Playing The Game

No Clans here

The Clans, sadly, are not involved in the conflict, though you do get to play with a few of their toys - mostly weapons, but the odd 'Mech does make an appearance.

Dropping in

Crash the party

Your campaign against the Steiner occupation forces is mostly linear. You have objectives that you must complete, certain forces to do it with and occasionally a given timeframe. If you fail, you restart the mission - it's that simple. There's no Wing Commander-like branching campaign. However, you need not complete all or even most objectives. You can get away with skipping a few here and there, but you'll meet possible consequences down the road. The whole setup is rather like Starlancer, in fact.

You'll start off with a modest force, and then expand as you gain salvage. Along the way you might lose a 'Mech or two, perhaps their pilots as well, but if you win your battles there will be more than enough salvage to make up for any 'Mech losses.

Check out that sun

SRM Carrier... Destroyed!

New 'Mechs, new stuff

There are 21 Battlemechs in total, a few of them are new and specifically designed for this game. There are also new weapons not available in previous games.

Unlike previous Mechwarrior games, you'll soon learn that not all 'Mechs of the same tonnage are alike. Inner Sphere 'Mechs can't put any kind of weapon in any kind of space. There are spaces for missile weapons, spaces for ballistic weapons and spaces for energy weapons. Some other 'Mechs do include Omni slots, giving them some more variety, but these are few and far between. Clan machines in the game aren't very customizable either. The Vulture, Daishi and Loki are all as limited in their selection as their Inner Sphere counterparts.

Take them out

Oooh that's bright

The bad side obviously is that you can't customize your 'Mech however you'd like. The good side is that the Battlemechs under your command now have more character. A Catapult will almost always be a missile-thrower, usually concerned with long-range strikes. An Atlas will typically be an awesome close-combat force able to dispense his enemies quickly, but not for an extended period of time due to ammunition-dependent weapons.