And Thus It Begins…
Ah yes, Technical Readout: 3050. The Clans have arrived, and the Inner Sphere has upgraded it’s technology. It sets a tone and a standard that all of the other Technical Readouts since have tried to match. The Inner Sphere designs include both refits and upgrades of existing designs and the beginning of some new ones. What ones are your favorites? Which ones inspired you? Which ones brought destruction to your foes?
A lot of fanboys quietly held their breath when FASA suffered a catastrophic reactor core breach in 2001. A lot of us didn’t know if there would be new BattleTech-themed videogames, or even tabletop games. Heck I still don’t know how entertainment companies work.
MechWarrior IV was the last classically developed first person sim in the franchise for nearly a decade. Thankfully it’s release really let us fanboys who were worried about the FASA fallout breathe easier. MechWarrior, at least for the time being, wasn’t going anywhere. The game was also the basis for a number of expansions and incarnations. This includes the current BattleTech Firestorm system used by the Virtual World Tesla II sim pods at various gaming centers and private collections around the country.
The hills are alive with the sound of LRM fire.
If I had to pick any of the BattleTech licensed videogames, I’d pick this game any day of the week. I like the FPS sim format fine, but MechCommander has more of the feel of the table top game as well as a more fleshed-out storyline. It has to be because you’re not just getting the perspective from a single pilot or lance leader but a company-level ‘Tactical Operations Officer’.
The player controls Zulu company of the First Davion Guards during Operation Bulldog. It’s a much larger operation than the commando operation in MechWarrior 3 and its fully rendered 3D textures and environments. MechCommander is a 2D animated game shown in an isometric view popular in other Real Time Strategy games of the time; such as Command & Conquer and Warcraft II: Electric Boogaloo. It also featured a badly compressed but wholly entertaining FMV opening and ending cinematic that featured live actors for the first time.
“Got his attention, sir.”
I almost didn’t get through art school because of MechWarrior 3. Well it and MechCommander: Desperate Measures, which I purchased at the same time and didn’t sleep the whole weekend. Both drop you straight into Operation Bulldog. But I’ll be getting to the latter soon enough.
I think what first grabbed me about the game was the quality of the cinematics. I don’t just mean the title sequence where a Timberwolf and a Summoner proceed to melt hovertanks, step on PBIs, and ruin the day for a pair of Fireflies. But the initial briefing scene and subsequent cut scenes after missions, mainly consisting of radio chatter between the G2 (Intelligence) officer and the player’s team mates; sometimes accompanied by decrypted enemy comms.
3rd person view of a Bushwacker owning something to bits.
Atraitus has a great YouTube channel reviewing old videogames, and he started with MechCommander Gold.
Check out his super in-depth video review below:
It’s hard to imagine the state of the BattleTech universe without the influence of Michael A. Stackpole’s work upon it. Back in the 90’s, my first BattleTech novel that I had picked up completely by sheer luck was indeed Stackpole’s “Lethal Heritage“. It was so good that I devoured it in a day and went back for the others in the series, and in the process started a lifelong love.
Given the influence of this series and book in particular, on the eve of its’ 25th year anniversary, it would be interesting to go back and take a quick retrospective look at the book.
Wait, what do you mean that a Phoenix Hawk can’t take on a point of Elementals?
This book can be considered to be a good starter point into the BattleTech universe as, barring the first few pages that can cause puzzlement to a new reader into the series, starts from essentially a clean slate. Stackpole did a good job in setting up the in-universe powers that be and various key figures, giving the reader a decent foundation upon where to build from.
The book essentially starts with the stories of two scions of different realms, along with their loyal companions and another character that gives us an inside track on the main antagonists of the book. The scions fully expect that their respective differences have destined them to fight each other, but a massive invasion from technologically superior outside force, calling themselves The Clans, force them to ignore each other temporarily to combat this deadly threat.
The book revolves around several key characters, many that would have a tremendous influence on the fictional world of BattleTech for years to come, both in real life and in-universe. The main characters would revolve around Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, his cousin Phelan Kell, soldiers Kai Allard-Liao and Shin Yodama. With the exception of Shin Yodama, all of them are roughly the same age, completing their initial training as MechWarriors and being assigned to their initial service posts.
The character progression of these characters for the most part is interesting, with the plight of Phelan Kell in particular fascinating as it provides the reader with an inside-the-enemy-ranks look at these deadly foes. You do get a sense of their bewilderment at the main characters and their attempt to deal with events that are far beyond what they’ve been brought up to expect.
Although there have been some books written previously written in-universe, this was the first one that had taken a sweeping look at events happening simultaneously that had a far-reaching effect on events many years in the future. Thus, beyond providing a great starting point to the BattleTech universe, having a familiarity with the characters and events that happened in this book is key to understanding many of the following novels.
Beyond providing the foundation for many of the events in-universe, the book itself is a great science fiction romp with great descriptions of giant mecha battles and unexpected plot twists. This book is highly recommended.
I specifically remember the summer of 1995. I was fresh out of high school and had started reading the Lethal Heritage trilogy (which was reprinted that September) and got my first taste of the Clans. I also had one of those friends; I think most people know one. The type of guy that had every game system and game known to mankind and a home computer sophisticated enough to hack into the Department of Defense.
He was also the manager of a game store at the local mall, which is where I got my first taste of MechWarrior 2. The graphics blew me out of my boots. 3D games were very much in their infancy, but run on the cutting edge PCs of the time – I have no idea of specifics but RAM were probably still being measured in kilobytes – were head and shoulders above anything I’d seen on the Super Nintendo. Glare from the lasers (the slow moving Star Wars type) lit up the ground and any nearby surfaces. You could destroy parts of the scenery- it was just so much more immersive than the first game (or really anything else previously other than an actual flight simulator).
Out of ammo? Don’t I have energy weapons on this tub?