RPS Feature An Atlas Of Robot Disagreement
The Mechwarrior Online closed beta has been stomping around in the back of my mind for a while now. It’s perhaps rude of me to admit it, but there have been even bigger games blasting away at the heavy armour of my limited attention. The past couple of days, though, I gave it my full focus, and found myself pleasantly surprised. The Mechs, it seems, are quite good.
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Videos for Mechwarrior Online seem to arrive in batches and there are two more for you to stomp on this evening. To stomp on with your eyes. The first is a dev diary, which talks about “the four pillars of gameplay” for the multiplayer mech ’em up. The most interesting claim is that mechs of different sizes and capabilities will all have their place, useful in different situations or as part of a group. The goal, then, isn’t to get the biggest, baddest mech of all, because, hey, that little one over there might be even badder. The second video shows a new environment, the Frozen City. Perhaps this is one of the environments in which a lumbering turret of a mech would struggle.
The vigilant newsbots at BluesNews have noticed that Mechwarrior Online is rolling out a program of “founders packages” for people to purchase in-game cash and privileges in the forth-coming free-to-play mech game. Full details and some comments, as well as a big chunk of recent game footage, below.
Mechwarrior Online has been in beta since the middle of May, and there’s no word on when that will expand, exactly. That said, this Founders’ Package stuff gets you access from August 7th, so perhaps not too long after that.
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These new video previews for upcoming persistent battler Mechwarrior Online – via IGN – show off the different roles for the light, medium, heavy, and assault mechs. I’ve posted them all below. Just see the light mech race about and “act as the eyes and ears of the lance” gives me cause for robo-excitement, so you can imagine my delight as seeing the assault mechs stomping their way into battles and savaging the other mechs with big, big guns. I’m ready to play this game now, thanks.
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So you’ve read about John’s encounter with Mechwarrior Online, but how about seeing it in action? Head below for a battle in a riverbed. An interesting contrast with Hawken, I would say. This really is the year of the Mech.
And lasers!
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Mechwarrior Online never actually happened as planned (about a decade ago) but now it is a planned again: for 2012. We knew this was in the pipeline, but things seem to be shaping up, because the website that hails this fresh announcement is here, and it allows you to sign up and register your pilot name. I did that. You are not having my name. The FAQ is almost comedic in the range of things it addresses, failing to really address what the game is actually going to be like, but explain that long-ranged missiles will be “semi-guided”, and the status of melee combat is undecided. It will, however, be a team-based multiplayer game. Also, bafflingly, it states: “MechWarrior® Online™ is running an offset timeline of the BattleTech® Universe. As of this writing it is 2011 and the year is 3048 within the game. In 2012, when the game is launched, it will be 3049.” Okay then!
More details on PCG.
Blue has noticed that there have been some rumblings from Pirhana Games about their new Mechwarrior game. An announcement announcement! There’s already a bit of information on their site, including this: “Gamers will pilot a deadly BattleMech and use information warfare to dominate a dynamic-destructive urban battlefield. The game features include classic and new mechs from the BattleTech universe with persistent character development and plans for a single player campaign, as well as, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay.” You apparently play “a wayward nobleman” who ends up with a motive for revenge when his family are killed during a planetary invasion.
Worringly the site also runs with the headline “Not Your Father’s MechWarrior” which makes me sad because I am my own father. That said, the CG teaser which we first posted a couple of years ago (below) does look promising, and seems to get the plodding weapon-blastiness that is Mechwarrior.
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