This is me. Not a Mecha fan really at all (I played BioWare’s Shattered Steel and that’s about it), but for some reason I’m watching all of this guy’s videos as they come out!
Artist for Tex Talks Battletech here, first of all, glad to hear you getting deeper into the lore of this wonderful franchise! We've been working hard to preserve it and keep it alive. Mechwarrior 2 Mercs is still a game I go back and play every year at least once or twice. I first started with MW2 and it sold me forever on this franchise back in '99. So I'm glad that folks are going back and checking out the game that got me invested. Best hunting out there! And remember, speed is life, stillness is death, and always kill the meat, save the metal.
Huge honor! I hear about Tex Talks all the time and I've been watching so many videos on the channel. So, likely I've seen your work! Thank you for checking the video out! Hopefully, a lot more to come about this and thank you for helping to preserve both games like this and the Battletech series.
@@KeiNova Of course! And more than likely lol. I'm the one to blame for the "Canopian Cat Girl" resurgence in the lore. Much to Many's chagrin. But I do it in good fun of the universe XD
This was the first game after FASA was sued by Harmony Gold, the owners of Robotech. To make a long story short, both companies used mecha designs from Macross which led to the lawsuit. After both sides settled, FASA removed a number of Mech designs from the game and they didn’t return until Catalyst re-drew the art in 2017 (Harmony Gold still sued again but lost this time). So no Warhammer, Rifleman, Marauder, and Battlemaster in this game (the Battlemaster is actually borrowed from a different anime but FASA took out every non-original art from the game to avoid further lawsuits).
They didn't just take out anything they licensed from other sources, they took out the art they hired Victor Musical Industries, Inc. to make for them too even though they had full rights to it. For anyoen curious Sarna has a listing of all the affect designs and where they were lircensed from.
The bogus Harmony Gold lawsuits were permanently dismissed with prejudice in 2018. To be fair, the judge (AFAIK) never addressed whether FASA & others had a license but whether Harmony Gold had exclusive rights that enabled them to sue in the first place. The Victor company redesigns, originally drawn for the Japanese port of Mechwarrior, became the "IIC" models when TRO3055 was released.
Great video again! Don't stress on knowing the story and lore, the best thing about it is that the games teach you as you go. You're doing a great job of it anyway! As you play through the series you'll notice little story details tying them together, as it does progress through a consistent timeline. The original Mechwarrior obviously comes first, set around 3025. MW2 Mercs follows and introduces the Clan Invasion and the initial pushback (the closing cutscene features the Battle of Tukayyid, an event that ended the Invasion) Mechcommander involves the beginning of the Inner Sphere counterattack against the Clans Mechwarrior 3 focuses on an operation towards the end of the counterattack And the following games continue on from there. Very much looking forward to your Mechwarrior 3 experience. It's a flawed game that suffered from a rushed production, but all things considered it is IMO the best representation of what Mechwarrior/Battletech is all about. It's a game that was made by people who genuinely cared for and were passionate about the product they were putting out. The presentation and voice acting is superb and extremely immersive - it really sells the whole thing for me. Enjoy!
I certainly can't wait to get into it, I've been playing MW2 for three weeks now and certainly it'd be nice to see the next step. I found a way to get it working on modern systems too, so that's going to make for minimal hiccups in sound and whatnot.
@@KeiNova Not to mention - as you implied you already understand - it's unfortunate that while video games would seem to be the most prominent media of Battletech, they're....not canon. :( It's kind of crazy having gone through all these MechWarrior experiences and having all these memories, but they're all just imaginations, possibilities, unreliably told stories, or maybe just imagine them as legends/fiction/alternative universes. But if you're a lore person, it really ups the pressure to focus more on sourcebooks, novels, and of course, the TT game.
@@Sp3ctre18Gaming MW2's missions are from the Trial of Refusal. For example, you take part in the battle on Twycross that culminates in the death of Clan Wolf Khan Natasha Kerensky. MW3 and MechCommander take place during the Inner Sphere's invasion of the Clan home-worlds and ultimate annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar. And, as mentioned in the video, MW2 Mercs has you take part in the defense of Luthien. While you may not be playing as Phelan Ward or Jaime Wolf or other BT legend in these games, you're certainly getting a fair bit of canon.
Back in the day Mercenaries was really to hard for me with all it's management and money balancing tho I have to say nowadays those things would be the reason for me to play it again. I can't wait for your MechWarrior 3 and Pirate's Moon videos and your story analysis. In my opinion we can spend ten minutes plus with that alone!
As someone who has played the MW2 series A LOT. I am confident to inform you that FPS (as in Frame Rate) causes all the issues you mentioned near the end of the video. Anything over 30fps will increasingly cause the AI, Scripting, Hit Detection, and Overheating to bug out. Same bugs happen in Interstate 76 which uses the same game engine. My solution back when I was playing these games heavily was to limit the games to one CPU and use a CPU cycle eater tool to slow it down. This is also an issue in MW3 as well. Especially with MW3 physics. I think MW3 may be able to handle up to 60fps? I'm not sure. Anyway, I remember seeing vehicles start bouncing like Flubber and eventually launch into space LOL! Hope this info helps and thanks for the videos.
I'm going to have to try this down the road, I used Windows 95 on a 86 Box setup (which is a lot to type the specifics of on my phone) so I'm not really one hundred percent sure if that was the issue - but it probably was. Older games were so temperamental like that.
Mercenaries was one of the games I had as a kid, in those olden days when you couldn't just download a game on steam, and you would save months of allowance for a new video game and hope to see something cool at Target when your mom took you there and you had money with you. I have huge nostalgia for it, so I have been looking forward to the review. Since it was such a big game of my childhood, I find it surprising I almost never hear about it in recent decades. Clan Jenner IIC, all S-Lasers. Run in at max speed, alpha strike the knees at close range. You have run away before any of the other mechs could target you, so you were basically invincible. Turn around and run back in to do it again as soon as you cool down. I still remember the strategy 30 years later. God only knows how many important things my brain has forgotten in order to keep ahold of that. That era of the final generation of DOS 3D games with software renderers was so exciting as a kid. Every game looked a bit different, and every new game you got a few months later seemed like a giant leap in technology.
10:22 Starmate is clan terminology. In military organization, their smallest battlemech combat unit is a star of five battlemechs. The Inner Sphere's basic unit is a lance of four battlemechs. So, for MW2 :Mercs, the term would be "lancemate."
Killing an opposing mech's pilot by shooting the cockpit incapacitates it and prevents the mech from exploding. The mech will disintegrate with further damage or even being run into by another mech (the AI doesn't seem to register them once incapacitated and will path right through them), but otherwise that's a good way to maximize part and whole mech salvage at the end of the mission - if you can keep them intact until then. Incapacitating a mech by killing the pilot is much easier to do on mech with larger, more exposed cockpits like the Catapult, Jenner, Crab, etc.
Thanks for this, I was probably just hitting the cockpits here and there without realizing it. It just is really hard to be precise here, so I could never really fully tell.
I loved the salvage system. I bagged an Assasin once that showed on the display as just a red head. Naturally I tried to piliot what amounted to a smouldering chair in the next mission and I spawed but I couldn't move or do anything 😂
Few things. 1. Image enhancement is a clan thing at this time, and requires those green facial tattoos you see in the cartoon. 2. The inconsistent results youre seeing in attacks is directly based on critical hits. If you strip off the armor and happen to hit an area that has ammo stored there, you get fireworks. 3. I really think you're going to like MW3, even though it's a smaller scale game. Personally, I'd try to track down a twisting joystick to really get a prime MW3 and 4 experience. Keep em coming!
Watching you learn about Battletech makes your videos a great entry point for newcomers. I'm mostly here for a history lesson about dated graphics and game design tropes, but through your passion for the franchise, you make a great case for the graphics and design still being relevant today.
