Interface

Complexity at your fingertips

Overly complex controls is a common complaint against futuristic simulations. When you have a sci-fi environment with huge, faster-than-light spaceships with their complementing fighters and giant robots duking it out, it's easy to understand why you may need a few extra controls.

Where to, boss?

Wake of the Ravager

Personally, I never found it necessary to memorize the entire keymap for FreeSpace 2, nor Mechwarrior 3. Yet there are several controls that I found useful enough to take the time to memorize them. They weren't all necessary to play comfortably, of course - which is a mark of good design - but they made life a lot easier.

This complex interface issue is one of the things that Mechwarrior 4 has tried to solve. MW4 has reduced the number of controls are truly necessary. We found ourselves not reaching as much for the more rarely used keys. With good weapon selection, we wouldn't be surprised if you could pass the game with only movement and combat controls.

For example, back in MW3 and MW2 if your torso was twisted in a different direction, you always had to remember to click a button to center yourself or you'd keep running in a different direction than you were facing. Sometimes you'd forget to center for a split second and run into a building or a wall, making yourself an easy target. MW4 tends to center you automatically, so that you'll eventually center out as you fight.

Those gauss cannons, so lethal

Going down

Doing the thinking for you

Then there are updates that relate directly to the AI. Your lancemates and enemies are far more cunning and intelligent in MW4 than they were in previous Mechwarrior games. As difficulty levels increase, you can clearly tell that the AI improves, instead of offering just more enemies or more powerful enemies. The enemies will retreat when possible, and even fake retreats over hills to bring you closer to their companions. They pick the right weapons for the right situations and even put up a fair variety of battle maneuvers.

Your lancemates, on the other hand, start of fairly weak but get better with experience. Note that last part: with experience. If you don't use one of your companions, he doesn't have the chance to get better. Each character has 4 self-explanatory skills: gunnery, piloting, recon and night-fighting. During the in-game videos, they also state preferences for the kinds of 'Mechs and missions they prefer, though it's a bit hard to notice any difference between similarly skilled pilots.

All in all, the important thing is that you spend less time commanding your troops and more on the fighting itself.

Not much left

Your target

There are a few weaknesses to the interface. The weapons are clearly labeled but the labels are absurdly long in some instance. Instead of listing a medium pulse laser as a "mplsr" or something short, the game usually tries to fit in the whole weapon name. The weapon groups could also stand to be identified more clearly. Color-coding seemed to work quite well in Mechwarrior 2, and we can't figure out why they chose to move away from it in the first place.

The front end of the game is a gem. It's fancy, in-character, simple, yet powerful. Anything from setting up a multiplayer game to re-arming a mech is easy. However, the little tidbits that make an interface truly a part of the game are missing. There is no killboard, no historical infobits about your world (Kentares IV), the Clans, the Inner Sphere or even your character. It's a minor detail but these tidbits really help immerse the player - great games like the Wing Commanders, Mechwarrior 2 and others have had these information nuggets.

Holmes! I see footprints

Oooh yeah he's ugly