Page 78 - PC Gamer - UK (February 2020)

RE VIE W
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
MEATVSMETAL
MECHWARRIOR 5: MERCENARIES is the solid
return of a beloved sim series. By Jon Bolding
his throwback mech sim honours the 30-year MechWarrior
legacy very closely: in mechanics, in controls, and even in
soundtrack. Bombastic guitar riffs thunder over every
combat, lasers sizzle, PPCs crackle, and gauss rifles make that
Tweird ‘pew’ noise, you know the one. Mechs stomp and break
and explode spectacularly, levelling buildings around them. In short:
MechWarrior is extremely back.
Not everything about MW5 is rooted re-arm a mech when you can’t find a
in the past. The overall aesthetic fits replacement part – or simply sell the
into the contemporary look of the whole thing when it’ll be too
BattleTech universe. The UI is clean, time-consuming and expensive to
inspired by the work that went into repair. Budgeting decisions can leave
Harebrained Schemes’ interface for you strapped for cash, choosing
2018’s BattleTech. between new mechs or
Piranha’s modern mech top-tier guns for the
designs are memorable The feeling mechs you have. The
updates to the dated of dropping big space campaign
’80s designs. They into those map is really just a
stomp menacingly at vehicle for a simple,
each other across a missions is tight, and effective
pretty diverse set of superb loop: travel to a new
battlefields that sit conflict zone, pick a
starkly opposed to the mission and ruin your
near-featureless plains of the mechs in combat, find a sidequest to
MechWarrior past. It also brings in accept, head to some industrial
your friends in a co-op mode, both worlds to rearm and repair, then
for campaign and one-off skirmishes, head back out to your new mission.
that is both stable and tactically rich. The feeling of dropping into those
It runs pretty well aside from one missions is superb. Your ‘lance’ of
glitchy randomly-generated mission mechs – yourself and up to three
and some chug on mission starts. others, controlled by friends online or
The game is an interstellar AI pilots – rotates into position, red
sandbox about running a company of lights strobing in the cavernous
mercenary mech pilots and pursuing maintenance bay of your mercenary
some casual revenge. It’s a campaign company’s Leopard drop ship. Your
mode that really plays into the pilot’s hands move across the console
themes of the setting, ones of scarcity to punch a boot-up sequence and grip
and technological regression, the controls. The doors in front of you
so-called LosTech. It often forces you crack open as the startup sequence
to make hard choices about how to completes and the iconic lines sound:
LORDS OF WAR BattleTech’s noble houses
HOUSE M ARIK HOUSE KURITA HOUSE STEINER HOUSE LIAO
The Free Worlds Draconis Combine. Lyran Capellan
League. Diverse Honourable jerks. Commonwealth. Confederation.
jerks. Have actual But they make for Stuck-up rich jerks. Authoritarian jerks.
democracy. great PPCs. Love Assault mechs. Tough and rugged. heavy mech lances.
78 FEBRUARY 2020
REACTORS, ONLINE. SENSORS,
NEED TO KNOW ONLINE. WEAPONS, ONLINE. ALL
WHAT IS IT? SYSTEMS… NOMINAL. Your mech
Giant robot combat strides onto the battlefield –
simulator in a storied sometimes to a calm forest morning,
franchise others into raging streams of laser
EXPECT TO PAY fire. The missions are chosen from
£40 only a few types, but they’re always
DEVELOPER different because each battlefield is
Piranha Games procedurally generated and then
PUBLISHER sprinkled with objectives. Navigating
In-house cramped canyons on a Mars-like
world is a very different feel from
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i5-3330, being utterly exposed on a rolling
GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, plain of wheat. There are also
8GB RAM bespoke campaign missions of
MULTIPLAYER varying quality, from clumsy and
Co-op only linear to interestingly open-ended.
LINK
mw5mercs.com MECH MY DAY
The mechs are a pleasure to handle,
and the core experience of combat
really takes advantage of the map as a
centrepiece. Mechs stomp around,
faster or slower as you throttle up
and down – throttle and orientation
control are a key part of the
simulator-style play here. Twisting
your torso to strafe targets and show
strong armour to the enemy is key, as
is knowing the layout of weapons on
your mech – lasers situated high
might shoot over a wall, while those
slung on low arms will just explode
the cover you were using. Fights in
MechWarrior 5 feel intensely physical
as your mech slows to scale inclines
or ploughs through a row of parked
cars. Lasers rake across woods to
follow a target and leave a trail of
falling, burning trees in their wake.
Watching mechs smash into
destructible terrain is great, for
instance when a dodging mech
shoulder checks a building and
obliterates the facade.
Of course, the smashing isn’t
always on purpose. The AI of both
your enemies and teammates is
relatively functional but often
HOUSE D A V comically inept at understanding the
HOUSE DAVIONION
The Federated Suns. terrain. Allies will casually smash
Elitist jerks. Flexible whatever you’re supposed to defend
combined medium/ or launch missiles into cliffsides. Or,
my personal favourite, be reduced to