Reviews Collection Thread

Blagg Zear · Oct 2, 2013

MechWarrior Online Review: The Unfinished Robot - Edit

MechWarrior Online went into final retail release not too long ago. We've walked the paths and fired the rockets in MWO and offer up our final review of the game that has many MechWarrior fans anxious to learn more about. Read on and then post your reactions in the comments.

Like the BattleMechs themselves, MechWarrior Online can be tough to get into. Welding an online shooter together with deep complexity was never going to be easy, but Piranha have managed to create a game that, at its core, rewards tactical team-focused play. This fully launched title, however, is missing some essentials from the arsenal; an incomplete tutorial, clumsy interface and limited social tools make it unforgiving on newcomers.

After nearly a year of open beta, MWO was finally released on September 17. Even so, a post from the Creative Director makes it clear that unfinished features still litter the workshop floor. With so much missing, would there be enough of a game to make it worthwhile? While I can safely say thereâ€™s a kernel of fun, itâ€™s difficult to justify spending time in this free-to-play robot bash.

Aesthetics â€“ 6

Part of my frustration with MechWarrior Online is how it presents two visual extremes. Once installed and logged in, a windowed client shouted the various deals and special offers currently available, on everything from new â€˜Mechs to camouflages and paint jobs. There wasnâ€™t the hint of a tutorial or intro, just a small box with four â€˜Trial Mechsâ€™ and a bright launch button.

Once in a battle, MWO is an entirely different visual story. The CryEngine 3-powered landscapes and vistas are gorgeous to look at, whether youâ€™re fighting over the volcanic wasteland of Terra Therma or carefully stalking through the abandoned Frozen City. â€˜Mech Warfare is also an impressive spectacle, with lasers, rockets and autocannon all contributing to the glorious spectacle of carnage.

As each â€˜Mech takes damage, limbs take a beating and eventually break of, disabling any attached weapons. It means that thereâ€™s nothing better that finding an armless â€˜Mech on the battlefield, desperately trying to drag itself out of combat. Easy prey is easy to spot, even without targeting sensors.

Each â€˜Mech cockpit is also uniquely detailed, whether itâ€™s the light Jenner or the heavy Orion, making it easier to mentally switch between the various combat roles. While itâ€™s possible to pop into third-person mode, the immersion of piloting from the helm, together with added HUD detail such as a minimap and target information, make it much more ideal.

Those great in-game visuals also reinforce just how poor the client launcher is. Itâ€™s possible to customise and tune your machines of war in the â€˜Mech Bay, but the process is unintuitive and cumbersome. Buttons for Factions and the Store do nothing at all. Those bright banners that advertise Piranhaâ€™s latest deals mask a clunky and occasionally confusing interface that desperately needs an overhaul.

Gameplay - 7

My first experience with MechWarrior Online was incredibly brief. My first match was purely by guesswork, picking a Centurion trial â€˜Mech, before diving in. Within moments I was dropped into a volcanic wasteland, molten lava running like rivulets across blackened shards of rock. Assuming the controls would be somewhat standard, I charged forward, the war machine thundering across the landscape with strides like anvils. It felt like I was at the helm of an unstoppable juggernaut.

Or so I thought. Rounding a rocky outcrop, I came face to face with the enemy. Three of them made short work of my Centurion, leaving it a smouldering wreck of twisted metal and burned cabling. But there was no respawn, no way of getting back into the match; Iâ€™d be forced to spectate the rest from the side-lines. I had the choice of exiting the match and picking another trial â€˜Mech to take into battle, but the absence of respawns is deliberate. Like a stern sports coach, MechWarrior Online was telling me in the most brutal way possible to treat it like a tactical shooter.

A quick Google told me how to find the in-game tutorial but, like much of MechWarrior Online, itâ€™s woefully inadequate, covering nothing more than movement basics. A collection of fan-made and developer-endorsed YouTube videos go into more detail, covering everything from the four weight classes to mastering the various weapon systems. Unfortunately, theyâ€™re also very easy to miss.

