Out of all the gameplays I've seen of the Mechwarrior 4 Trilogy you have the best sense of combat; for God's sake you actually use different weapon groups than just one and make varying loadouts for mechs. It's just so nice to finally see someone who has a decent grasp of the mechlab putting gameplay up.
@@williammurphy5303 A few of the characters you meet are from the previous game, where you played as Ian Dresari. Elise Rathburn was your tactical officer.
Thanks! Discovered this trick by "accident" when I almost had enough with that mission. It was almost impossible with broken lancemates at that difficulty.
@@Chanwsan dude I played this game till my eyes bled and arthritis set in my fingers and I never figured out how to make them repair! 😂😂😂😂😂. I SALUTE YOU! 🫡
The Black Knight campaign appears to be only partially consistent with canon. The Federated Commonwealth Civil War sourcebook notes that Ian spent Wave Two and Wave Three of the Civil War tracking down Katrina-loyalists and fighting off attacks on Kentares IV. The MechWarrior Dark Age pilot cards include Victor Dresari, the eldest son and heir apparent of Duke Aidan Dresari of Kentares IV circa 3130, indicating that a Dresari (possibly Ian) survived and passed control of Kentares IV to his/her descendants despite the best efforts of the Black Knight Legion. (While William is dead, Joanna was only depicted as dead in an alternate ending (B) of an apocryphal game, and the apocryphal expansion of this ending, making her a possible ancestor to Aidan Dresari. Still, Joanna's existence itself is apocryphal, while Ian's is canonical and certain. Moreover, as the eldest direct descendant of Duke Eric Dresari, Duke Ian is more likely to be Duke Aidan's ancestor. Joanna's possible branch would then be parallel. Still, a full genealogical tree of House Dresari not being available, fans are left to interpret Aidan's lineage in any canonically consistent way they wish). Ian's arrest of political dissidents and suppression of KFA rebels is consistent with "tracking down Katrina-loyalists" and his forces' battles against the Black Knight Legion is consistent with "fighting off attacks on Kentares IV." Operations 1, 2, and 5 of this game are consistent with canon, but the game diverges by winning against Dresari's forces in Operations 3 and 4. A story branch that does not violate canon would have the Legion withdrawing after the betrayal and exacting vengeance on Major Dupres on Voltrat 3 without toppling Ian's rule.
Excellent I was actually curious about this as I was a huge fan of Vengeance when it came out (Yes I also saved Johanna, of course I replayed and and didn't the second time to see the alternate ending but I mean come on lol) but never got around to playing Black Knight until now after finally getting it to run again but was not all that happy to see them "Beat" Ian (After skimming through some literature before starting the campaign) which would have made that whole heartfelt campaign from Vengeance a waste of time. so yes thank you very much for filling in the gaps as I cannot believe Black Knight would ever be able to take out Ian and his bunch. Mercenaries fight for money but when fighting with your heart, there is no winning against that.. at least in fiction. ;) care to share where you read this lore? would love to read it further myself.
As it turns out later in the established lore it came out that him being evil was really just propaganda to smear his image especially after being associated with the rebels who didn't really care about collateral damage, it was easy to make him out to be the bad guy politically to justify killing him and establishing someone else as ruler in his place. It's ambiguous if he chose to raid the armory or save his sister because Ian could very well be helping his sister out militarily, after all his goal was to keep on fighting so it makes sense he would come back to his homeworld to help his sister, or it could be him just personally dealing with the ones who are trying to kill him and take the moral high ground after making a bad call and raided the armory instead of saving his sister
I am thankful that due to other bits of Battletech lore which take place during and after the timeline of this game that Ian Dresari actually did not go corrupt, and that it was a smear campaign. He hunted down Katrina loyalists while passing the throne to one of the more competent members of his family, because he wasn't done seeking revenge for what the Archon did to the Dresari name.
