The main aspect of the (fictional) Battletech franchise is its extrapolations of how humanity would expand itself to the stars and then fragment into factions with different, often conflicting goals, and how some of them would band together to face a common threat. Battles involving earth-shaking giant robots are only one of the dishes that this franchise offers, though it is a very appetizing one.
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance was then the latest entry in (the now-defunct) FASA Interactive's line of MechWarrior products, which are tied into the BattleTech franchise.
Like just about every other MechWarrior game before it, Vengeance has a background story and narrative aspect, if only to pay homage to the sagas in the franchise that it belongs to.
The story of the single-player segment of this game concerns one of the hundreds of conflicts in the civil war engulfing the Federated Commonwealth (FedCom for short) during the 3060s AD years of the Battletech universe. One of these occurs on the world of Kentares IV. The ruling Dresari family, who is loyal to House Davion (which is one of the main factions in the FedCom civil war), has been usurped from both within and without by forces which are loyal to House Steiner (which is the other main faction in the civil war).
The surviving members of the Dresari family organize an insurgency that will eventually be led by the recently-made-senior member, Ian Dresari. He is the main player character whom the player takes control of and makes decisions that would affect the outcome of this one of many conflicts in the FedCom civil war.
To elaborate more on the plot is to invite spoilers of course, but for a game that starts itself with its narrative aspect at the fore, it would appear that this game was supposed to be oriented around its single-player campaign.
However, despite the rather dramatic premise, much of the presentation of the story is not really stellar. Most of the voice-acting and live action sequences are either just decent or less than that. Moreover, many of the antagonists in the story are awful to listen to, sounding a lot more like the villains in B-grade soap operas instead of the hard-bitten and jaded schemers who were the antagonists of BattleTech novels that are about the FedCom civil war.
Of course, there is a great possibility that the player is not playing this game for its (disappointingly executed) story, but that he/she realizes that the story is really only light dressing for the true main dish of the game: battles involving giant war robots known as BattleMechs.
(There is another variant of Mechs known as OmniMechs – and they are present in this game - but this article is not about BattleTech lore. For all purposes, OmniMechs are a sub-variant of BattleMechs because they are still specifically geared for battles.)
For both the single-player and multi-player segments of the game, the player will get to control a BattleMech, and will use it to fight other BattleMechs (among other things – especially in the story campaign). This premise sounds very simple, and indeed, it is easy for an inexperienced player to simply jump into any stock Mech (i.e. Mech with its default load-out), join any game and run-and-gun with wild abandon and still get some good results most of the time (with the exception of missions in the campaign that require more subtlety).
The ease of accessibility of this game aside, the gameplay designs of this game also cater to those who would prefer to put more thought into how they play.
Much like its predecessors, MechWarrior 4: Vengeance gives players the opportunity to retool their Mechs into any manner that they see fit; well-known Mechs (in the BattleTech universe) may even be re-tooled into configurations that just do not match their canonical design purposes, such as Mechs toting Long Tom artillery guns, which are usually only restricted to certain Mechs that are designed around these very powerful (and very difficult to use) weapons.
However, in MechWarrior 4, most Mechs now have weapon slots that are specifically designed for certain categories of weapons, e.g. red-labeled slots are only for energy-based weapons, while yellow ones are strictly for ballistic guns. Moreover, certain weapons take up more than just one slot.
These changes prevent Mechs from loading up weapons options that would seem improbable with respect to BattleTech canon. These also serve to prevent gameplay imbalances, such as very fast Mechs carrying heavy weaponry that would be devastating at hit-and-run attacks.
Presentation-wise, these slots now appear next to the relevant parts of the Mechs in concern. This makes the customization of Mechs easier to examine and manage than it was in previous games, in which the player has to navigate through text-heavy menus.
Every ballistic and missile weapon that gets loaded also has its own ammo counter; weapons that are exactly the same but mounted on different parts of the Mech being currently re-tooled do not share ammunition. This is a bit inconvenient, but canonically, Mechs tend to have ammo bins close to the weapons that are mounted on them and it appears that the game does a good job of keeping track of the ammo counter of each weapon.