Taking what Iâ€™d learned, I decided to try something else. Leaping into a nimble Jenner, I ended up on a different map, where a wooded hillside gave way to a rocky coastline, complete with a beached cargo ship. Instead of an all-out assault, the Conquest game mode is about controlling five resource nodes in order to rack up resource points. My light â€˜Mech sprinted toward the nearest one, as I tried to capture it before the enemy showed up.

Some â€˜Mechs are fitted with jump-jets, and I used mine to evade the slower hulks as they approached. MWOâ€™s maps are full scenery that you can use to your advantage and, by leaping over a few boulders, I could fall back to where my slower team-mates were stationed. After a short exchange of laser and rocket fire, we clambered over the smoking remains of our opposition.

I spent the first 20-odd matches in this manner, picking a trial â€˜Mech and jumping into a random match. It helped to demonstrate the differences between the four â€˜Mech classes (Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault), and what they bring to the battlefield. But it felt like a clumsy way of introducing the concept to newcomers, like asking them to repeatedly bash their heads against a brick wall and congratulating those that survive.

Over time, I practiced how to run in a circle and use a hip pivot to continually face an enemy as I took him down. I learned how to creep around enemy lines and â€˜spotâ€™ targets so that allies with long-range missiles could rain down the pain. I picked up tactics for each map and match type, discovered when to use thermal and night-vision cameras. I started to develop my own â€˜Mech preferences, favouring something meaty but quick.

Itâ€™s obvious that Piranha has spent most of its time working on â€˜Mech balance and behaviour. Regardless of which class I was piloting, movement and combat felt right. Those sprawling maps work overtime in encouraging movement by providing a number of ways to flank or sneak up on your opponent. Though weapons felt like they lacked punch at times, itâ€™s expected when youâ€™re dealing with heavily armoured machines. Most â€˜Mechs also have a small weak point that can be found and exploited. Again though, this is information that youâ€™d probably discover by accident without hopping out of the game and searching for it.

That lack of knowledge was one of the most frustrating parts about being a new pilot. Amazingly though, the MWO community has flooded in to fill the gap left by Piranha. If you find that, after your first few matches, MechWarrior Online has managed to perk your interest, then do what I did: log out, Google, and read everything.

Longevity - 6

While playing and learning in the trial â€˜Mechs, I started to build up an impressive stack of C-Bills â€“ MWOâ€™s in-game currency. New pilots get an earnings boost for the first 25 matches, putting me well on the way to buying my first â€˜Mech outright.

Owning a â€˜Mech has two key benefits: you earn Mech XP every time you take it into battle, and you can adjust the loadout of weapons, armour and engine in the Mech Lab to fine-tune it to your play style. After doing some research, I decided to buy a medium-class Hunchback, armed with lasers and short-range missiles. I then swapped out the engine to give it more speed and upgraded the chassis to a lighter version.

All weapons generate heat when fired, which prevents you from mashing buttons in combat. By improving the cooling capabilities of my new Mech, Iâ€™d be able to use them more without needing to cool off, increasing my overall firepower.

Although itâ€™s possible to heavily customise your â€˜Mech, even down to the paintwork and interior decoration, itâ€™s also possible to seriously damage your ability to fight effectively. Choose a poor mix of weapons or inferior engine, and you become a crawling target or easy kill. Although the Mech Lab interface tries to provide some information on the firepower capabilities and available tonnage, the clunky and occasionally confusing interface can be incredibly off-putting. Once again, a Google search and community shout will save you from wasting those precious C-Bills.

Building a collection of BattleMechs will take a fair chunk of time. After a hundred matches Iâ€™d scraped together enough C-Bills to buy two variants of the Hunchback â€“ one was bristling with laser cannons, while the other provided a mix of lasers and short-range missiles. My Lab still has two empty bays, and itâ€™ll probably take another 30 matches before I earn enough to buy another walking fortress.

