MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries
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| Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries | |
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| Developer(s) | Cyberlore, FASA Studio |
| Publisher(s) | Microsoft |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Microsoft Windows |
| Release date | November 7, 2002 (US) November 15, 2002 (EU) |
| Genre(s) | Vehicle simulation game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (13+) USK: 12+ ELSPA: 11+ OFLC: M15+ |
| Media | 2 CD-ROMs |
| System requirements | 700 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB video card RAM, 8X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 8.1, 1.0 GB available hard disk space, Windows 98 |
| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse, or joystick |
Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries is a vehicle simulation video game for the PC, based on the Battletech Mechwarrior game universe. The original Battletech game is a turn-based board game where the player controls battles between mechs: large, powerful, piloted robot-like vehicles. Each video game in the extensive Mechwarrior series has gradually edged further from the Battletech ethos, in order to produce a dynamic real-time video game with fair and balanced elements[citation needed]. Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, released in 2002, is currently the last game in the MW4 series.
Many of the comments on this page also apply to other games in the Mechwarrior series.
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[edit] Plot
In the game, the player takes the role of Spectre, a male mercenary BattleMech pilot travelling inside the fictional interstellar region of the Battletech universe called the Chaos March during the FedCom Civil War (specifically during the time period from January 1, 3066 to late July 3067). The player makes a living earning cash and useful salvage for completing mission contracts for various factions. With these resources, the player can purchase weapons, BattleMechs, and 'Mech repairs, as well as hire additional MechWarriors for his or her crew.
The player has some control over which missions he or she accepts, and in what order. In addition, how each mission is performed has an impact on the timeline. For example, killing civilans and neutral targets results in infamy points, which in high numbers can limit the player to brutal and "unethical" missions. Also, the player must choose how you balance his or her allegiance to the different sides of the war (Steiner vs. Davion). This is important as allegiance will eventually affect available contracts and even influence the ending of the game.
[edit] Alternate endings
Depending on how the player handled allegiance between the two main factions of House Steiner and House Davion, the player would end up with one of three mission paths, each with their own ending. All of them are interspersed with a small epilogue that hints at the Word of Blake Jihad, the opening stages of which began a few months after the events of the game.
Davion Ending: The player ends up assisting Peter Steiner-Davion in defeating the Lyran loyalists. The final mission sees Spectre taking part in the final assault on the Tharkad palace where Nondi Steiner awaits with her bodyguard lance. The backdrop of this ending is canonical.
Steiner Ending: By siding with Steiner, Spectre must assist an agent called Rabid Fox (likely from the special operations unit Rabid Foxes) in obtaining information on Katherine "Katrina" Steiner-Davion's whereabouts. Ultimately, Spectre must deliver this information to Khan Vlad of Clan Wolf. Doing this requires Spectre to undergo a Trial of Position where he must defeat five consecutive clan Mechwarriors in the planet Carse. This ending has partial canonity as Katherine was indeed handed over to Vlad in exchange for his promise not to attack the Inner Sphere.
Rogue Ending: This ending is actually an offshoot of the Steiner ending. Instead of undergoing the Trial of Position, Spectre elects to take a contract on New Canton to defend a base under attack by the Capellan Confederation. Success results in Spectre and his mercenary unit taking the base for themselves.
[edit] Gameplay
The Mechwarrior series involves controls on the more complex side of vehicle simulation games, compared to simpler console games like MechAssault. A keyboard is essential in the game for the sheer number of controls these include:
- various weapons and weapon control options
- movement controls
- throttle and heat controls
- commands for your lancemates (allies).
Before fighting, decisions are necessary about which weapons to fit, armour options, engine options, cooling efficiency and so on. Favourite configurations can be saved, but are not always available in mission play (not all weapons are available at any particular time).
On the field of play, the pilot has a complex head-up display that shows radar, location of targeted enemy, your weapons in range, ammunition remaining for each weapon, damage situation for your own, friendly and enemy units, and much more.
Tactics and tactical issues include typical FPS issues, such as circlestrafing, sniping, and spawn camping. The art to being a good player in this game is the understanding of tactics, not the speed of your reactions and as such can give the game extended life beyond just killing the enemy.
[edit] Features
[edit] Game types
This mech piloting game also has tactical, technical decisions and resource management elements. There is a training mission, the main campaign missions, and access to most missions for 'instant action' play. Instant action can be mission-based, or wave-based. The 'instant action' mode is flexible but the interface is so slow to use that it puts off players. Mercenaries also has sophisticated online play options, with a good connection interface. It is relatively easy to host an online game if you wish. The single-player game includes 19 different maps. There is the single-player ability to command up to seven other mechs at one time (your 'lancemates'). In multiplayer there is also the ability to communicate with your teammates/opponents via a built in chat function.