Speaking of loading ammo, the player can choose to load up more ammo than the default amount, or reduce this to save space for other things. Unfortunately, ammo can only be managed by the (Imperial) ton; it is not possible to specify fractions of a ton in order to cram as much hardware and munitions into a Mech as possible.
In previous games, the player may choose to stuff certain sections of a Mech with more armor than the other sections. This would appear to give a lot of customization options which would then lead to tactical benefits and consequences, but in previous games, this does not lead to any change in the in-game model of the Mech, nor how it moves in-game; in other words, there are no cosmetic or gameplay changes (other than altered armor distribution) when skewed armor apportioning is performed. A player who had chosen to use skewed armor would have to rely on luck for this decision to bear fruit, e.g. he/she had to hope that the enemy would unwittingly fire on the section of his/her Mech that had the most armor (and even so, the enemy may just realize this and re-adjust his/her/its aim instead).
In MechWarrior 4, the option to have skewed armor distribution has been removed, thereby eliminating the factor of luck. There is a single counter for each section, yet each section has a limit on the amount of armor that can be taken, with the torso section usually having the highest limit.
One of the main reasons for choosing skewed armor distribution in previous games is that the heavily armored section can be used to house heat sinks. In previous games, heat sinks provide the same amount of benefit (that is, quicker cooling down of the Mech) regardless of where they are mounted. Thus, players can exploit this programming limitation by stowing away heat sinks in heavily armored sections of a Mech, together with other important modules, if they can fit them in it.
The removal of the aforementioned skewed armor distribution option of course removes this exploit, but for better or worse, the game designers had seen fit to treat heat sinks in exactly the same manner as armor; there is a single counter for heat sinks, the distribution of which throughout the Mech is not clear to the player.
From the experience of this reviewer, and those of peers, it would appear that hits to any section of a Mech that is lacking armor (likely due to catastrophic damage inflicted on that section) has a chance of damaging hardware of any kind, with stronger hits being more likely to knock more things loose. Obviously, weapons mounted on that section are vulnerable to being disabled, but there is a chance that heat sinks may be knocked out instead, which will affect the overall combat performance of the Mech instead of just that particular section.
For better or worse, this game design replaces what was certainty in gameplay with a luck-based mechanic. Fortunately, radar, anti-missile and ECM systems do not appear to be subjected to this mechanic, thus at least ensuring that the very vital radar system will continue to serve the player throughout the battle.
(That said, while these systems, except radar, are optional, they are so light and so useful that they are practically needed in every imaginable battle.)
There are options to alter the armor type of the Mech; there are three types of armor, with two of them being very effective at absorbing damage from certain categories of weapons (while the third is a so-so catch-all). The armor type has to be applied to the entirety of the Mech.
Yet, this feature appears to be doomed to being under-utilized. Missions in the single-player campaign rarely give intelligence information to the player regarding the weapons that enemy forces will be wielding, and in multiplayer, players (especially the more experienced ones) will rarely take on the same load-outs repeatedly for their Mechs such that their fighting capabilities are easily predicted by their opponents.
Moreover, the catch-all armor, which is of the ferro-fibrous type, allows the Mech to take on more armor because it happens to be the lightest of the lot. Unless the battle happens to pit the player against enemies who favor only one category of weapons whose damage can be effectively reduced with the right kind of armor, ferro-fibrous armor gives the best results in the long-term.
Fortunately, the armor-mounting and heat-sinking options in the customization of the player's Mech that do not concern weapons are the only ones that appear to have suffered and made inconveniently narrow from the streamlining of the customization process in this iteration of MechWarrior.