Buying variants â€“ alternate versions of the same chassis with different weapon mounting points â€“ might sound like a strange thing. Surely youâ€™d know what variant suits your play style, then pick up â€˜Mechs in other classes to fill other roles? This is where Mech XP comes into play, unlocking â€˜efficienciesâ€™ that make your basic BattleMech perform better. To reach the higher-tier Elite Efficiencies, all the basic ones for three different variants need to be bought. With each â€˜Mech in your Lab earning its own XP, this can be a long (and expensive) grind. Players also earn Player XP at a much slower rate, which is then used to unlock â€˜Mech Modules. These extra components, such as an increased zoom or advanced sensors, are vital to pick up in the longer term.

Ultimately though, much of MWOâ€™s longevity hinges on Piranha delivering those regular updates. New maps, Mechs and game modes will all give players reasons to keep on playing, far beyond an initial flurry of activity. As it is, I can already start to feel a tinge of repetition when logging in to play. And thatâ€™s without touching on the absence of vital social features.

Value â€“ 5

As a free-to-play online game, MechWarrior Online doesnâ€™t insist that you crack open your wallet. There are, however, several ways in which your cash can improve your gaming experience, once you manage to navigate through that clunky interface.

The biggest eyebrow-raiser is with Hero â€˜Mechs â€“ premium-grade purchases that can only be bought with Mech Creditâ€™s, MWOâ€™s real-money currency. Some of these rigs will set you back $30 a time, although they also come with a passive boost to C-Bills and XP. Itâ€™s also possible to buy an income boost directly with Premium Time; while active, this increases both C-Bill and experience gains by 50%, making upgrades and new Mechs even quicker to obtain.

Basic â€˜Mechs are priced more reasonably, starting at around $5. Cosmetic improvements, such as camouflage, custom paint jobs and cockpit accessories are extra. And if you ever need additional space for more â€˜Mechs, expect to pay for those as well.

As a free-to-play title, being able to pay your way to success in MechWarrior Online is only marginally possible. A high-spec Hero â€˜Mech might give you an advantage in 1-on-1 battles, but the 12 versus 12 format means that success depends heavily on team performance. Being able to work well as a group is more important than having expensive hardware.

Social â€“ 4

In the same vein as that disappointing tutorial, MechWarrior Onlineâ€™s social features are primitive at best. The basics are there â€“ itâ€™s possible to build up a friends list, invite players to a group and block those you donâ€™t get on with, but thatâ€™s all. Itâ€™s also managed from that awkward client, with almost no control available in-game. More advanced social features, such as clan creation and management, are entirely absent. Weâ€™re promised that â€˜theyâ€™re comingâ€™, but itâ€™s an unforgivable omission in a launched game.

The lack of any form of laddering or league brackets is also surprising. Climbing those ladders is a big motivator for competitive players, with the top brackets becoming an accolade for the best. Although weâ€™re told that an elo system helps to perform matchmaking in the background, the lack of transparency makes it difficult to gauge individual performance.
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Thereâ€™s also a lack of any kind of persistence. With just two game modes â€“ Assault and Conquest â€“ and a dozen or so maps, â€˜Mech combat can start to feel repetitive. Faction representation has been added, but doesnâ€™t impact gameplay in any meaningful way. It means that thereâ€™s no sense of an evolving conflict, of making gains then falling back. With a rich and diverse lore to pull on, thereâ€™s a missed opportunity to wrap those short battles into a much larger interstellar conflict.

Through it all, itâ€™s the fans that are keeping a large part of MechWarrior Online going. Everything, from BattleMech loadout examples and workshops, to clan recruitment and group finding, is handled by a dedicated group of enthusiasts. While itâ€™s great that these facilities exists, I canâ€™t help but think that Piranha rely on their community to do most of the heavy lifting, choosing to ignore or delay adding features that would strengthen the game immensely.