[edit] MechWarrior 4 vehicles
The game revolves around the mechs, which have varying weights, roles and characteristics.
Mechwarrior mechs do not generally appear to be "handed," that is, having hands and carrying loose, non-hardpoint weapons (although some do, but are not featured in this game.). The US-designed Mechwarrior Mechs are notably less anthropomorphic than the more human-like Japanese mecha. All mechs in the game are user-drivable, except for the Warhawk (Inner Sphere name Masakari). The standard game has 8 light mechs, 7 medium mechs, 9 heavy mechs, and 12 assault mechs available - a total of 36 mechs. Other (non-drivable) vehicles in the game include jets, helicopters and tanks. There are no quad (four-legged) mechs in the video version of the game. A full version of MW4: Mercs with up-to-date Mektek patches (MP3.02b as of late 2006) and both the Inner Sphere and Clan MechPak add-ons will have 109 different base-model mechs available. All of these mechs will be customisable in the game. With some effort and technical ability, the appearance and logos on your mech, can be customised to a further extent than the choices available in the game.
[edit] MW4: Mercenaries Online
Online play is an important part of MW4: Mercenaries, with servers hosting up to 24 players and bots at a time. MW4 has a built in chat function, but it is very inconvenient to type comments while playing. In some sophisticated online MW4 games, voice communications systems such as Teamspeak 2 are used. Originally the 'Zonestats' online ranking system recorded the victories and other statistics of other players, but it is now defunct (see ZoneMatch fix below). It is possible to play MW4:Mercs online with a dial-up internet connection. MW4 is also enjoyable played on a local area network. It is relatively easy to set up, with or without a dedicated server.
ZoneMatch Fix: The following tweak lets you switch to the MekTek root server instead of the defunct MSN Game Zone server. You just have to enter the MekTek server url in the following registries to let your game connect to their backup root server. Start your registry editor ("REGEDIT" under START > Run...) and change the following registries:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\MechWarrior Mercenaries -> "ZoneServer"="mekmatch.mektek.net" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\MechWarrior Mercenaries -> "Zone"="mekmatch.mektek.net"
[edit] Technical issues and support
[edit] System requirements
A typical installation of this game takes up more than one gigabyte (1 Gb) of space on a PC hard drive, although some of this can be reduced by tricks such as substituting the built-in movies for short blank MPEG files. The numerous additional unofficial add-ons and maps necessary for much online play will take up hundreds more megabytes. The game can be played (with low graphics settings) acceptably on a Pentium III PC with a speed of 500MHz or more, if the graphics card has reasonable (for 2003) 3D processing power. A 16 MB video card and 500 MB hard disc space is enough for a minimum install. The game runs on a PC running Windows 98 or a more recent version, with DirectX 8.1 graphic support (supplied on the CD). A 28.8 kbit/s modem or better is required for online play via TCP/IP supporting up to 24 players at broadband speeds.
[edit] Lack of Microsoft support
MW4 Mercenaries was developed by Cyberlore Studios Inc. in conjunction with Microsoft's FASA, the Microsoft game studio. Microsoft, the publishers of Mechwarrior 4 (but not earlier versions of the game) have been seriously criticised for lack of support, e.g. for not producing sufficient patches for bugs in the game, for problems with the game interface (e.g. set-up menus for "instant action" games is not at all "instant"), and for overcharging for the add-on mecha in the two add-on MechPak CDs, which fans could have designed for themselves, if the development tools had been made available. Finally, some argue that Mercenaries is merely a glorified expansion pack, and not a new game.
Microsoft have not announced any intention of developing a sequel to Mercenaries. No other mod team or software publisher can do so while Microsoft hold the rights to the game, although there is wide interest in doing so[citation needed].
Microsoft have been widely criticised for issuing only one official patch for Mercenaries, the "PR1 patch", although after this patch several notable bugs remained in the game. Independent support groups Mektek and NBT have issued further patches and enhancement for the MechWarrior 4 series of games.
In what has been seen by some players as a betrayal and lack of support of their product,[citation needed] Microsoft have been further criticised for not maintaining the in-game "Zonecom" master server, which has disappeared, although it is essential for locating servers for online play. Mektek have recently released a Java-based patch that replaces the "Zonecom" server with their own community master server, so that players can still locate games to play online. They call it Mekmatch
Microsoft have also dropped Mechwarrior game hosting from the Microsoft Network (MSN) GameZone server, despite the large player base, and the fact that it is a game that they produced.
