Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Well, triple resurrections, if you also include the upcoming sequel/relaunch. For the purposes of this post though, it’s vintage Mechwarring. Not been able to try this myself yet – mainly due to the torturously slow proprietary bitorrent client necessary to download the thing – but there’s a whole lot afoot in Mechwarrior land. First, a major new version of a free remake of Mechwarrior 2 made in Blitzbasic. It’s called Assault Tech 1: Battletech. Tech tech? Tech. Tech! Apparently, it now looks better than the original, thanks to a revamped DirectX7 engine. Oh, mighty seven. Decide for yourself in the videos below. As an additional ray of robotic rapture, the MW fan/mod site behind AT1:BT, MekTek.net, are also gearing up to re-release the rather splendid Mechwarrior 4, in its DRM-free, modern-Windowsed entirety.
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It’s back after a seven year hiatus. IGN has the full scoop, and they report that developers Piranha Games have some ambitious plans, including 4-player co-op. They’re also going to try and make the full range of mechs significant within the game via recon and intelligence missions: “it’s not just a race to the heaviest, most powerful mechs. The designers want to reward you for picking a mech and sticking with it — you will gain experience and become better at piloting your chosen mech, and that will translate into better accuracy and damage with weapon systems. This way, a player could specialize in a light mech throughout the entire game if they choose. It also means there are multiple playthroughs with different mechs.” No release date as yet.

Lengthy CG -but-clearly-target trailer below.
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Fans of large metal things stepping on smaller things will be disappointed to hear that FASA Studios have shut their doors. Reportedly half of the team are being moved into the rest of Microsoft Studios. The other half move to the pub, nursing pints and considering what they plan to do next. We wish them luck with whatever it is. FASA, even in their modern post-MS buyout form of Studios, rather than their older Interactive, made some pretty neat games.

While best known for the Mechwarrior games, their swansong was the future-trivia-answer Shadowrun (the question being: Which was the first game which allowed the PC to play against XBox 360 owners?” Tricky people will phrase the question “console owners” instead, where the answer will shift to Quake 3 on the Dreamcast and you’ll lose). I reviewed it for Eurogamer on release and gave it 6/10. It’s also one of my favourite multiplayer games of the year so far. There’s no contradiction there. As appealing as it often was, the mark reflects the ridiculous price attached to the game. If you see it cheap, and fancy raising a digital glass to the folk of FASA, you won’t regret it.