Polish â€“ 4

For a launched title, MechWarrior Online isnâ€™t just unpolished; itâ€™s incomplete in several key areas. The new player experience is shambolic, acting as a test of mental endurance rather than a meaningful welcome into the futuristic universe. The launcher client is an unintuitive, poorly laid-out mess that makes almost every activity a chore. The lack of any wider context â€“ either league laddering or factional persistence â€“ makes MWO feel limited. While some allowance can be made for rough edges, no amount of spackle is going to fill the gaping holes that currently exist.

Over the next few months, Piranha Games has a major challenge on its hands. Will it continue to push out new maps and â€˜Mechs to keep existing players interested, or will it switch to working on the basic features and comfort factors the game clearly needs? After waving farewell to that beta label, itâ€™s going to be difficult for them to justify stalling the new stuff in favour of basic housekeeping.

Innovation â€“ 6

In all fairness, MechWarrior Online does bring a fresh and interesting experience to the table. The core experience of â€˜Mech combat is good fun, with sprawling maps providing plenty of space for the tactical play that Piranha wants to encourage. Each â€˜Mech class has a definite role to play, making battlefield combat a true team-play affair.

When comparing it to Hawken, the other â€˜Mech brawler currently in the wild, there are some firm differences in play. Hawken is a much tighter experience, focusing around the rapid combat and respawn mechanics favored by shooters like Team Fortress 2. The pacing is faster, the action more intense. It also benefits from a much more detailed tutorial and in-game support.

But much like PlanetSide 2 is to Team Fortress 2, so is MechWarrior Online to Hawken. They scratch different itches, with one offering immediate action while the other emphasises team-based strategy. Even so, where PlanetSide 2 wraps the experience in a rolling and evolving war, MechWarrior Online has nothing.

THE VERDICT

At the core, MechWarrior Online delivers deep, fun tactical combat, serving it up with a fantastic visual experience. There are all sorts of nuances and tricks to discover that help set skilled players apart from newcomers. But all of that is squandered by an incomplete wrapping thatâ€™s more focused on selling items than covering the basics. This is reinforced by the high price of some item shop â€˜Mechs.

The shameful new player experience is one thing, but the lack of any kind of context is the biggest crimp on long-term interest. Acquiring new Mechs and bonuses the more you play is one thing, but in MechWarrior Online thatâ€™s the only thing. Thereâ€™s no team ladder to work your way up, and no factional conflict to give you a reason to fight. Itâ€™s just cycling through maps and game modes, with no larger purpose than earning currency.

For an early beta, this would be forgivable but, as a launched game, it falls short of expectations. Unless you have a hunger for heavy metal tactical combat, other titles will provide you with a more meaningful and longer-lasting experience.

by Gareth Harmer / Gareth "Gazimoff" Harmer has been blasting and fireballing his way through MMOs for over ten years. When he's not exploring an online world, he can usually be found enthusiastically.dissecting and debating them
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Score: 5.4/10.0

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/694/view/reviews/load/285/page/1

Blagg Zear · Nov 3, 2013

Yeah! PC Gamer gave MWO 83% !!!

Mechwarrior Online review
Evan Lahti at 13:00 on 26 October 2013

MechWarrior Online doesnâ€™t have melee combat, but it does have plenty in common with boxing. Both divide fighters into weight classes. Both test your pain tolerance against your damage output. In both, fighters target their opponentsâ€™ injuries while twisting to protect their own wounds.

And â€œbrawler,â€ appropriately, is the nickname given to mechs built to fight within 100 or 200 meters. Here, at close range, MechWarriorâ€™s resemblance to hand-to-hand combat is clearest: clumps of missiles hook into steel ribs, cockpits rattle like concussed skulls, assault mechs swing with every weapon until their arms fall off.