Thank you, I try and make this more of an exploration rather than just taking a head role. This way everyone can be along for the ride with me. Though certainly expect some talk about outdated design tropes as I go along - I'm sometimes a bit direct about those.
@@KeiNova I wouldn't be here otherwise. PC gaming is one of the few mysteries still remaining to me from this time period. And since mechs are the most polygon budget friendly humanoid forms around, this genre and this franchise seem helpful as a kind of base measuring stick/timeline? Your descriptions of they actually feel to play helped me understand the evolution of other games too, like Armored Core.
Also loved the soundtrack on this game, though it was quite different from the original MW2. The voice acting was great in this one. I still quote Deadeye from time to time. "Now, whatever you do, don't get killed. I HATE it when my guys get killed."
Man, that takes me back. MW2 & GBL I played a lot, and MW2 had a lot of lore in the game, but MW2 Mercs really drew me into the Battletech novels. I read a lot of stuff around the Clan Invasion era. However, there were 2 "discoveries" that made this game a lot easier, when combined. First, I really loved the MW2 soundtrack and the CD I had of that all the audio tracks were from track 2 onwards, so you actually could play the BGM in a CD player. MW2 Mercs followed this so once the game had started up (I do not recall if i had to use a no-cd patch, but I doubt it) I used to put other CDs in the drive for their music. MW2 and Garbage were 2 of my more persistent choices Secondly, and I discovered this completely by accident, if you ejected the CD mid mission (because your legs were near a computer tower that was under your desk) the game would automatically give you the results from the prior mission (successful or not) which was a great way to increase the number of mechs you had, if, for example, you ended up with a huge payout or a Atlas, you could simply repeat that as often as you liked but starting a new contract, eject the CD and repeat the results. I don't think that later versions of the game replicated this, but i only ever played the original (not Titanium) version, but someone else my know better Thanks for the nostalgia!
You are welcome! I love the soundtrack too, thats why I used it for my videos :D Thats the one benefit of it never been legally copyrighted (to save cost, probably). I am glad I didn't discover that exploit, I might not have had any footage - just me skipping through to see the ending. Just kidding, I slaved through this whole thing! I didn't even know there were cheats until after I was done. I have to say, probably one of the most brutal experiences ever.
This was the first game that got me into the Mechwarrior Life. Sure was complex at first but got use to it eventually. This how I got other Battle Mech games like MW3 and MW4 games. Though I was done as one....that is until MW5 Mercenaries.
Disclaimer this is based on the DOS version that came with my Thrustmaster joystick so it may not work with the titanium or other windows releases. Take out one of the legs then when the mech is on the ground shot the cockpit very carefully (assuming it lands back down) and you can usually salvage the entire mech mostly undamaged except for the leg and minor repairs to the part of the mech containing the cockpit. I usually did this in a crab because of speed and its low height armed with a mix of beam lasers by circling the enemy mech at close range while turning my torso (set not to auto center) and using beam lasers to shot a leg on one side though you will probably hit both. An additional hint if you put as many as possible heat sinks in the legs and walk into water those heat sinks work a lot better while your legs are in the water.
I have no idea how many modifications I made to the Flashman which was my character's main ride in my last Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries run because something had been blown off the last time I went out. I usually end up running a modded Flashman, Catapult, Quickdraw or a much more extensively modded Orion in my Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries runs. I remember back when I first played this wondering how the hell I was working for the Combine during the Death to Mercenaries period of Combine policy. Short version a Combine official tried to screw the most powerful Mercenary force in the Inner Sphere while they were under contract to the Combine. This led to a small war just before the Fourth Succession War broke out and the leader of the Combine ordered the execution of all Mercenaries with many Mercenary groups employed by the Combine either fleeing or being caught and executed. Some Corporations in the Combine still employed Mercenaries though and your Combine contracts come from one of those used as a front by the future ruler of the Combine who disagrees with the policy.
18:00 - Yeah there's a lore based reason why they took it away. (And yes it sucks to not have it.) Enhanced Imaging is clan technology so none of the Inner Sphere mechs have it. It's a VR heads up display in the neurohelmet that most clan mechs have. Some clans actually get implants for it which removes the need for neurohelmets entirely but it's got a lot of nasty side effects an you're subject to worse feedback damage effects from mech damage. Sarna's got an article on it. I think the way it looks is taken right out of the Battletech Cartoon too. Either that or they're both drawing from the same source material for how enhanced imaging looks.
Ah, I thought there was a reason like that. It seems like there is a lot of meticulous design choices in these games that really stick as close as possible to the lore. The more I play them, the more I see they were made by actual players and fans of the series. I can't wait to see how MW3 fares. I haven't ever played anything after Mercenaries at this point.
I haven't played this game in probably 20 years, but back in the day, I used to go for leg shots to maximize salvage. I have no idea if that was actually effective, but it felt like it at the time.
Sadly it doesn't, not in this version. I was blowing off the legs of everything, and it didn't count as the Mech being destroyed unless I blew both legs off. Maybe it's because this has the dynamic system?
@@KeiNova I remember going after legs too. You do have to get both of the legs to destroy the mech. But legs are easier to replace than everything else in the torso and legs usually don't have anything in them other than heat sinks (To take advantage of water.) And hitting two legs is lot easier than hitting the head. All these Mechwarrior games as far as I know go that route of both legs destroying a mech rather than having to simulate mechs falling down or going prone, which is a thing in table top. I know why they do it because the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze but it does always feel weird to have mechs outright destroyed when they lose both legs instead of just being crippled. On the plus side losing a single leg is not as debilitating in this series of games. IIRC In tabletop if you blow off a mechs' leg it instantly falls down and you have to make piloting checks to get back up. Blow off both legs and it can't get up period but it can still fire from prone by using one of it's arms to hod itself up and firing with the weapons from the other arm and torso. They're still basically dead though since they're absurdly easy to hit and most pilots would eject at that point anyway they're doing very well in the battle otherwise.
I wish I had seen this video a couple months ago. Humble Bundle had a bundle of like 95% of the Battletech/MechWarrior books for like $30. From Decision at Thunder Rift through to some of the newest books leading into the ilClan era.
The atmosphere of mw3 is so good. Definitely underrated. The cockpit and sounds and details like missiles causing craters in the ground, or cockpit hits cracking the glass, shoot even the newer games don’t have that stuff
Image Enhancement was not finished in time to release with the game. There is a way to edit a file to bring it back, but laser beams don't show up in it. There was some discussion that IE needed the special metallic scalp tatoos like some clanners have but I don't think thats correct. The basic premise of the Battletech universe has some similarites to WH40k in that technological and societal decline is a major backdrop. The game first dealt with the early 3000s era - the inner sphere has has several devastating Sucession wars where the massacre of whole planets and indescriminate use of nuclear weapons has been normal. Being conventionally bombed back into pre-space flight technical levels was commonplace. Feudal houses fight over territory and resources. The "neutral" interstellar communications company plays them off against each other and will commit to genocide in pursuit of its own goals. The ability to replicate the technology behind FTL travel has been all but lost - Jump Ships are a dwindling and priceless resource. Mercenaries starts in 3043 and some very slow steps are being made in rediscoving lost technology and two large factions have just come together as one vast house.
This looks like a might fine mech game, the scope of how to spend your funds and mix up your mechs equipment looks like a lot of fun! Not sure i'd ever jump to deep into the lore, like warhammer, the amount of lore that seems to be there scares me!
I'll agree there! The lore is outstanding and requires literally several novels to be read to even get what is happening at some points. It can be played without, but yeah... that is the biggest flaw of every MW game aside from MW3.
Liked this. Played this game when it was new. Loved it. Replayed this game a couple years ago, absolute perfection. I play the dos version, but it is similar to this. I can get good frame rates on my potato laptop. Seriously love this game.