Thanks! Yeah I definitely poured much more effort into making this video possible compared to the other MW4 games. So many restarts and deaths had to be edited out! 😂😂
Did you genuinely enjoy assassinating Ian Dresari after having spent the entire previous game fighting for him? I did not like that this game attempted to make me turn my coat on characters that I grow attached to in the previous game and moreover it is not even canon since in the canon, House Steiner indeed hired the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari to take control of his planet however Ian Dresari actually defeated the Black Knight Legion and House Steiner and won the war. 😉
MechWarrior 4: Black Knight is actually only partially cannon because the game makes you continue to fight against Ian Dresari even after House Steiner betrayed you which doesn't make sense because they were your customer and you can't possibly expect them to still pay you for your mercenary contract after they attempted to kill you therefore as a mercenary, you have no reason to continue your contract to fight against Ian Dresari since this contract was broken by your customer back-stabbing you which is why this game is not only non-canon but also illogical as House Steiner hiring the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari is canon but in BattleTech's lore official canon, Ian Dresari actually defeated House Steiner's mercenaries and the Dresari royal dynasty continued for generations after they defeated House Steiner' attempt to topple them, so this game here is actually only partially canon about House Steiner hiring the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari whereas Ian leaving his sister to die then being assassinated by mercenaries is not-canon as he canonically defeated the mercenaries and House Steiner, which is why I boycotted this game because it didn't respect the canon and I didn't fight for the Dresari family in MechWarrior 4 only to kill them in the next game, no thanks. 😉 MechWarrior 4: Black Knight is for players who want to play the bad guys which is why it is the sequel to MechWarrior 4 only for players who chose to sacrifice Joanna implying evil players only, and for players who chose to save Joanna, then Black Knight never happened, it's as simple as that. 😉
4:08:07 HOW THE HELL I WAS SUPPOSE TO KNOW I COULD TO FIX THE MECH THERE!! Thx you my friend, I saw that missions because I did not know how to pass it.
Awesome video, my man. Gonna try and figure out how to get the games working on my PC tonight. It'll probably be a helluva fight but I'm determined to play the old Mech 4 Vengence and Black Knight games.
Okay, but the Casey fight. Good lord, having to essentially camp the healing stations because he has laser accuracy with everything. Compelling gameplay, Cyberlore and MicroFasa-of-the-time. /s Still, thank you for showing the game off so comprehensively! It's funny, but BK does feel like a more compelling narrative than the original just because of how it unfurls the personal-seeming stakes. You're cruising along, and then you get smashed in the groin by your own employer in perfectly mercenary fashion. Vengeance definitely struggled to really reinforce the stakes in gameplay as opposed to FMV, and BK practically inverts that with no actual cutscenes but the gameplay-reinforced narrative is great. Poor Mandril...
You know what would be an absolutely awesome challenge? Beat Dupree while piloting the Black Knight. Yes, I know, you're piloting a Heavy against multiple Assault mechs, but that's what makes it a challenge.
Black Knight was very overpowered in Mw4, but its a bit of a one trick pony with its best usage being either large pulse lasers, not good until mercs, or erppcs, which were also somewhat lackluster until mw4 mercs.
haha, well it was on Veteran. This on Elite and MW2 Ghost Bear are the hardest in highest difficulty. Won it again yesterday. God damn i hate your builds but love the gameplay. 4:36:00 if you repair a lancemate in one of those silver bays, he won't come out unless you destroy the bay with them inside and then push your lancemate away from the ruble. You had only two lancemates following you.
That would be the tool called dgVoodoo2. Check the video link in description. He has a timestamp to where he starts setting that tool up. I never had capability to run higher resolutions and thus never tried, but I guess it would allow you to set those resolutions if your hardware can support them.
I played this (and MW4:V) using the Logitech E3DP, so the aim accuracy is only limited by the degradation of low quality potentiometers used in that piece of toy. I did struggle a bit when I first switched to mouse & k/b in Mercenaries because of the different sensitivities on each axis. Just had to get used to it..
Mechs in MW4 campaign are generally tanky. Instead of spamming missile damage and drag on, bringing big guns to straight coring them out is much more efficient. Just my 2 cents
that they go with the you cut your sister loose route , is such an arsehole move, you spend all game mentioning famaily more than fast n furious, yet they go with the you let her die end? really makes playing V a pointless endevour to be honest, like it just doesn't seem like a thing he'd do. just a troll at the player is how it felt, a shitty troll
jen and gonzales both??? thought gonzales would've canonically been wiped out tryna help out the evac team, kinda expected jen to just walk away along with the techbro
![[Longplay, No Commentary] Total Annihilation (PC, 1997) 1080p Hard CORE Campaign Play-through](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dSbHGOPOajI/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Longplay, No Commentary] Total Annihilation (PC, 1997) 1080p Hard CORE Campaign Play-through](/img/tr.png)
![[Longplay, No Commentary] Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency (PC, 1998) Hard ARM Campaign](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bHw2eBGU-JQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Longplay, No Commentary] MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (PC, 2002) 1080p Davion Play-through Part 1/2](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/u6BFT1Xa-Lk/mqdefault.jpg)
Out of all the gameplays I've seen of the Mechwarrior 4 Trilogy you have the best sense of combat; for God's sake you actually use different weapon groups than just one and make varying loadouts for mechs. It's just so nice to finally see someone who has a decent grasp of the mechlab putting gameplay up.
