.)

Paying attention to the plot, who cares. Restore honor to my mercenary family that can afford to jet around while everyone who lives in these galaxies has few to no rights because they’re all serfs and property of the feudal gangster states, and we make a living crushing them or people who happen to live in a slightly different feudal gangster state. Just let me blow up the enemy robots. I would feel bad if I just kept playing and then, in game, I went past whatever the deadline is, and thus had no chance to complete the storyline. That’s it, permadeath for the plot. Distracted by micromanaging my supply of robots, forgot to save my family or huge tracks of land or whatever.

The action is fantastic. I love it. The camera view I use is 3rd person, over the shoulder of the robot. The previous Mechwarrior games offer a view from the cockpit, as it does in MW 5, BUT there’s so much going on in combat in 5, with robots exploding all around you, you exploding all around you, it all clouds up the screen and you can’t see anything. When you are piloting the robot and are trying to turn to keep tabs on the smaller faster enemy running around you, that’s when you think, “couldn’t I just play a game where I’m a regular person and not some impractical slow moving 3 story robot that can’t turn as fast as I could in a dangerous situation?”

Anyway, maybe one day I’ll get to play a Battletech tabletop game, where someone is the DM and spinning an adventure we get to make choices in. That’d be hilarious.