Is something like PCEm or 86Box out of the realm of running on your system? It doesn't take much; you could emulate Windows and be playing a 'slightly' better version. But really, the DOS one is ok.
@@KeiNova Actually, I can never seem to get a useful amount of performance out of directx when using emulators. I am more familiar with DOSbox. That, and my favorite abandonware site has pre packaged the DOS version. So there's that. Years ago, when it was new, I played the windows version.
I love watching your descent into Battletech. Book wise I would recommend reading the warrior trilogy first, it’s better written then the gray death legion books.
I'll look it up. As I was reading Decision at Thunder Rift - I realized that certain sentences in the kindle version I have were missing? So, guess I'll have to look into this and see about going from there.
You mentioned Decision at Thunder Rift. I know the Grey Death Saga is the "beginning" of the Battletech novels, but Michael Stackpole's Warrior trilogy is a _much_ better introduction. Beyond that, it's actually genuinely a good read. The characters are far deeper, with much better motivations. Stackpole is a veteran of writing for various expanded universes, but his books are always _far_ better than the norm. He's an excellent writer who is frankly wasted on doing licensed fanfic.
I just got Decision at Thunder Rift based on a suggestion. It's been a good read so far. But you aren't the only person to tell me the Warrior Trilogy is great. I'll have to try and grab it, because I am liking Decision at Thunder Rift - and if the Warrior trilogy is better, that can only be a good thing.
@@KeiNova The Grey Death legion books have good mech action, but the writing in general is everything you expect of 80s military sci-fi. Particularly when it comes to the few female characters. What the Grey Death Legion series does well is the on-the-ground action. The Warrior trilogy does all that, too, except the characters are far better rounded, and you get a solid taste of the aristocracy and the space opera elements. I think it's a much better example of the Battletech universe. It did kind of spoil me, though, because the next series I started reading wasn't by Stackpole, and it really wasn't anywhere near as good.
So glad I found your channel, got a sub. You seem to be an old school player... Any chance when the internet was wayy younger. Did you happen to be on the Battletech 3056 MUSE?
Sadly, no. I didn't get a PC or PlayStation until my school gave it to me in grade 4, and I didn't even know what Battletech was at the time. I'm 35 and I think the muse one came out when I was 4-6 years old. That would have been awesome though!
@@KeiNova Wow, thanks for the reply :) Very cool. Yeah I"m old lol. My best friend and I came in early in the tenure and ended up running into the guy playing Haak Magnusson and were helping him run the FRR potion.
Glad I found your channel! Heres a sub😁 I cant think of any other channel doing a step-by step overview of each MW games f.ex. I gave up on getting MW3 to work on Win3. Got hooked on MW4 due to game magazine pics😂 I had to settle with a demo for Mech Commander instead, until 2004 when someone lets say...shared MW4mercs. Blown away! I also had big regreta not picking up Mech Commander 2 from a video game/ film renting store😔 I didnt had enough money as a kiddo. Cant waith for Mw5 DLC leading to Mw5Clans👏
I'm glad you are part of this little channel of mine. Thanks for the sub! On Windows 3.1??? Holy, I can't even imagine. It can't even pull off the right amount of colors, I don't think. Well, I'll be working through all of them and then the spin off stuff. I just had a huge issue with Pirates Moon and now I have to put that off a week. Then finally MW4, so I hope it's as good as everyone says!
Welp, on the 31CC video I said how the graphics really put me off Mercs, but maybe I should try the Titanium edition. I heard about all the bugs so I didn't know they were less of a concern in Mercs. The graphics look a lot more natural and not as distracting and messy as what I had played. What little you showed of night/dark missions also seemed a lot more playable than the near-blind experiences I had. @.@ It's been a good ride watching your exploration of MW1 to 2! On to 3 and beyond!
I think it's mainly because my playthrough didn't give me many Light/Dark missions honestly. I only played like two, total. I'd definitely suggest the Titanium version of Mercs! It makes the game much better, but the glitches do still happen with Clan Mechs. Still have to suffer the amber hue of thermograph though, ugh. Thanks for watching so much of my videos! I'm going through Pirates Moon too, just finished MW3. So, here is hoping that video is good (if not better).
@@KeiNovaYeah I think that's part of my super-dark memories - I tried to avoid the thermal view lol. In my first playthrough I also didn't think much about missions I might have been missing, so that was an important detail I picked up from your review and reason to try it again! And no, thank you. It's always a treat seeing people discover or re-discover MechWarrior! Good luck with PM! Steps up a bit in difficulty, huh?
Now that these titles are abandonware, I’d love to see what modders can do to fix, polish and add content too. Mechwarrior 2 Mercs could use some classic unseen mechs in them! I just wish I knew how to code like how I know painting miniatures.
I really wish it was more possible. Because of the multiple versions and how the game was developed, its a strange piece of software - all of them are. Many have told me its really difficult to put anything into the game, probably because of it being developed long ago on multiple frameworks and with GLIDE files that aren't able to be used anywhere, because they were automatically overridden with further versions - and the changes caused a lot of these games to be unusable in some ways. Its odd, and interesting. It'd be really cool though, if it could be broken and others could work on HD mods and whatnot.
2751. Star League ends when Stefan Amaris conducted a coup that got rid of the Cameron family. After General Kerensy defeated Amaris, he tried to reunify the Inner Sphere to rebuild the Star League but it did not work. So he took most of the SLDF Star League Defense Force and exiled themselves, taking bllueprints of advanced tech, away from known universe, away from Inner Sphere. 4 succession wars started during the next 300 years. Technology was lost in what is called Lostech. This is why Inner Sphere tech is inferior. 3050. Descendants of the exiled SLDF had formed clan societies. They invaded the Inner Sphere in what is called Clan Invasion. 3052. Clans almost conquered Luthien, the capital of Draconis Combine. Comstar convinced clans to use planet Tukkayid as a proxy battlefield. If clans conquered the planet, Terra will be theirs. If Comstar wins, clan invasion would be delayed more than 10 years. Terrain was treacherous, and Comstar forces played dirty in the battle of Tukkayid.
@KeiNova there is an insane amount of Lore for the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. Tons of books, tons of supplemental material for the tabletop game as well. It's a good time 😁 I remember playing MW2 on a Gateway 3000 with my dad's flight stick with pedals and being absolutely entranced from the get go.
Despite a 300 year head start in technology, I'd say the Inner Spere probably would have won. You get really good at warfare when you practice it on your neighbors for 300 years. I'm assuming we'll find out soon or later with either MW5 Clans or MW6 Clans. Either way, I'm looking forward to throwing the Clans a beating, taking their mechs and tech, and perverting it to amuse myself.