This fistfighty feel is what distinguishes MechWarrior Onlineâ€™s 12-on-12 team deathmatches from military FPSes and fellow vehicular shooters like World of Tanks and Hawken. Most of Piranha Gamesâ€™ time spent developing MWO has been dedicated to making that mech combat technically and mechanically sound, and itâ€™s left the gameâ€™s balance in a great state--unlike boxing, a 25-ton scout can occasionally KO a 100-ton heavyweight. A wide variety of mech builds are viable and interesting, from sluggish, LRM-packed â€œmissile boatsâ€ that rely on teammates to acquire targeting information for them, to fragile, agile pests like Locusts and Spiders.

"I love how much marksmanship MWO demands despite the size and generally lumbering speed of the titans youâ€™re piloting."

But Piranhaâ€™s focus on perfecting MWOâ€™s combat before fleshing out other features has a drawback: even after emerging from beta, some aesthetic and secondary elements of the game like menus and UI remain rough. MWOâ€™s in-game command map is a vestigial feature thatâ€™s clumsy to operate while under fire, and it remains practically ignored by players. More fundamentally, the presentation of customization (a core MechWarrior tenet) hasnâ€™t received the attention it deserves. The MechLab, the garage where mechs are bought and modified, doesnâ€™t display fullscreen. Data on weapons and armor in this space are poorly presented, with key stats like heat efficiency displayed in a way thatâ€™s alienating to newcomers. Bizarrely, you canâ€™t compare stats side-by-side. Aesthetic customization, too, is crudely implemented, with paint colors and patterns organized as text lists rather than a visual palette.

Some of my complaints will be addressed in a planned â€œUI 2.0â€ update to MWO, but in the meanwhile almost all of MWOâ€™s appeal hinges on its excellent combat. Inside the cockpit, intricate mechanics like modular damage, heat management, ammo detonation, and throttle delay work your reflexes and brain equally. Gauss rifle slugs, for example, are one of the only ammunition types that donâ€™t explode when their housing is destroyed. The gauss rifle itself, however, is volatile, and if you destroy one youâ€™ll deal extra damage unless your enemy installed a CASE explosion-containment module. But wait--that module is meaningless if theyâ€™re running an XL engine, which unlike standard engines occupy all three torso segments. Imagine trying to exploit this knowledge as youâ€™re being cooked with lasers and youâ€™ve got an idea of high-level MWO play.

Whatâ€™s a shame is how little energy Piranha has dedicated to explaining these nuances to newcomers. The most complex systems--like equipment that improves and disrupts missile targeting--arenâ€™t even mentioned in MWOâ€™s modest tutorial. Still, the core concepts are intuitive, and building a durable, straightforward mech doesnâ€™t take an engineering degree. I love how much marksmanship MWO demands despite the size and generally lumbering speed of the titans youâ€™re piloting--it takes skill, patience, and intuition to paint a scout mech with lasers as itâ€™s circle-strafing you at 120kph.

And as you tally more matches, you notice the way that mechsâ€™ inherent durability makes MWO one of the few shooters where you can savor the gradual destruction of your opponent. Mechs die hard; they erode. Sparks erupt from crippled legs, lasers blemish metal with molten heat, layers of armor peel away as paper-doll damage indicators turn from neutral to yellow to orange to red. Without sounding like a complete sadist, watching these signs of pain erupt from your robotic enemies is brain-tingling.

The relationship you develop with your mechs is MWOâ€™s other great aspect. Damage isnâ€™t persistent, but eventually youâ€™ll get your engine blown right out of your chest, retreat to the MechLab to rework your build, and then requeue to test your modifications. That gameplay loop of death, iteration, and success is special, as the control you have over your mech is what allows you to feel validated when a build works. It also creates opportunities to fall in love with different weight classes and weapons.