Thanks :)
I see the game would be quite mundane to just go in guns blazing with a single meta build
Variety is the spice of life
And he uses the first person perspective, while most of other gameplayers do only the third one.
Piloting still awful though.
5:02:16 - Hearing Elise Rathburn’s voice saying “Omega Lead requires assistance” makes me sad.
Is it a nostalgic sadness, or a sadness of what happened in the story, which I don't really understand...?
@@williammurphy5303 A few of the characters you meet are from the previous game, where you played as Ian Dresari. Elise Rathburn was your tactical officer.
It never occurred to me using the shutdown order to repair a lancemate in those standing repair platforms. Your uploads of the saga are great
Thanks! Discovered this trick by "accident" when I almost had enough with that mission. It was almost impossible with broken lancemates at that difficulty.
@@Chanwsan dude I played this game till my eyes bled and arthritis set in my fingers and I never figured out how to make them repair! 😂😂😂😂😂. I SALUTE YOU! 🫡
Remember all those characters you fought alongside, and grew on you in the previous game. Kill them. Kill them all. Lovely game
Which is precisely why I boycotted this game especially since it doesn't even respect the canon. 😉
The Black Knight campaign appears to be only partially consistent with canon. The Federated Commonwealth Civil War sourcebook notes that Ian spent Wave Two and Wave Three of the Civil War tracking down Katrina-loyalists and fighting off attacks on Kentares IV. The MechWarrior Dark Age pilot cards include Victor Dresari, the eldest son and heir apparent of Duke Aidan Dresari of Kentares IV circa 3130, indicating that a Dresari (possibly Ian) survived and passed control of Kentares IV to his/her descendants despite the best efforts of the Black Knight Legion. (While William is dead, Joanna was only depicted as dead in an alternate ending (B) of an apocryphal game, and the apocryphal expansion of this ending, making her a possible ancestor to Aidan Dresari. Still, Joanna's existence itself is apocryphal, while Ian's is canonical and certain. Moreover, as the eldest direct descendant of Duke Eric Dresari, Duke Ian is more likely to be Duke Aidan's ancestor. Joanna's possible branch would then be parallel. Still, a full genealogical tree of House Dresari not being available, fans are left to interpret Aidan's lineage in any canonically consistent way they wish).
Ian's arrest of political dissidents and suppression of KFA rebels is consistent with "tracking down Katrina-loyalists" and his forces' battles against the Black Knight Legion is consistent with "fighting off attacks on Kentares IV." Operations 1, 2, and 5 of this game are consistent with canon, but the game diverges by winning against Dresari's forces in Operations 3 and 4. A story branch that does not violate canon would have the Legion withdrawing after the betrayal and exacting vengeance on Major Dupres on Voltrat 3 without toppling Ian's rule.
Thanks for imparting your knowledge on the lore.
Excellent I was actually curious about this as I was a huge fan of Vengeance when it came out (Yes I also saved Johanna, of course I replayed and and didn't the second time to see the alternate ending but I mean come on lol) but never got around to playing Black Knight until now after finally getting it to run again but was not all that happy to see them "Beat" Ian (After skimming through some literature before starting the campaign) which would have made that whole heartfelt campaign from Vengeance a waste of time. so yes thank you very much for filling in the gaps as I cannot believe Black Knight would ever be able to take out Ian and his bunch. Mercenaries fight for money but when fighting with your heart, there is no winning against that.. at least in fiction. ;) care to share where you read this lore? would love to read it further myself.
Does this mean that Ian Dresari was an evil ruler who betrayed his lance mates? Or was he a good ruler, but made a bad decision not to save Joanna?
As it turns out later in the established lore it came out that him being evil was really just propaganda to smear his image especially after being associated with the rebels who didn't really care about collateral damage, it was easy to make him out to be the bad guy politically to justify killing him and establishing someone else as ruler in his place. It's ambiguous if he chose to raid the armory or save his sister because Ian could very well be helping his sister out militarily, after all his goal was to keep on fighting so it makes sense he would come back to his homeworld to help his sister, or it could be him just personally dealing with the ones who are trying to kill him and take the moral high ground after making a bad call and raided the armory instead of saving his sister
I am thankful that due to other bits of Battletech lore which take place during and after the timeline of this game that Ian Dresari actually did not go corrupt, and that it was a smear campaign. He hunted down Katrina loyalists while passing the throne to one of the more competent members of his family, because he wasn't done seeking revenge for what the Archon did to the Dresari name.