Lol, Comstar didn't play dirty, they played normal combined arms as defined by the Ares Conventions. All those years of ritualistic combat made everyone outside of hell's horses forget what a tank was an all of them forgot that artillery exists. It's covered a lot in the source books and fiction but the fatal problem with the Clans is they spent their almost 300 years of training of away from the inner sphere not practicing how to wage war butt how to win ritualistic skirmishes. Yes, they managed to not lose tech this way but the force they created was ill suited to fight an actual war. In clan battles you generally show up with both forces at the bargained time and place, usually with mechs, you have brief skirmish, collect your spoils, then you pull back and go home and rest up and rearm and get ready to do it again. When the clans invaded the Inner Sphere any and all supplies would take at best 9 months to get there. That's about 6 times longer that it took sailing ships during the colonial era to go from the UK to America. And the Clans were not operating under ideal conditions as they were fighting with each other during the invasion and more than one clan destroyed their merchant caste supply chains in the name of glory for the warrior caste. When illKahn Leo Showers leading the invasion was killed by Tyra Miraborg's kamikaze attack in her Shilone aerospace fither over Radstadt in 3050 the entire clan invasion had to stop for an entire year so so the kahns could all go back to Strana Mechty to pick a new illKahn. That is absolutely bonkers. That kind of bad decision making permeates everything the clans do in this era. They have top of the line gear, some of the most sklled warriors, but their tactics are tied into Zellbrigen, resupply is the better part year away so logistics is hell, but the real killer is after all that the industrial base that is making those supplies. It's *much* smaller than the Inner Sphere forces they're fighting. And they are trying to field a military made out of the most expensive state of the art hardware in the universe. To steal an example from Tex, for the price of one 75 ton Timber Wolf / Mad Cat you can buy 3 80-ton Awesomes. And the Inner sphere can afford way more than just 3 Awesomes for every Mad Cat the the Clans can build. And they don't have to wait 9 months for resupply. They don't have to send messages back home by courier ship either and can take full advantage of Comstar's HPG network. So yeah, the clans invasion was a doomed to fail before it even started. All Tukkayid did was put a nice bow on it. Well, that and they were doomed to fail because the story demanded it. There's a reason the clan invasion era is so fondly remembered and it's not just nostalgia. It's the first sort of "balance pass" from the old original Succession wars designs which really swings the balance to be more offense oriented. The Truce at Tukkayid period is also one of the perfect eras from a gameplay perspective in that it creates a large stalemate situation with lots of interesting factions and forces locked in skirmishes which makes it very easy for players to run very interesting campaigns at all those conflict points. Everything is like a powder keg waiting to explode and there's lots of fodder there to create stories in all those borders.
@@KeiNova Best to get it for the games except MW5, as MW3 and 4 were more built for a Joystick in mind while MW5 does have a more refined control scheme that makes it better for mouse and keyboard since they figured not as many have joysticks anymore in the 2010/20s. Although if you do want to use a joystick for it, I'm not gonna stop you, as that certainly seems like a vibe I can get behind.
@@HawkTheRedI had an MS Sidewinder 2 and I just could never really get into it. I WOULD always go back to it once in a while, for the feel and lore-accuracy, but mouse was always superior for MW3-MW5. MW2, however, I always played with keyboard only lol. I could never get the mouse sensitivity to feel right, or something like that.
Although the titanium edition was "prettier" in general it has much shorter view distance and the thermal is actually worse than the original, I would actually recommend the non-titanium , I was a 95 win release fanboyo myself.
IIRC there was a decision tree that meant you either got the hovertank, or, you got in a light mech and had to escort the hovertank. But it kinda sucked too
oh i cant wait for you to try to explain the lore. If the setting was actually any good then you shouldn't need to be versed in it at all to understand
I explained a bit of it here, a bit at the start and more near the end when I talk about the story. It's going to take quite a bit for me to really get it all down pat. Though, I'm definitely up for the challenge.
Oh the setting is very good, it's just that the lore to Battletech is extremely expansive. It has grown over 4 decades and ranging from the tabletop to pen and paper rpg, dozens of novels and sourcebooks and can without a doubt challenge Warhammer 40K in this regard. If anyone is interested there are some extremely well researched, produced and narrated episodes about the general history, individual mechs and important persons by the Black Pants Legion here on TH-cam, really highly recommended.
Yeah, especially because they make them very entertaining while being highly informative and Tex has a great narrator voice. 😄By the way, keep up the good work! I have more of a Mechwarrior, Earthsiege and Heavy Gear background so I find it very interesting to see games like Gungriffon that flew under my radar. @@KeiNova
Extremely strange versions of the game you are playing. It actually looks quite worse than the version I played back in the late 90s. The Titanium version is by far the worst looking version out there (the MS Dos version, though lacking in textures is much more crisp, and has far fewer bugs)
The Titanium edition was almost exclusively built around Mercs and I did give the DOS version a go but it wasn't going to let me record it. That and on modern systems, with massive resolutions, it looks like visual diarrhea now. This isn't really a strange version, it's just the version a lot of people played because of the value of buying all three games at once.
Games like MW2 Mercs should be required playing for all mechwarrior fans and especially people who develop the new games. I'm actually playing MW5 Clans now - MW games today feel so watered down compared to a game like MW2 Mercs. Just as an example, when you start missions in the new games, it feels like the game holds your hand too much. You immediately have a pin put on to your map (go here, go there, go here, etc etc), laid out on relatively small maps. Seems like every mission is like that. In the older games, you actually had NAV points (A, B, C, D, etc) spread across a vast map and you often had very little info about what you'd be running into (not always, but often). Ultimately the games being made today feel more arcadey when they used to feel a lot more grounded and organic. Could just be me I don't know. I should be thankful games are still being made! But would love to see some remakes of these classics. I don't even know how to fire up MW2 Mercs anymore haha
mechwarrior 2 and mercenaries are the most prolific pc games of my life. more so mercenaries. playing on Dialup back then so much fun. i fondly remember my urban mech had jumpjets.. and alot of Streak inferno srm 2. ..and then the mauler with 14 machine guns... just waiting shut down around a corner for some sob in a timber wolf gets too close rattatatattatat.. boooom! thoes were the days when Balance had not yet been thought of.. lol
I really wish I could do that, I do know the original MW2 still has a small online community. I will have to give the mauler a shot, that sounds really fun.
Me, not a mecha fan at all: ah yes, this channel seems perfect. I should watch all his uploads
This is me. Not a Mecha fan really at all (I played BioWare’s Shattered Steel and that’s about it), but for some reason I’m watching all of this guy’s videos as they come out!
I'm glad you enjoy what I'm doing 😁
A huge compliment to me, thank you so much!
you a mecha fan alright, you just don't know it yet :p
Artist for Tex Talks Battletech here, first of all, glad to hear you getting deeper into the lore of this wonderful franchise!
We've been working hard to preserve it and keep it alive. Mechwarrior 2 Mercs is still a game I go back and play every year at least once or twice. I first started with MW2 and it sold me forever on this franchise back in '99. So I'm glad that folks are going back and checking out the game that got me invested.
Best hunting out there! And remember, speed is life, stillness is death, and always kill the meat, save the metal.
Huge honor! I hear about Tex Talks all the time and I've been watching so many videos on the channel. So, likely I've seen your work!
Thank you for checking the video out! Hopefully, a lot more to come about this and thank you for helping to preserve both games like this and the Battletech series.
@@KeiNova Of course! And more than likely lol. I'm the one to blame for the "Canopian Cat Girl" resurgence in the lore. Much to Many's chagrin. But I do it in good fun of the universe XD
This was the first game after FASA was sued by Harmony Gold, the owners of Robotech. To make a long story short, both companies used mecha designs from Macross which led to the lawsuit. After both sides settled, FASA removed a number of Mech designs from the game and they didn’t return until Catalyst re-drew the art in 2017 (Harmony Gold still sued again but lost this time). So no Warhammer, Rifleman, Marauder, and Battlemaster in this game (the Battlemaster is actually borrowed from a different anime but FASA took out every non-original art from the game to avoid further lawsuits).
They didn't just take out anything they licensed from other sources, they took out the art they hired Victor Musical Industries, Inc. to make for them too even though they had full rights to it. For anyoen curious Sarna has a listing of all the affect designs and where they were lircensed from.
The bogus Harmony Gold lawsuits were permanently dismissed with prejudice in 2018.
To be fair, the judge (AFAIK) never addressed whether FASA & others had a license but whether Harmony Gold had exclusive rights that enabled them to sue in the first place.
The Victor company redesigns, originally drawn for the Japanese port of Mechwarrior, became the "IIC" models when TRO3055 was released.
Great video again! Don't stress on knowing the story and lore, the best thing about it is that the games teach you as you go. You're doing a great job of it anyway!
As you play through the series you'll notice little story details tying them together, as it does progress through a consistent timeline.
The original Mechwarrior obviously comes first, set around 3025.