The timeline of the BattleTech universe in MechWarrior 4: Vengeance is after the Clans' onslaught on the Inner Sphere has been halted. Therefore, canonically, there had been a lot of transfer of technology from the more technically sophisticated Clans to the Inner Sphere. Compared to previous games, perhaps excepting MechWarrior 3 (and 2), there are weapons which are (somewhat) new to the MechWarrior series, namely Gauss Rifles. There are also new variants of missiles and autocannons to use.
All these new weapons serve to mix up the experience of battles, as well as to show off the new game engine used for MechWarrior 4.
Gameplay-wise, many of the weapons in MechWarrior 4 function very differently from those in its predecessors. For example, Particle Projector Cannons (PPCs) used to be weapons that fire big fiery projectiles that have the possibility of missing whatever that they are pointed at. In MechWarrior 4, they are hit-scan weapons that can scramble the HUD of the victim (a new visual effect afforded by the new engine) as well as stagger it. In other words, they are now beefed-up, hotter and slower-firing lasers; that is a good change, overall.
The ballistic guns in the game are perhaps the weapons that received the most attention from the game designers. Autocannons are no longer just spray-and-pray weapons; regular autocannons now take slightly more than a second to fire all rounds in each volley, allowing skilled players to distribute damage across several body parts of the target and increasing the chances of having the victim suffering a prolonged series of staggering animations (thus throwing its aim off).
Rotary autocannons are actually the spray-and-pray autocannons of previous games having returned, but have the chance of jamming under prolonged fire to discourage spamming and encourage more thoughtful aim. Gauss Rifles cater to players who had wished for sniping-capable weapons, while LBX autocannons play the role of hard-hitting giant shotguns.
The black sheep among the ballistic weapons are perhaps the machineguns and the Long Tom artillery cannon. Machineguns appear to be rendered obsolete by the far more powerful and longer-ranged rotary autocannons for purposes of spraying-and-praying, while the Long Tom does not benefit from a special view mode that would allow the player to make use of the arc of its projectile. In the launch version of this game, it is a very unwieldy weapon and very difficult to use in a close-to-medium-range clash. (It is useless for long-range bombardment either, due to the difficulty caused by all launch-version camera modes in gauging where its shells would land.)
One would wonder if machineguns and the Long Tom have been included in the game just as service to the canon instead of gameplay considerations.
If a player would prefer not to worry about ammo management and trajectories, energy-based weapons are suitable for this player to pimp out his/her Mech with. As in previous games, all energy-based weapons feed the heat counter of the Mech, and over-use will cause the Mech to overheat and shut-down, which is still an undesirable occurrence in the heat of battle (pun not intended). Still, a careful player can manage the heat, and it is certainly easier to keep track of than multiple ammo counters.
However, the game designers apparently have deemed that such conveniences should come with drawbacks. Many of these drawbacks are brought about by the particle effects of these weapons; all lasers and PPCs leave tell-tale brightly-colored beams with great contrast, making Mechs armed with them very easy to spot. The tracers of ballistic guns, including even the ionized shockwaves of Gauss rounds, on the other hand are relatively dim and difficult to track in comparison, though their particle effects are still impressive enough to have enough contrast with the rest of the graphics and easily associated with the weapons that they are produced if the player notices them.
(By the way, MechWarrior 4 retains a feature from the predecessor that is the coolant flush, in which a BattleMech can eject hot coolant and replace it with coolant from a separate tank of limited capacity. This was a great addition in the previous game, so it is pleasant that this feature made it into this entry.)
Missile weapons have always been a staple in MechWarrior games, what with their ability to follow trajectories that can bypass most cover that their targets are hiding behind. They make a return here, and are more gleeful to watch in action than ever – if some game design contrivances can be ignored.
Missiles are fired in salvoes, which are represented on-screen with particle effects that, if examined closely, clearly show that the missiles are launched in batches. Gameplay-wise, every batch is still considered a single projectile, even if each consumed more than a single unit of ammo when launched. Furthermore, if this batch gets blocked by something other than its target, all missiles in that batch are obliterated; therefore, the apparent ammo count for missile weapons is not the actual one, e.g. it has been multiplied by five to conform to BattleTech canon about missile weapons.