Another common complaint is that Microsoft did not support peripherals such as their own Game-Voice and dual controllers for the MechWarrior 4 series.
Another source of huge contention among fans is the inability to play mechs that were previously released in the Mech Pak add-ons for MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, though both the Mech Paks are compatible with Mercenaries. Oddly enough the unavailable mechs can be seen piloted by the enemy in several campaign missions. Additionally in the 2002 E3 trailer for Mercenaries, a Masakari and Cauldron-Born, two of the unavailable mechs, are shown. The Cauldron-Born is also shown in the introduction movie for Mercenaries. The missing mechs can neither be purchased nor salvaged in the campaign nor selected in the 'Instant Action' mode. The move was to ensure that players who wanted to play the unavailable mechs had to buy the previous Mech Pak add-ons. Including the mechs in Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries would render the Paks redundant. It has been surmised by fans of the series that various mod groups could easily add the mechs in for free but doing so would no doubt bring licensing and legal ramifications for the modders, despite the fact that as of 2007 the Mechwarrior PC games are either no longer available for retail purchase or impossibly hard to find.
[edit] Player mods
Many recent video games are sold with development tools as standard to encourage modification (or mods) by users. This often extends the popularity of the game. Some customized modes of play can become more popular than the original game. Despite the lack of supplied development tools, Mercenaries has been modded extensively. Two of the main groups (mod teams) customizing the game are "Mektek" and "NBT". These mods change the version number of the game, meaning you can only play with other gamers running the same version. Mechstorm has released several versions of its High Definition Patch[HDP], which adds much higher-resolution graphics and new audio to the game. Mercenaries now has an HDP for versions the English versions PR1, MP2.1a, and MP3.02b. A German version of the HDP for MP3.02b is currently in the works. HDP is an optional download that does not change the version number of the game, meaning you can play with people who do and don't have it installed. Mechstorm has also released their own mod for the game, "Netmech". Many teams play in organized leagues and have their own websites. League play often requires a further download of (free) software to make your installation of MW4 compliant to the league rules.
With the release of MekPaks from "Mektek", modifications have been made to allow more playability online, including the development of Mechs not released for Microsoft's entire tenure of the licence, including the revival of certain 'Lost Mechs' that FASA did not allow into later game releases due to a lawsuit, such as the Phoenix Hawk, cited as a Land-Air Mech, which had a significant similarity to certain material created for the Macross series. New weapons systems were also added to increase variability with customisation.
In addition to the new Mechs, which are actually visually altered variations of the originally included Mechs with loadout specifications changed to fit the new visuals came new hardpoints. In addition to the standard Beam, Missile, Ballistic, and Omni hardpoints, MekTek's MekPaks have added 2 new hardpoints to date for online play, that are slightly less effective than an Omni hardpoint.
While the game's variability has significantly increased, so too has the dedication of getting all the updates, which occasionally creep into the Single Player campaign. One such example is that in the early stages, a glitch occurs when selling an Owens Mech and buying it back, at which point the Mech becomes a Razorback Mech. New weapons such as the Rocket Launcher and the Artemis LRMs also sneak in when buying various mechs or salvaging weapons. In order to compensate for the constant steam of updates, both NTB and Netmech come preloaded with auto -update clients that are used to access each version of the game (a player can have both studios' versions installed without any conflicts). When the Updater Client is run, the client connects to a studio database, downloads any needed updates, then allows players to access the newly-updated game.
[edit] Later developments
In March 2003, it was announced that Mechwarrior 5 had been canceled. There has yet to be any official word on future titles in the series and it's doubtful that any further PC releases bearing the "Mechwarrior" name will be produced by Microsoft. This has led to a decline of interest in the series due to Microsoft's attempt to shift interest to the more arcade-based MechAssault series. However in October 2007 the startup company Smith and Tinker, created by Weisman, acquired the right to the Mechwarrior series as well as other notable FASA franchises (namely Crimson Skies and Shadowrun). It is currently unknown what future plans the company has for these properties. ([1])
[edit] See also
- Battletech
- Heavy Gear
- Mech Crusaders
- Starsiege
- Virtual On
[edit] External links
- Mechwarrior League Online Community Mechwarrior Mercenaries Online Community and Forums
- Microsoft's official MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries website
- Another MechWarrior 4 online community and forums Mechcombat.org
- FASA Studios — Game developer's Mechwarrior 4 page.
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