My main is an Orion â€œProtectorâ€ variant, a 75-ton heavy that I threw two ultra AC5s into. Itâ€™s a medium-long range gunslinger that works best when itâ€™s holding down a corridor, punishing slower enemies who peek out of cover. When I take a loss, I switch to my 35-ton Raven, which can move at almost twice the speed. I donâ€™t get many kills with it, but MWO makes it unusually gratifying to play as a decoy. I get an XP reward for every enemy I spot for my teammates, but thatâ€™s just extrinsic icing on the cake--the joy is in carefully timing my advance to make larger mechs turn and chase me, exposing their fragile rear armor to my teammatesâ€™ guns. Itâ€™s wonderful that every build takes slightly different skillsets to operate--my Raven relies on a great fight-or-flight intuition and map knowledge.

Of those nine maps (plus a couple sunless variations of them), I grin when I load into six of them. Terra Therma is a volcanic maze, a series of bottlenecks formed by high cliffs that stifle movement a little more than Iâ€™d like. Alpine Peaks is enormous, but barren and landmarkless in a way that makes it tough to memorize. Iâ€™d love to see a few more distinguishing landmarks in general--Crimson Strait has a rail tunnel that heavy mechs can sneak single-file through. Some backbreaking flanks and defenses happen at the mouth of this tunnel--if scouts donâ€™t let you know whatâ€™s on the other side, your heavy mechs might find doom waiting for them at the end.

Canyon Network, Tourmaline Desert, and Caustic Valley, on the other hand, are spacious mixtures of open and dense. MWO also brings urban maps--about three of them--to MechWarrior for the first time, although the offices and apartment towers mostly amount to rectangular pylons--they donâ€™t deform or break and the streets are abandoned. Admittedly I wouldnâ€™t be out playing hopscotch if a mech fight broke out on my homeworld (or would I), but this does make cities feel more like thematic obstacles than immersive spaces.

MWO needs more mode variety to get better mileage out of these maps. There are just two: a five- capture point domination mode thatâ€™s become less satisfying the more Iâ€™ve played, and a straightforward 12-on-12 brawl. Piranha mentioned a multi-stage â€œdropshipâ€ mode where each player would bring four mechs to the battlefield (that theyâ€™d respawn into after dying) that hasnâ€™t yet been implemented. More significantly, the MWO community collectively awaits the addition of Community Warfare, a persistent territory-control metagame where individual matches will affect the map-level power struggle between player-led factions and mercenary corps. MWO is starved for this sort of context, which would give matches meaning beyond their time limit.

"The MWO community collectively awaits the addition of Community Warfare, a persistent territory-control metagame."

Though thereâ€™s a lot of variation in mech pricing, MWO is more expensive than average free-to-play games. With the exception of â€œlegendaryâ€ variants, all mechs are buyable with in-game currency (known as C-bills) or cash (MC). Mechs scale upward in price with tonnage, from 560 MC (about $2.60) for a tiny, 20-ton Locust, to 1,850 MC (about $8.50) for a 50-ton Centurion, all the way to 7500 MC (a ridiculous $31) for the 100-ton Atlas legendary variant. Most heavy and assault mechs range from 2,000 to 4,000 MC each, or $9-19. If you pay $50, expect to be able to buy five or seven mechs and a few custom colors to paint them with.

If youâ€™re saving every C-bill, earning enough to buy one mech on an unboosted account might take as few as 30 and as many as 60 matches. I appreciate that kills arenâ€™t exclusively the most profitable way to earn in-game currency, as this encourages teamwork a little more. But you do earn C-bills primarily based on your performance, and youâ€™ll get more for racking up kills, assists, support actions, and victories.

Piranhaâ€™s work to modernize MechWarrior is admirable. MWOâ€™s layered mechanics facilitate intricate combat thatâ€™s deep, balanced, and--most importantly--satisfying in your hands. That almost singular focus on combat design does leaves MWO slim on modes and tutorials as well as with some rough UI in key places like the MechLab, but not at the expense of this very entertaining foundation that happens to form a solid footing for the future.

Verdict:

Slightly overpriced, but a more than worthy successor to one of PC gamingâ€™s greatest franchises that nails the important part: combat.
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SCORE: 83/100

http://www.pcgamer.com/review/mechwarrior-online-review/

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