MW2 Mercs follows and introduces the Clan Invasion and the initial pushback (the closing cutscene features the Battle of Tukayyid, an event that ended the Invasion)
Mechcommander involves the beginning of the Inner Sphere counterattack against the Clans
Mechwarrior 3 focuses on an operation towards the end of the counterattack
And the following games continue on from there.
Very much looking forward to your Mechwarrior 3 experience. It's a flawed game that suffered from a rushed production, but all things considered it is IMO the best representation of what Mechwarrior/Battletech is all about.
It's a game that was made by people who genuinely cared for and were passionate about the product they were putting out. The presentation and voice acting is superb and extremely immersive - it really sells the whole thing for me.
Enjoy!
I certainly can't wait to get into it, I've been playing MW2 for three weeks now and certainly it'd be nice to see the next step. I found a way to get it working on modern systems too, so that's going to make for minimal hiccups in sound and whatnot.
@@KeiNova Not to mention - as you implied you already understand - it's unfortunate that while video games would seem to be the most prominent media of Battletech, they're....not canon. :( It's kind of crazy having gone through all these MechWarrior experiences and having all these memories, but they're all just imaginations, possibilities, unreliably told stories, or maybe just imagine them as legends/fiction/alternative universes. But if you're a lore person, it really ups the pressure to focus more on sourcebooks, novels, and of course, the TT game.
@@Sp3ctre18Gaming MW2's missions are from the Trial of Refusal. For example, you take part in the battle on Twycross that culminates in the death of Clan Wolf Khan Natasha Kerensky. MW3 and MechCommander take place during the Inner Sphere's invasion of the Clan home-worlds and ultimate annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar. And, as mentioned in the video, MW2 Mercs has you take part in the defense of Luthien. While you may not be playing as Phelan Ward or Jaime Wolf or other BT legend in these games, you're certainly getting a fair bit of canon.
Back in the day Mercenaries was really to hard for me with all it's management and money balancing tho I have to say nowadays those things would be the reason for me to play it again. I can't wait for your MechWarrior 3 and Pirate's Moon videos and your story analysis. In my opinion we can spend ten minutes plus with that alone!
I'll have to really try and get the most I can out of MW3 and try my best to do the story justice!
As someone who has played the MW2 series A LOT. I am confident to inform you that FPS (as in Frame Rate) causes all the issues you mentioned near the end of the video. Anything over 30fps will increasingly cause the AI, Scripting, Hit Detection, and Overheating to bug out. Same bugs happen in Interstate 76 which uses the same game engine. My solution back when I was playing these games heavily was to limit the games to one CPU and use a CPU cycle eater tool to slow it down. This is also an issue in MW3 as well. Especially with MW3 physics. I think MW3 may be able to handle up to 60fps? I'm not sure. Anyway, I remember seeing vehicles start bouncing like Flubber and eventually launch into space LOL! Hope this info helps and thanks for the videos.
I'm going to have to try this down the road, I used Windows 95 on a 86 Box setup (which is a lot to type the specifics of on my phone) so I'm not really one hundred percent sure if that was the issue - but it probably was. Older games were so temperamental like that.
Mercenaries was one of the games I had as a kid, in those olden days when you couldn't just download a game on steam, and you would save months of allowance for a new video game and hope to see something cool at Target when your mom took you there and you had money with you. I have huge nostalgia for it, so I have been looking forward to the review. Since it was such a big game of my childhood, I find it surprising I almost never hear about it in recent decades.
Clan Jenner IIC, all S-Lasers. Run in at max speed, alpha strike the knees at close range. You have run away before any of the other mechs could target you, so you were basically invincible. Turn around and run back in to do it again as soon as you cool down. I still remember the strategy 30 years later. God only knows how many important things my brain has forgotten in order to keep ahold of that.
That era of the final generation of DOS 3D games with software renderers was so exciting as a kid. Every game looked a bit different, and every new game you got a few months later seemed like a giant leap in technology.
Used to play this game all the time with my friend across the street when we were both 8-10ish. Loved it.
Sounds like an awesome childhood!
10:22 Starmate is clan terminology. In military organization, their smallest battlemech combat unit is a star of five battlemechs. The Inner Sphere's basic unit is a lance of four battlemechs. So, for MW2 :Mercs, the term would be "lancemate."
Thanks for the lore tidbit, I'll remember it when I play real battletech.
Every Mech's machine spirit was a product of the Omnissiah
Praise the Omnissiah!
Killing an opposing mech's pilot by shooting the cockpit incapacitates it and prevents the mech from exploding. The mech will disintegrate with further damage or even being run into by another mech (the AI doesn't seem to register them once incapacitated and will path right through them), but otherwise that's a good way to maximize part and whole mech salvage at the end of the mission - if you can keep them intact until then.
Incapacitating a mech by killing the pilot is much easier to do on mech with larger, more exposed cockpits like the Catapult, Jenner, Crab, etc.
Thanks for this, I was probably just hitting the cockpits here and there without realizing it. It just is really hard to be precise here, so I could never really fully tell.
I loved the salvage system. I bagged an Assasin once that showed on the display as just a red head. Naturally I tried to piliot what amounted to a smouldering chair in the next mission and I spawed but I couldn't move or do anything 😂
Few things.
1. Image enhancement is a clan thing at this time, and requires those green facial tattoos you see in the cartoon.
2. The inconsistent results youre seeing in attacks is directly based on critical hits. If you strip off the armor and happen to hit an area that has ammo stored there, you get fireworks.
3. I really think you're going to like MW3, even though it's a smaller scale game. Personally, I'd try to track down a twisting joystick to really get a prime MW3 and 4 experience.
Keep em coming!
Watching you learn about Battletech makes your videos a great entry point for newcomers. I'm mostly here for a history lesson about dated graphics and game design tropes, but through your passion for the franchise, you make a great case for the graphics and design still being relevant today.
Thank you, I try and make this more of an exploration rather than just taking a head role. This way everyone can be along for the ride with me. Though certainly expect some talk about outdated design tropes as I go along - I'm sometimes a bit direct about those.
@@KeiNova I wouldn't be here otherwise.
PC gaming is one of the few mysteries still remaining to me from this time period. And since mechs are the most polygon budget friendly humanoid forms around, this genre and this franchise seem helpful as a kind of base measuring stick/timeline? Your descriptions of they actually feel to play helped me understand the evolution of other games too, like Armored Core.
Also loved the soundtrack on this game, though it was quite different from the original MW2. The voice acting was great in this one. I still quote Deadeye from time to time. "Now, whatever you do, don't get killed. I HATE it when my guys get killed."
The voice acting was really great, I should have mentioned it. I just wish there was more overall.
Man, that takes me back. MW2 & GBL I played a lot, and MW2 had a lot of lore in the game, but MW2 Mercs really drew me into the Battletech novels. I read a lot of stuff around the Clan Invasion era.
However, there were 2 "discoveries" that made this game a lot easier, when combined.
First, I really loved the MW2 soundtrack and the CD I had of that all the audio tracks were from track 2 onwards, so you actually could play the BGM in a CD player. MW2 Mercs followed this so once the game had started up (I do not recall if i had to use a no-cd patch, but I doubt it) I used to put other CDs in the drive for their music. MW2 and Garbage were 2 of my more persistent choices
Secondly, and I discovered this completely by accident, if you ejected the CD mid mission (because your legs were near a computer tower that was under your desk) the game would automatically give you the results from the prior mission (successful or not) which was a great way to increase the number of mechs you had, if, for example, you ended up with a huge payout or a Atlas, you could simply repeat that as often as you liked but starting a new contract, eject the CD and repeat the results.
I don't think that later versions of the game replicated this, but i only ever played the original (not Titanium) version, but someone else my know better
Thanks for the nostalgia!
You are welcome! I love the soundtrack too, thats why I used it for my videos :D Thats the one benefit of it never been legally copyrighted (to save cost, probably).