Thank you for this video, I can see that you worked very hard to make it, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight is my favourite of all the games👍
Thanks!
Yeah I definitely poured much more effort into making this video possible compared to the other MW4 games. So many restarts and deaths had to be edited out! 😂😂
Is this the origin of the black pants legions is Tex secretly involved in this.
Did you genuinely enjoy assassinating Ian Dresari after having spent the entire previous game fighting for him?
I did not like that this game attempted to make me turn my coat on characters that I grow attached to in the previous game and moreover it is not even canon since in the canon, House Steiner indeed hired the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari to take control of his planet however Ian Dresari actually defeated the Black Knight Legion and House Steiner and won the war. 😉
Man those hellspawns at the beginning didn't want to die. But this brings back good memories. Loved these games.
Waow! Dish ish Fred.
@@greyfox37 You're talking to my plant.
"Take out designated target."
"Sorry, sir. I can't comply."
Are you disobeying a direct order, soldier?!
I hate that leaving your sister to die became canon, but knowing the history of feuding royal families it makes sense.
MechWarrior 4: Black Knight is actually only partially cannon because the game makes you continue to fight against Ian Dresari even after House Steiner betrayed you which doesn't make sense because they were your customer and you can't possibly expect them to still pay you for your mercenary contract after they attempted to kill you therefore as a mercenary, you have no reason to continue your contract to fight against Ian Dresari since this contract was broken by your customer back-stabbing you which is why this game is not only non-canon but also illogical as House Steiner hiring the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari is canon but in BattleTech's lore official canon, Ian Dresari actually defeated House Steiner's mercenaries and the Dresari royal dynasty continued for generations after they defeated House Steiner' attempt to topple them, so this game here is actually only partially canon about House Steiner hiring the Black Knight Legion mercenary company to assassinate Ian Dresari whereas Ian leaving his sister to die then being assassinated by mercenaries is not-canon as he canonically defeated the mercenaries and House Steiner, which is why I boycotted this game because it didn't respect the canon and I didn't fight for the Dresari family in MechWarrior 4 only to kill them in the next game, no thanks. 😉
MechWarrior 4: Black Knight is for players who want to play the bad guys which is why it is the sequel to MechWarrior 4 only for players who chose to sacrifice Joanna implying evil players only, and for players who chose to save Joanna, then Black Knight never happened, it's as simple as that. 😉
Sad to see Ian Dresari become the villain... Apparently both MW4 'Vengeance' and 'Black Knight' are non-canon.
Wrong, Vengeance is actually canon whereas Black Knight is a non-canon alternate reality. 😉
You actually had the courtesy to speed up the down time
mad props
0:40 seconds in and we're already graced with George Ledoux.
4:08:07 HOW THE HELL I WAS SUPPOSE TO KNOW I COULD TO FIX THE MECH THERE!! Thx you my friend, I saw that missions because I did not know how to pass it.
Awesome video, my man. Gonna try and figure out how to get the games working on my PC tonight. It'll probably be a helluva fight but I'm determined to play the old Mech 4 Vengence and Black Knight games.
Okay, but the Casey fight. Good lord, having to essentially camp the healing stations because he has laser accuracy with everything. Compelling gameplay, Cyberlore and MicroFasa-of-the-time. /s
Still, thank you for showing the game off so comprehensively! It's funny, but BK does feel like a more compelling narrative than the original just because of how it unfurls the personal-seeming stakes. You're cruising along, and then you get smashed in the groin by your own employer in perfectly mercenary fashion. Vengeance definitely struggled to really reinforce the stakes in gameplay as opposed to FMV, and BK practically inverts that with no actual cutscenes but the gameplay-reinforced narrative is great. Poor Mandril...
Yeah, as a 12 year old playing this game, the betrayals and deaths really stung.
Hold on. Are you meaning to say that Ian Dresari betrayed his lance mates, or was he a good ruler, but made a bad decision not to save Joanna?
00:00 when you knew the game boot up correctly
You know what would be an absolutely awesome challenge? Beat Dupree while piloting the Black Knight. Yes, I know, you're piloting a Heavy against multiple Assault mechs, but that's what makes it a challenge.
It is a good challenge, if the enemy AI is not aimbotting so hard 😑
Black Knight was very overpowered in Mw4, but its a bit of a one trick pony with its best usage being either large pulse lasers, not good until mercs, or erppcs, which were also somewhat lackluster until mw4 mercs.
