Lets get a bit of background info, shall we? This game is a strategy game, not unlike Command and Conquer in many ways. It is based around the popular BattleTech (c) Fasa universe which is sibling, Mechwarrior, Mechwarrior 2 and the addons were. I remember downloading the demo to Mech Commander as soon as it came out and doing my preview on it. It was a whopping 116megs, which wasn't that bad really because my connection is better then ok. Still, a demo that is over 116 megs better have some pretty impressive 3Dfx enhancements or lots of Full Motion Video (FMV) or it can't be justified, right? Wrong. The demo had little to no video that I could find, maybe a smk here and there for a logo, but that was it. The game itself is a real time strategy game and although it has been proven possible (Robo Rumble, it is difficult to incorporate 3Dfx visual enhancements into a playing surface that is generally top down or isometric view. What was this game going to be like then? Well...

Of course I had played the demo so I knew what to expect from the full game, but I was still wowed. Things caught my attention in the full game that I had never noticed in the demo, whether or not they were in the demo. The graphics are well above par for a modern day, non 3D accelerated game. Each Mech has thousands of frames of animation (I read approximately 50,000 each, but that might be incorrect.) and it shows. Being a non 3D game, there is no framerate to worry about, so really the only difference you'll see between running this game on a P133 home computer and a P-II 400 powerhouse will be loading times. The robots are all individually detailed and even show burn marks etc when hit. Not only were the robots visually impressive, but so was their surroundings. The game takes place on a single planet, which you must reclaim from the "Smoke Jaguar Clan" (those familiar with BattleTech will know who I'm talking about) and the planet is very lushly detailed with trees, forests, bushes, roads, stones, hills, valleys, ditches, and every other geographic object possible. There are different areas to each map, for instance: you can fight your way through forest (yes, you can burn down trees) and come across a small town, complete with bill boards, roads, a strip mall and cars to step on/blow up. The units actually interact with their surroundings as well. A Mech can't walk through a forest, obviously, but they can trundle their way through thinly vegitated land, and when a Mech walks into a tree, it gets knocked over, and the Mech will trip up momentarily before regaining its balance. If a Mech is destroyed, they generally fall over and when its a big enough unit, there is a loud bang and the ground shakes. Some of the larger Mechs also leave footprints, but only in earthy grassy land, not on asphault, which is realistic. When one of your Mechs gets damaged badly, it leaves a trail of odd footprints because it will be limping, generally dragging a leg. This allows enemy Mechs to follow the trail and destroy you, so be careful! Every single building and object in the Mech Commander universe is destroyable, from Mechs, to buildings, to gas tanks, to cars, to people to billboards. Naturally, when something is destroyed, it explodes which leads me to my next point; the special effects. As I mentioned earlier, this game has no 3D acceleration, (you voodoo junkies might want to look elsewhere if all you're interested in is big billowy puffs of smoke) however explosions and all the special effects are dazzling. Every mech can be outfitted with different weapons layouts and every weapon has a different special effect. It might be the way the AutoCannons light up the ground directly under them when they fire, or the way missiles leave an aura of smoke on the way to their target, or even the lightning bolt that the PPCs shoot across the ground at your enemy, but they all have lighting effects that affect their surroundings. The explosions were very realistically done, and each unit and weapon will cause a different explosion. Some send sparks flying, some shoot bits of shrapnel away from the target etc, but they all can damage your Mechs if they get too close. Even things like shockwaves occur when you destroy something like a laser turret. Smoke seems to have some nice transparent qualities to it, despite the anti 3Dfx nature of the game. One of the last major points about Mech Commanders graphics I thought I needed to raise, is the incredibly useful "ZOOM" function. During actual gameplay, you can zoom in on the battlefield and watch your Mechs' battle it out up close. This is where weapons, mechs and terrain looks its best. Zooming out allows you a better command of a large scale battle seeing as sometimes you will have up to 12 mechs fighting on your side alone.

I expected gameplay in Mech Commander to be good, but nothing special. Again, I was proven wrong. The enemy AI seems very crafty and they certainly outsmart you at every chance they get. The missions themselves can get a bit repetative if you have to replay it over again, but thats not a big concern because you generally move on quickly, learning from your mistakes. The weapons in the game have different abilities, ranges, and powers, and sometimes, depending on the skill of your MechWarrior and the damage your Mechs have sustained they will miss hitting their targets. That is another nice point in the game. Not only do you manage what Mechs are put in each mission, but you manage your MechWarriors too. You start the game with 3 Mechs and 3 MechWarriors. They are all green and rookies. After the first mission, which is fairly easy, their skills improve, which consist of gunnery, sensors (how long it takes them to detect enemy units outside visual range and announce it audibly) etc. They gain experience as the game progresses and you can hire more MechWarriors and train them, and also purchase newer more advanced Mechs. Not only can you purchase Mechs and weapons but you also salvage some from the field after every mission, this helps alot when it comes to refitting and repairing Mechs that were in a heavy scrap heap after finishing the last mission. The intelligence of your units was a bit questionable. While in an RTS game, the point is to strategically place your units yourself, Mech Commander is a bit more action based then a game such as WarCraft or Command & Conquer, it is a faster moving game and more guns-blazing-no-guts-no-glory action. Because of this, you can't constantly be babysitting every unit when you have 2 Mechs engaging 3 enemy ones, an APC taking over a prison and an air raid being called in. It worked out in the end though. The games interface is very similar to any other RTS, with "status" bar down the right that has a map in it, controls for attacking ranges, and of course control for the zoom in-out function. The map can also be zoomed in and a nice feature was that the status bar could be retracted by pressing ALT.

I was somewhat disappointed by the sound in MechCommander. There was nothing 'wrong' with it, but I found that my units' voices were overly repetitive in making their victory comments. They were rather unoriginal to, like "I'm gonna make this one count!" etc etc etc, which made me think back to the days of GI Joe and other such one line classics. However, they also say useful things like "I've got a new sensor contact" which allow you to be warned in advance of enemy units that you might have missed. The music is basically the same erie music that you should remember from Mechwarrior 2. The ingame music was good on the whole, but it changed too much. When you were just walking to your target, without engaging it, the music was just normal MechWarriorish background music but it changes when you engage an enemy, make a sensor contact, or any other event, which got very distracting after a while because this is an action oriented game and lots happens, quickly.

Mech Commander supports 4 different types of gameplay, the most entertaining of which I think would be Network and Internet play. I had difficulty playing over the internet with the tcp/ip connection because you MUST have Mplayer, which isn't a bad product, but I just didn't feel like going through the hassle of signing up... It would have been better if they had made the engine simply direct play tcp/ip, but I am guessing that they wanted it to almost be advertised at get wider spread attention. The tcp/ip multiplayer engine isn't bad, it caused no lag for me, and over an IPX or tcp/ip network, its fine.

In summary, MechCommander is an excellent game, and it brings together all of the elements that are required in an RTS: Great graphics, sophisticated gameplay, smart enemies, well thought out maps and terrain and interesting and varying units that can be customized. The plot felt kind of tacked on, but that was just how I felt. If you liked MechWarrior, don't be afraid of this game because it too is very heavy on the action, and not as heavy going or overdrawn as some RTS games have been in the past. In other words, looking for some action that requires a little brains too? Get MechCommander.

Graphics 20/20
Sound 11/15
Gameplay 23/25
Fun Factor 19/20
Multiplayer Play 4/5
Packaging 5/5
Overall 9/10