I am glad I didn't discover that exploit, I might not have had any footage - just me skipping through to see the ending. Just kidding, I slaved through this whole thing! I didn't even know there were cheats until after I was done. I have to say, probably one of the most brutal experiences ever.
This was my first one. It absolutely set the bar. Oh, and that music? I still listen to it
Why not? Its fantastic
This was the first game that got me into the Mechwarrior Life. Sure was complex at first but got use to it eventually. This how I got other Battle Mech games like MW3 and MW4 games. Though I was done as one....that is until MW5 Mercenaries.
I'm trying that new, and hopefully MW5 Clans. I'm really hoping that it isn't as bad as everyone tells me lol
@@KeiNova oh trust me MW5 mercenaries is one awesome game
Disclaimer this is based on the DOS version that came with my Thrustmaster joystick so it may not work with the titanium or other windows releases. Take out one of the legs then when the mech is on the ground shot the cockpit very carefully (assuming it lands back down) and you can usually salvage the entire mech mostly undamaged except for the leg and minor repairs to the part of the mech containing the cockpit. I usually did this in a crab because of speed and its low height armed with a mix of beam lasers by circling the enemy mech at close range while turning my torso (set not to auto center) and using beam lasers to shot a leg on one side though you will probably hit both. An additional hint if you put as many as possible heat sinks in the legs and walk into water those heat sinks work a lot better while your legs are in the water.
I have no idea how many modifications I made to the Flashman which was my character's main ride in my last Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries run because something had been blown off the last time I went out. I usually end up running a modded Flashman, Catapult, Quickdraw or a much more extensively modded Orion in my Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries runs.
I remember back when I first played this wondering how the hell I was working for the Combine during the Death to Mercenaries period of Combine policy. Short version a Combine official tried to screw the most powerful Mercenary force in the Inner Sphere while they were under contract to the Combine. This led to a small war just before the Fourth Succession War broke out and the leader of the Combine ordered the execution of all Mercenaries with many Mercenary groups employed by the Combine either fleeing or being caught and executed.
Some Corporations in the Combine still employed Mercenaries though and your Combine contracts come from one of those used as a front by the future ruler of the Combine who disagrees with the policy.
18:00 - Yeah there's a lore based reason why they took it away. (And yes it sucks to not have it.) Enhanced Imaging is clan technology so none of the Inner Sphere mechs have it. It's a VR heads up display in the neurohelmet that most clan mechs have. Some clans actually get implants for it which removes the need for neurohelmets entirely but it's got a lot of nasty side effects an you're subject to worse feedback damage effects from mech damage. Sarna's got an article on it. I think the way it looks is taken right out of the Battletech Cartoon too. Either that or they're both drawing from the same source material for how enhanced imaging looks.
Ah, I thought there was a reason like that. It seems like there is a lot of meticulous design choices in these games that really stick as close as possible to the lore. The more I play them, the more I see they were made by actual players and fans of the series. I can't wait to see how MW3 fares. I haven't ever played anything after Mercenaries at this point.
I haven't played this game in probably 20 years, but back in the day, I used to go for leg shots to maximize salvage. I have no idea if that was actually effective, but it felt like it at the time.
Sadly it doesn't, not in this version. I was blowing off the legs of everything, and it didn't count as the Mech being destroyed unless I blew both legs off. Maybe it's because this has the dynamic system?
@@KeiNova I remember going after legs too. You do have to get both of the legs to destroy the mech. But legs are easier to replace than everything else in the torso and legs usually don't have anything in them other than heat sinks (To take advantage of water.) And hitting two legs is lot easier than hitting the head.
All these Mechwarrior games as far as I know go that route of both legs destroying a mech rather than having to simulate mechs falling down or going prone, which is a thing in table top. I know why they do it because the juice probably isn't worth the squeeze but it does always feel weird to have mechs outright destroyed when they lose both legs instead of just being crippled. On the plus side losing a single leg is not as debilitating in this series of games.
IIRC In tabletop if you blow off a mechs' leg it instantly falls down and you have to make piloting checks to get back up. Blow off both legs and it can't get up period but it can still fire from prone by using one of it's arms to hod itself up and firing with the weapons from the other arm and torso. They're still basically dead though since they're absurdly easy to hit and most pilots would eject at that point anyway they're doing very well in the battle otherwise.
I wish I had seen this video a couple months ago. Humble Bundle had a bundle of like 95% of the Battletech/MechWarrior books for like $30. From Decision at Thunder Rift through to some of the newest books leading into the ilClan era.
I saw that deal too; I never took advantage of it though. I barely have time to read these days, so 40 plus books is a bit much lol
You are putting out good videos at a rapid pace.
Thank you! It hasn't been too easy though, a lot of work and late nights.
i grew up on mech 2 31st and mercs 3dfx voodoo edition on the voodoo2 card back in the day lol
That had to be amazing to see when everyone else was playing the DOS versions!
YEA! you get to do the best one next. It was the most underrated/marketed, but stories were good.
MechWarrior 3? Definitely this coming Saturday!
The atmosphere of mw3 is so good. Definitely underrated. The cockpit and sounds and details like missiles causing craters in the ground, or cockpit hits cracking the glass, shoot even the newer games don’t have that stuff
The Atlus. Geez that thing was sweet
Would you believe this game is my first experience with it? 😂
Image Enhancement was not finished in time to release with the game. There is a way to edit a file to bring it back, but laser beams don't show up in it. There was some discussion that IE needed the special metallic scalp tatoos like some clanners have but I don't think thats correct.
The basic premise of the Battletech universe has some similarites to WH40k in that technological and societal decline is a major backdrop.
The game first dealt with the early 3000s era - the inner sphere has has several devastating Sucession wars where the massacre of whole planets and indescriminate use of nuclear weapons has been normal. Being conventionally bombed back into pre-space flight technical levels was commonplace. Feudal houses fight over territory and resources. The "neutral" interstellar communications company plays them off against each other and will commit to genocide in pursuit of its own goals. The ability to replicate the technology behind FTL travel has been all but lost - Jump Ships are a dwindling and priceless resource.
Mercenaries starts in 3043 and some very slow steps are being made in rediscoving lost technology and two large factions have just come together as one vast house.
Wire frame is enhanced imaging which is clan tech. Which is I admit weird considering you end up with a clan mech at some point & can't use it.
I didn't think of that, thank you.
Great new video! I love this game, I don't know how you don't have more views. 😢 TH-cam never shows the right things to ppl
It is what it is, I suppose!
Sweet. More battletech. Always a good day when you upload
Wow, really appreciate that!
This looks like a might fine mech game, the scope of how to spend your funds and mix up your mechs equipment looks like a lot of fun! Not sure i'd ever jump to deep into the lore, like warhammer, the amount of lore that seems to be there scares me!
I'll agree there! The lore is outstanding and requires literally several novels to be read to even get what is happening at some points. It can be played without, but yeah... that is the biggest flaw of every MW game aside from MW3.
Liked this. Played this game when it was new. Loved it.
Replayed this game a couple years ago, absolute perfection.
I play the dos version, but it is similar to this.
I can get good frame rates on my potato laptop.
Seriously love this game.
Is something like PCEm or 86Box out of the realm of running on your system? It doesn't take much; you could emulate Windows and be playing a 'slightly' better version. But really, the DOS one is ok.
@@KeiNova Actually, I can never seem to get a useful amount of performance out of directx when using emulators.
I am more familiar with DOSbox.
That, and my favorite abandonware site has pre packaged the DOS version.
So there's that.
Years ago, when it was new, I played the windows version.
I lent my MW2: Mercenaries to a friend, never saw it again.
Ah, that is horrible! I'm so sorry!
Track them down and challenge them to a Trial of Possession!
I love watching your descent into Battletech. Book wise I would recommend reading the warrior trilogy first, it’s better written then the gray death legion books.
