its not even that advanced … imagine getting a tank perk in call of duty (which it plays exactly like and no surprise given the creators) and to destroy it you have someone pry open the hatch and toss a grenade in…
that’s all you need to do to kill a titan is jump on the back open a port shoot it a minute or 2 and its down
you can shoot an leg or arm off to slow it down but when we played it the shelf life of a titan was about 3-5 minutes…
there were people who could snipe the driver out of one supposedly also
Nah; I’d rather bring a fast, heavily armed mecha that maneuvers like someone shaped like a person while you bring something that handles like a tank on legs and only carries like 10 shots for its gun.
Probably not the same type of mech games you guys are talking about, but one of my fave indie developers, Harebrained Schemes, makers of the new Shadowrun cRPG games, is developing a turn based, tactical mech combat game. Think Xcom 2, with mechs.
Looks pretty amazing, and I backed the project on Kickstarter. I don’t think ther eis a release date yet, but 2017 seems likely.
Mech games were a subset of the combat simulator genre. Flight, space, tank, submarine, you name it, they were a central pillar of computer gaming. They all died around the same time.
Here’s another turn based mech game. It’s called Bionic Dues and it’s available on Steam. Lots of customization to your mechs. It’s by Arcen games, the guys who made AI Wars. It sounds like the game from Harebrained is going to be in a similar genre. I can’t wait.
Does anyone else remember Virtual World? I’m not sure if they had other locations or there were other similar places elsewhere, but I used to go to one in Pasadena in the mid 90s. It was a Mech arcade, where you would play in interconnected mech pods. Long gone, of course, but we went a bunch of times and it was a lot of fun.
I think they just got too good. These games were generally one trick ponies. In a flight game you fly around and shoot stuff. At some point, you can’t really improve the flight engines and they were also getting really complex. They weren’t pick up and play.
So, what do you do to top the last fly around, shoot or bomb stuff then land game? There’s not much really. You can’t give them new technology that doesn’t exist. You can’t start making up planes. You’re kinds stuck recreating different wars. Once that was done, that was that.
Sub games might be a bit different. Generally subs are boring. You get a few tense moments of sneaking around, a few seconds of shooting torpedoes and a whole lot of cruising the sea. In a real time game, this really sucks. If you want stealth gameplay there are far better options and subs don’t hold the imagination like planes do.
I have no idea why space sims have died but have they completely? It’s not my genre so I don’t know but isn’t the new elite a space sim?
I have fond memories of MechWarrior II. Seemed long range missiles were overpowered (I would modify mechs so they would have them), and going after legs was a viable strategy. Guess the computer always filed its piloting roll.
Catalyst Games, the owners of both Shadowrun and Battletech have basically made Harebrained Schemes their go-to for all computer games that are set in the worlds of Catalyst’s intellectual property. Mainly because the first Shadowrun game (AKA Dead Man’s Switch) vastly exceeded expectations, and the two sequels have admirably kept the ball rolling. And the relationship is so close that everything that the storylines in the Harebrained Schemes games are considered official canon for the tabletop universes. (And everything that is canon in the tabletop worlds is canon in the video games.)
Do you mean the miniatures battle game, or was there an actual (boxed) board game?
I confess to never reading any of the ‘fluff’ so maybe there was good worldbuilding going on. The miniatures game was okay, but didn’t really invoke the feel of mecha combat for me.
And the way they ported it to at least the early Mechwarrior games was shameful. No, you buffoons, just because in the miniatures game you only get 10 shots for your autocannon does not mean that in the 1st person piloting game, the autocannon should only have 10 really big bullets.
I did enjoy Crescent Hawks’ Inception, though I feel like the mechs had little to do with that.
Bionic dues was a very INTERESTING game, but it was almost more like a puzzle game blended with Diablo style random loot than a mecha game. I recommend it, but I don’t think it scratches any sort of “mech combat” itch.
I remember having a boxed Mechwarrior board game with upright 2D cardboard mechs on plastic holders and hex maps. It was tons of fun and a lot cheaper than buying a bunch of minis. Must have been roughly 20 years ago though.
There is (or was) a boxed game with plastic minis:
Anyone else play the RPG? You played mech pilots who occasionally did stuff outside the mech. With one GM every session was gauanteed to end in mech combat. Another we spent several sessions until we found our mechs (had to get them out of a cave)
One is way more fun. 