This gameplay design is a bit disappointing, but this is likely a compromise that is made to prevent the game engine from being stressed too much. Also, in order to compensate, missiles are substantially more reliable than ever. For example, a trait that distinguishes the types of missiles from each other is the time that they take to arm; LRMs take the longest to arm, while SRMs are the shortest to arm. Yet, even when fired at close ranges, LRMs will circle around the target while waiting to be armed before slamming into it.
(However, this does give more time for the target to make use of anti-missile systems, and ECMs cause arming times to increase too. Also, the radii of the missiles' circles are quite large, so that they can easily slam into another obstacle and be expended on something other than the target.)
Often overlooked but very interesting game designs like these can make tolerating the shortfalls of other game designs more than worthwhile.
As for the Mechs themselves, they are drawn from a satisfactorily large range of Mechs, with quite a handful for each category.
The Mechs are loosely categorized into Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault Mechs based on their respective weight range, though some Mechs – many, in fact – are more suited for other roles than other Mechs in the same category. The game does not appear to inform the player much about this, unfortunately. For example, players who do not know better are going to learn the hard way that the fire-support-oriented Longbow Mech, despite being an Assault Mech, is not suitable for front-line, damage-soaking duties like other beefier Assault Mechs are.
(On the other hand, players who are already well-informed about BattleTech lore would have no problems identifying which BattleMechs are suited for which roles, and thus playing preferences.)
Of course, there is a reason for Mechs within a single category having multiple roles distributed throughout. The original table-top game allows for matches involving BattleMechs from only a single category, so this trait was carried over to the digital games. Indeed, the rules for multiplayer matches in this game can be tweaked such that matches of this kind can be held, and that an organized team can select Mechs to fulfill different roles on the battlefield.
The different role that a particular Mech has can unfortunately be only best appreciated in multiplayer. In the single player campaign, most missions are designed such that the most durable BattleMechs are the most optimal ones to bring into battle. This is because most missions do not provide the player a chance to repair and resupply their Mechs.
As mentioned earlier, any particular Mech will have limited equipment options in order to conform to gameplay balance standards (at least for the MechWarrior franchise) and BattleTech canon. However, this does not mean that a Mech which by default is sporting an autocannon in one arm would have its arm replaced with polygons that resemble a Gauss Rifle should the player switch out the default autocannon; the model still looks very much the same.
In fact, regardless of the load-out customization that the player uses, be it heat-sinks to armor configurations, the Mech's model will not show the changes. The only customizations that will show on the model of the Mech are cosmetic changes, like paint and decals on the Mech.
Fortunately, particle effects that weapons generate still appear from the appropriate section of the Mech on which these weapons have been mounted, so it is still possible for players to identify non-stock load-outs.
As for the designs of the Mechs, many of them follow the canon closely. For example, the Raven is a nimble light Mech excelling in stealth and recon, and its incarnation in this game is appropriately difficult to pick up on radar. Another example is the Victor Assault Mech, which is canonically a terrifyingly agile Mech despite (nominally) weighing 80 tons, is similarly represented as such in this game.
As for the aesthetics of the Mech designs, the MechWarrior 4 engine gives great allowance in creating Mechs with enough polygons to more than resemble the source material that they are based on, as the many fan-made Mech packs would attest to.
BattleMechs are of course (fictional) war machines to be committed to battlefields as the situation dictates. Thus, they are also worthy of elaboration.
Those in the single-player campaign are the highlight, together with the missions that they are associated with: they are designed to accommodate mission objectives that range from the usual search-and-destroy missions to escort duties.
For example, gone are the usual wide-open-terrain maps that allow sniping of faraway objectives that were present in some campaign missions in previous games. Most objectives that must be eliminated are now situated deep within complexes that provide both cover and defenders to said objectives. If the player wishes to get rid of the an objective via sniping, he/she will have to put effort into locating strategic locations of the map, instead of just hovering around the outer reaches of the enemy base and taking opportunistic shots.