I'll look it up. As I was reading Decision at Thunder Rift - I realized that certain sentences in the kindle version I have were missing? So, guess I'll have to look into this and see about going from there.
You mentioned Decision at Thunder Rift. I know the Grey Death Saga is the "beginning" of the Battletech novels, but Michael Stackpole's Warrior trilogy is a _much_ better introduction. Beyond that, it's actually genuinely a good read. The characters are far deeper, with much better motivations. Stackpole is a veteran of writing for various expanded universes, but his books are always _far_ better than the norm. He's an excellent writer who is frankly wasted on doing licensed fanfic.
I just got Decision at Thunder Rift based on a suggestion. It's been a good read so far. But you aren't the only person to tell me the Warrior Trilogy is great. I'll have to try and grab it, because I am liking Decision at Thunder Rift - and if the Warrior trilogy is better, that can only be a good thing.
@@KeiNova The Grey Death legion books have good mech action, but the writing in general is everything you expect of 80s military sci-fi. Particularly when it comes to the few female characters. What the Grey Death Legion series does well is the on-the-ground action.
The Warrior trilogy does all that, too, except the characters are far better rounded, and you get a solid taste of the aristocracy and the space opera elements. I think it's a much better example of the Battletech universe. It did kind of spoil me, though, because the next series I started reading wasn't by Stackpole, and it really wasn't anywhere near as good.
Great Video! I also saw that you posted one for MW3 but then it went private?
It had a few editing mistakes, I'm reuploading it right now. Sorry!
So glad I found your channel, got a sub. You seem to be an old school player...
Any chance when the internet was wayy younger. Did you happen to be on the Battletech 3056 MUSE?
Sadly, no. I didn't get a PC or PlayStation until my school gave it to me in grade 4, and I didn't even know what Battletech was at the time. I'm 35 and I think the muse one came out when I was 4-6 years old. That would have been awesome though!
@@KeiNova Wow, thanks for the reply :) Very cool. Yeah I"m old lol. My best friend and I came in early in the tenure and ended up running into the guy playing Haak Magnusson and were helping him run the FRR potion.
Glad I found your channel! Heres a sub😁 I cant think of any other channel doing a step-by step overview of each MW games f.ex. I gave up on getting MW3 to work on Win3. Got hooked on MW4 due to game magazine pics😂 I had to settle with a demo for Mech Commander instead, until 2004 when someone lets say...shared MW4mercs. Blown away! I also had big regreta not picking up Mech Commander 2 from a video game/ film renting store😔 I didnt had enough money as a kiddo. Cant waith for Mw5 DLC leading to Mw5Clans👏
I'm glad you are part of this little channel of mine. Thanks for the sub! On Windows 3.1??? Holy, I can't even imagine. It can't even pull off the right amount of colors, I don't think. Well, I'll be working through all of them and then the spin off stuff. I just had a huge issue with Pirates Moon and now I have to put that off a week. Then finally MW4, so I hope it's as good as everyone says!
Check out "examined life of gaming". That's hop. He does tfbtv content now
Welp, on the 31CC video I said how the graphics really put me off Mercs, but maybe I should try the Titanium edition. I heard about all the bugs so I didn't know they were less of a concern in Mercs. The graphics look a lot more natural and not as distracting and messy as what I had played. What little you showed of night/dark missions also seemed a lot more playable than the near-blind experiences I had. @.@
It's been a good ride watching your exploration of MW1 to 2! On to 3 and beyond!
I think it's mainly because my playthrough didn't give me many Light/Dark missions honestly. I only played like two, total. I'd definitely suggest the Titanium version of Mercs! It makes the game much better, but the glitches do still happen with Clan Mechs. Still have to suffer the amber hue of thermograph though, ugh.
Thanks for watching so much of my videos! I'm going through Pirates Moon too, just finished MW3. So, here is hoping that video is good (if not better).
@@KeiNovaYeah I think that's part of my super-dark memories - I tried to avoid the thermal view lol.
In my first playthrough I also didn't think much about missions I might have been missing, so that was an important detail I picked up from your review and reason to try it again!
And no, thank you. It's always a treat seeing people discover or re-discover MechWarrior!
Good luck with PM! Steps up a bit in difficulty, huh?
@@Sp3ctre18Gaming it definitely does. Everything is way faster.
Now that these titles are abandonware, I’d love to see what modders can do to fix, polish and add content too. Mechwarrior 2 Mercs could use some classic unseen mechs in them! I just wish I knew how to code like how I know painting miniatures.
I really wish it was more possible. Because of the multiple versions and how the game was developed, its a strange piece of software - all of them are. Many have told me its really difficult to put anything into the game, probably because of it being developed long ago on multiple frameworks and with GLIDE files that aren't able to be used anywhere, because they were automatically overridden with further versions - and the changes caused a lot of these games to be unusable in some ways. Its odd, and interesting. It'd be really cool though, if it could be broken and others could work on HD mods and whatnot.
You might want to look into Mechwarrior 5 Mercs. There is a big modding scene for this title.
Oh, I didn't know Stackpole did some BattleTech books. I just knew he did the Star Wars X-Wing books, which I enjoyed.
I didn't even know they made X-Wing books, I'll have to give those a look. Thanks!
Lethal heritage is one of the best battletech novels imo. Highly recommend.
2751. Star League ends when Stefan Amaris conducted a coup that got rid of the Cameron family. After General Kerensy defeated Amaris, he tried to reunify the Inner Sphere to rebuild the Star League but it did not work. So he took most of the SLDF Star League Defense Force and exiled themselves, taking bllueprints of advanced tech, away from known universe, away from Inner Sphere. 4 succession wars started during the next 300 years. Technology was lost in what is called Lostech. This is why Inner Sphere tech is inferior.
3050. Descendants of the exiled SLDF had formed clan societies. They invaded the Inner Sphere in what is called Clan Invasion.
3052. Clans almost conquered Luthien, the capital of Draconis Combine. Comstar convinced clans to use planet Tukkayid as a proxy battlefield. If clans conquered the planet, Terra will be theirs. If Comstar wins, clan invasion would be delayed more than 10 years. Terrain was treacherous, and Comstar forces played dirty in the battle of Tukkayid.
Thank you so much for sharing. It's really impressive how much lore there is!
@KeiNova there is an insane amount of Lore for the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. Tons of books, tons of supplemental material for the tabletop game as well. It's a good time 😁 I remember playing MW2 on a Gateway 3000 with my dad's flight stick with pedals and being absolutely entranced from the get go.
Despite a 300 year head start in technology, I'd say the Inner Spere probably would have won. You get really good at warfare when you practice it on your neighbors for 300 years.
I'm assuming we'll find out soon or later with either MW5 Clans or MW6 Clans.
Either way, I'm looking forward to throwing the Clans a beating, taking their mechs and tech, and perverting it to amuse myself.
Lol, Comstar didn't play dirty, they played normal combined arms as defined by the Ares Conventions. All those years of ritualistic combat made everyone outside of hell's horses forget what a tank was an all of them forgot that artillery exists.
It's covered a lot in the source books and fiction but the fatal problem with the Clans is they spent their almost 300 years of training of away from the inner sphere not practicing how to wage war butt how to win ritualistic skirmishes. Yes, they managed to not lose tech this way but the force they created was ill suited to fight an actual war. In clan battles you generally show up with both forces at the bargained time and place, usually with mechs, you have brief skirmish, collect your spoils, then you pull back and go home and rest up and rearm and get ready to do it again.