Imagine being such a chad, that in your own commercial you include killing past employers from MULTIPLE nations. Legend.
The really did Dressari and the others bad in this story. Fun gameplay, but glad it's not canon.
Mechwarrior 4: Black Weight!
haha, well it was on Veteran. This on Elite and MW2 Ghost Bear are the hardest in highest difficulty.
Won it again yesterday.
God damn i hate your builds but love the gameplay.
4:36:00 if you repair a lancemate in one of those silver bays, he won't come out unless you destroy the bay with them inside and then push your lancemate away from the ruble.
You had only two lancemates following you.
Is Ian the guy from mech4 vengeance?
Yup, the main protag from Vengeance is now one of the antagonists here
It is, however it's a different voice actor
Best gameplay I’ve ever seen. Subscribed!!!!! Keep it up
My favorite mechanic was where you spam an AC20x3/4 and they fall and occasionally slide when hit. (3:36:51)
Kind of wish they'd used this zoom style for MW5.
I have no special or practical reason for this, it just looks neat.
1:48:40 going in stealth - copy that, turning on the rave lights
That's a game that need a remaster. BUT NO BY PIRANA
What trick did you use to run in 1080P? Would the game run in 2K or 4K resolution as well?
That would be the tool called dgVoodoo2. Check the video link in description. He has a timestamp to where he starts setting that tool up.
I never had capability to run higher resolutions and thus never tried, but I guess it would allow you to set those resolutions if your hardware can support them.
Short but good addon
I like the comm chatter.
I wonder if anything changes if you never help the rebels
Isn't a black knight a kind of heavy Mech that nothing but energy weapons.
Yeah it is supposedly a full-on energy boat
Please let me know exactly how do you get the MechWarrior series downloaded despite all of these depressing windows upgrades.... Please tell me
Hmm, if it's just downloading then you can get the whole catalogue of classic MechWarrior games (so up till MW4) at MyAbandonware.
I believe there were 3 different endings to MW4BL. An IS, Merc and Clan ending. I did the clan and IS. I havent seen the Merc ending until now. Fun!
Pretty sure Black Knight only has a single ending. The only game with three endings was MW4 Mercenaries
I'm trying to understand how you can aim. When I tried to play MW4, the aim control was so wonky.
I played this (and MW4:V) using the Logitech E3DP, so the aim accuracy is only limited by the degradation of low quality potentiometers used in that piece of toy. I did struggle a bit when I first switched to mouse & k/b in Mercenaries because of the different sensitivities on each axis. Just had to get used to it..
@@Chanwsan I haven't tried it yet, but I did some reading and I'm hearing that if you cap the framerate to 30fps, the mouse aim is much easier.
Never had a problem aiming with a mouse or a joystick. Quite easy imo. I can see where using a game pad might be more difficult.
why this game stopped working
how so?
Who else got a bad taste in their mouth when you had to kill Casey?
I actually did, and also those poor green Mechwarriors who did nothing wrong.
I always wanted to have a friend like Casey in real life.
He left us all that bad taste in our mouths, he is the most charismatic of the team.
Huh? I didn't feel sorry at all. Only if it was jenn
why do you use market😀
No idea why Microsoft hasn't brought Mech Warrior 1-4 to modern hardware or on GamePass.
Licensing issues most likely, after that it's them not caring enough about the games / IP.
abandonware downloads still work, with alot of tweaking, there was a reddit thread that had a long list of steps somewhere
I dont understand why the Player refuses to use lang range weapons like rockets. A strategical mistake
Mechs in MW4 campaign are generally tanky. Instead of spamming missile damage and drag on, bringing big guns to straight coring them out is much more efficient. Just my 2 cents
youve got to be from /VG/
I'm sorry but what's /VG/?
Lancemates can't hit shit in MW4, they are almost useless it seems. And I thought lancemates in MW5 were bad...
except for in the city, they can atleast follow orders and if you gang up on ppl they do some dmg :D
that they go with the you cut your sister loose route , is such an arsehole move, you spend all game mentioning famaily more than fast n furious, yet they go with the you let her die end?
really makes playing V a pointless endevour to be honest, like it just doesn't seem like a thing he'd do. just a troll at the player is how it felt, a shitty troll
jen and gonzales both??? thought gonzales would've canonically been wiped out tryna help out the evac team, kinda expected jen to just walk away along with the techbro
@@raxsavvagede dónde sacaste esa información?
stop doing the fast forward thing plz