Other examples of well-made maps are those for escort missions. In the campaign, the player is usually given an overview of the map in the mission briefing, unless that mission is designed to deliberately withhold intelligence information from the player. The escort routes for such missions are not traced out clearly, but navigation points and other points of interest are included in the maps during briefings to give the player an idea of the event triggers that are present in the maps, and these usually do a good job of warning the player of any possible complication that would be otherwise very unpleasant if unexpected, e.g. before the mission is played for the first time.
Perhaps the most prominent trait of the maps in the single-player campaign is that they feature the presence of non-Mech vehicles, such as tanks and attack helicopters. Of course, most of these vehicles are only there to show how the substantially more mobile and well-armed Mechs outmatch such other war machines. Most of these vehicles are easy to outwit and obliterate, with their practical function being cannon fodder and distractions at best. (Therefore, they are not included in standard multiplayer matches.)
Moreover, their models have substantially less polygons and animation scripts compared to the more visually impressive Mechs, making them feel even more insignificant.
Non-Mech, combat-capable actors in the single-player campaign maps that actually pose more of a challenge are Dropships, which tend to be mission objectives that the player has to eliminate. In-game, these are models with a tremendous amount of hitpoints and weaponry, effectively serving as hostile strong-points in the map. As mentioned earlier, mission objectives like these are no longer set out in the wide-open, so players won't be able to exploit long-range weaponry as much as they could in previous games.
The genuine challenge provided by Dropships is more than welcome, considering the sometimes disappointing resistance that other non-Mech hostiles give.
Aesthetically, the maps in MechWarrior 4 certainly look a tad better than those in the third iteration. The new MechWarrior 4 engine allows for the inclusion of terrain features like trees and buildings of various sizes and shapes to be present in the maps, though a lot of them have stretched-on textures and decals whose barely decent quality is obvious to see when the player has the camera up close to these surfaces.
Some maps in the campaign and multiplayer do not have enough cover to make the option of loading more weapons instead of armor worthwhile. For these maps, the most durable Mechs tend to be the ones who will prevail, which would be a bit disappointing for those expecting absolute gameplay balance for every map.
For better or worse, there is an option to activate cheat modes in the campaign missions, such as no heat management, unlimited ammunition for ballistic weapons and invincibility. While turning on cheat modes prevent the player from advancing in the campaign, clever players would know that this gives the opportunity to scout out the lay of the land in missions and also any event triggers that these have; missions, and how they turn out, will remain the same regardless of how many times that they are played.
The rewards for playing through the campaign happen to be more live-action cutscenes and in-laid videos (during missions), all of which are of the quality as mentioned earlier in this article. Couple these with the story being essentially a miscellaneous conflict in the FedCom Civil War, a BattleTech fan would not be wrong in perceiving the campaign as a warm-up to the multiplayer segment, which holds the greater portion of the value of this game and is the source of its longevity.
Speaking of multiplayer, much of this game mode is about one-off matches that pit Mechs against each other either in teams or in free-for-alls, with intrigues such as flag-capturing, location-capturing (and -holding) and a common target for all members of either team included to embellish these otherwise core match designs.
These multiplayer game modes are nothing new in the genre of competitive multiplayer, but players of this game would be playing these to see how well giant robots, which are clumsy, compared to player characters in shooter games, fare in such game modes. The answer that they would get is certainly a positive one.
The game does not appear to have a Mech-designing feature, but it would appear that the game files for Mechs and maps are easily re-edited, such that they happen to allow BattleTech fans to create Mechs that were not officially present in MechWarrior games thus far.
In conclusion, MechWarrior 4 appears to be a game which is targeted at fans of the series and BattleTech in its entirety, as well as entertainment-seekers (specifically those who have a liking for giant war robots) who have an interest in BattleTech. If this is indeed one of its goals, then it certainly meets it spot-on.