When the clans invaded the Inner Sphere any and all supplies would take at best 9 months to get there. That's about 6 times longer that it took sailing ships during the colonial era to go from the UK to America. And the Clans were not operating under ideal conditions as they were fighting with each other during the invasion and more than one clan destroyed their merchant caste supply chains in the name of glory for the warrior caste. When illKahn Leo Showers leading the invasion was killed by Tyra Miraborg's kamikaze attack in her Shilone aerospace fither over Radstadt in 3050 the entire clan invasion had to stop for an entire year so so the kahns could all go back to Strana Mechty to pick a new illKahn. That is absolutely bonkers.
That kind of bad decision making permeates everything the clans do in this era. They have top of the line gear, some of the most sklled warriors, but their tactics are tied into Zellbrigen, resupply is the better part year away so logistics is hell, but the real killer is after all that the industrial base that is making those supplies. It's *much* smaller than the Inner Sphere forces they're fighting. And they are trying to field a military made out of the most expensive state of the art hardware in the universe. To steal an example from Tex, for the price of one 75 ton Timber Wolf / Mad Cat you can buy 3 80-ton Awesomes. And the Inner sphere can afford way more than just 3 Awesomes for every Mad Cat the the Clans can build. And they don't have to wait 9 months for resupply. They don't have to send messages back home by courier ship either and can take full advantage of Comstar's HPG network.
So yeah, the clans invasion was a doomed to fail before it even started. All Tukkayid did was put a nice bow on it.
Well, that and they were doomed to fail because the story demanded it. There's a reason the clan invasion era is so fondly remembered and it's not just nostalgia. It's the first sort of "balance pass" from the old original Succession wars designs which really swings the balance to be more offense oriented. The Truce at Tukkayid period is also one of the perfect eras from a gameplay perspective in that it creates a large stalemate situation with lots of interesting factions and forces locked in skirmishes which makes it very easy for players to run very interesting campaigns at all those conflict points. Everything is like a powder keg waiting to explode and there's lots of fodder there to create stories in all those borders.
@@Furluge War is a game of deception. Playing dirty is the rule. Clans believed it was the Olympics.
Curious if you're going through all the Battletech games? would be interesting when you get to Mechwarrior 5 I'm guessing 2 months down the line
I am going through all of them, every single one hopefully. I'm hoping to get a Joystick by the time I get to MW5.
@@KeiNova Best to get it for the games except MW5, as MW3 and 4 were more built for a Joystick in mind while MW5 does have a more refined control scheme that makes it better for mouse and keyboard since they figured not as many have joysticks anymore in the 2010/20s.
Although if you do want to use a joystick for it, I'm not gonna stop you, as that certainly seems like a vibe I can get behind.
@@HawkTheRedI had an MS Sidewinder 2 and I just could never really get into it. I WOULD always go back to it once in a while, for the feel and lore-accuracy, but mouse was always superior for MW3-MW5.
MW2, however, I always played with keyboard only lol. I could never get the mouse sensitivity to feel right, or something like that.
when you play all the mercenaries games i want to see a comparison and which one did it the best
All the Mercenaries games or the MechWarrior ones? Like a tier list? That would be interesting 🤔
Although the titanium edition was "prettier" in general it has much shorter view distance and the thermal is actually worse than the original, I would actually recommend the non-titanium , I was a 95 win release fanboyo myself.
95 was good, but this was Mercs and not released until years later.
@@KeiNova Sorry meant a 95 mercs edition player.
@@Jerad2142 You mean the DOS version, right? Mercs wasn't released in 1995.
@@KeiNova Mercs was released September 25, 1996, my 1.05 CD is labeled MS-DOS/Windows 95.
@@Jerad2142 Oh, I'm stupid. You meant 'Windows 95' version. My bad!
what is that cut scene from at 2:11 ?
A MWO Trailer!
I see you were a PPC spamming man of culture.
Indeed sir, I am
always steal the Kodiak
Always.
Speaking of Acitivision milking the MechWarrior 2 license and game engine: are you going to do a review for Heavy Gear at some point?
Yes, I'm trying to find a way to get it going now. It seems to lock when I start it.
They should remake mw2, mc1 and mc2
They should, at least, re-release it remastered on PC for those who enjoy it.
The pronunciation of Jagwire is going to drive me insane, this should help: th-cam.com/video/9dNGvPlZdxM/w-d-xo.html
I have a missing front tooth and I speak several languages, sorry.
I always wondered why MechWarrior mercenaries looked worst than MechWarrior 2 despite being released later. Now I know that I bought the DOS version 😢
Yeah, they play the same but there are a bunch of graphical differences! Interesting but likely really bad for consumers in 1995-1998.
Man, I played this game like... twenty-five years ago or some nonsense? ...I STILL hate that hovertank mission.
It really was the worst, wasn't it?
IIRC there was a decision tree that meant you either got the hovertank, or, you got in a light mech and had to escort the hovertank. But it kinda sucked too
The Mechwarrior series has spoiled me, any mech game that doesn't have a mechlab's worth of customization is worse now because of it.
oh i cant wait for you to try to explain the lore. If the setting was actually any good then you shouldn't need to be versed in it at all to understand
I explained a bit of it here, a bit at the start and more near the end when I talk about the story. It's going to take quite a bit for me to really get it all down pat. Though, I'm definitely up for the challenge.
Oh the setting is very good, it's just that the lore to Battletech is extremely expansive. It has grown over 4 decades and ranging from the tabletop to pen and paper rpg, dozens of novels and sourcebooks and can without a doubt challenge Warhammer 40K in this regard. If anyone is interested there are some extremely well researched, produced and narrated episodes about the general history, individual mechs and important persons by the Black Pants Legion here on TH-cam, really highly recommended.
@@wolfmanjackxl1691 have to agree, I highly suggest them
Yeah, especially because they make them very entertaining while being highly informative and Tex has a great narrator voice. 😄By the way, keep up the good work! I have more of a Mechwarrior, Earthsiege and Heavy Gear background so I find it very interesting to see games like Gungriffon that flew under my radar. @@KeiNova
Liked the game, didn't care about the lore. The bloodthirsty elements actually offended me, I hate having to play on the evil side.
I understand that, totally!
based king
keep it up
I certainly plan on it.
Extremely strange versions of the game you are playing. It actually looks quite worse than the version I played back in the late 90s. The Titanium version is by far the worst looking version out there (the MS Dos version, though lacking in textures is much more crisp, and has far fewer bugs)
The Titanium edition was almost exclusively built around Mercs and I did give the DOS version a go but it wasn't going to let me record it. That and on modern systems, with massive resolutions, it looks like visual diarrhea now. This isn't really a strange version, it's just the version a lot of people played because of the value of buying all three games at once.
it is sad how story telling and lore is lost in newer mechwarrior games. it is so detached from the mechwarrior universe.
Games like MW2 Mercs should be required playing for all mechwarrior fans and especially people who develop the new games. I'm actually playing MW5 Clans now - MW games today feel so watered down compared to a game like MW2 Mercs. Just as an example, when you start missions in the new games, it feels like the game holds your hand too much. You immediately have a pin put on to your map (go here, go there, go here, etc etc), laid out on relatively small maps. Seems like every mission is like that. In the older games, you actually had NAV points (A, B, C, D, etc) spread across a vast map and you often had very little info about what you'd be running into (not always, but often). Ultimately the games being made today feel more arcadey when they used to feel a lot more grounded and organic. Could just be me I don't know. I should be thankful games are still being made! But would love to see some remakes of these classics. I don't even know how to fire up MW2 Mercs anymore haha
mechwarrior 2 and mercenaries are the most prolific pc games of my life. more so mercenaries. playing on Dialup back then so much fun. i fondly remember my urban mech had jumpjets.. and alot of Streak inferno srm 2. ..and then the mauler with 14 machine guns... just waiting shut down around a corner for some sob in a timber wolf gets too close rattatatattatat.. boooom! thoes were the days when Balance had not yet been thought of.. lol
I really wish I could do that, I do know the original MW2 still has a small online community. I will have to give the mauler a shot, that sounds really fun.