The missile camera view as they flew into the target was hands down the coolest I loved doing in this game. That feature alone made this game stand out for it's time.
But compare to Iron Soldier on Atari Jaguar in 1994 ... yes Iron Soldier is more arcade but in visual, I prefer this (I love so much this game ! One of the best Jaguar's game ever !)
I recall this one trip to a Dave and Busters or Jillian’s with my older brother where we got to go inside cockpits and play a multiplayer version of this game or some clone of it. Never found this again. What was really neat at the time was how the game would print out a verbal description of how your battle went. It was in relatively natural language and just seemed out of this world at the time. This was around 2001-2002.
That was Virtual World, we had one here in California at Newport Beach. This was in the 90s, years before Halo 2 LAN parties, let alone XBox Live. They really leaned into the immersion, the game cabinet completely sealed around you. Lol half Disneyland and half video game. And it was not cheap for me and my high school buddies
I remember my parents bought a PC in 1996 with this game and it freaking blew us away. Those were the days when we were still impressed by 15 second FMV clips on the pc encyclopedia hahaha
Hey, this was great. I still got the same feeling of awe and amazement when I saw your footage of MW2 original. Still looks stunning. What a beautiful time in gaming that was, strange, foreign, wonderful, just like the game. Looking forward to more episodes. As a side note, I was in the Rendition Verite camp of video cards, they had the best image quality but not the most horsepower.
The mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat" is where it all began in 1984. There was a revamped and improved edition of that game in 2018. Mech miniatures are top notch.
MechWarrior 2 was the first 3D game I ever played. I remember it fondly. The game was first introduced to me via a demo disk that came with a Windows 95 PC my dad got. The demo disk was loaded with about ~15 games, but the demo for MechWarrior 2 is the only one I remember. After playing it almost constantly after school I begged my parents to get me the game. They relented and the rest is wonderful history. Later on I got MW2: Mercenaries and found it was everything I loved in 2 taken to the next level. I still have the disks for both games (I'm literally staring at them as I type this) but haven't played them in more than a decade. This video was a welcome trip down memory lane. Thank you.
Mechwarrior mercenaries was such a masterpiece. In some ways the technological limitations help immerse me more. I personally like the old fashioned text diary over the flashing videos that the later iterations of mechwarrior had. And the I loved the branching mission structure, and the ability to salvage mechs from your mission by strategically blowing up their legs and leaving them crippled. I haven't played this game in over 10 years and the fact that I still remember it so vividly really speaks to it's quality. Oh and the soundtrack was and is amazing. I still listen to it every once in a while.
@@efarrell If you loved MW2 Mercs you will love the tabletop game with Inner Sphere miniatures. It has 8 plastic miniatures. You will recognize the Commando, Catapult, and Awesome. The game name is "Battletech a game of arnored combat". If you play with the rulebooks from Catalyst Game Labs store you will find more than the game had. Activision development was rushed and it did not have many features the tabletop game has.
The tabletop game has different types of terrain with advanced rules. Weather can destroy mechs and you can even use your jump jets as weapons under some circumstances. With nornal rules there are physical attacks like kicking, pushing, punching, clubbing, ramming, etc. There is advanced equipment and weapons. You can even have 2 pilots in one mech. If one gets hurt the other may take the seat. Pilots can lose consciousness. Mechs can fall....
What a way to start. Mechwarrior started as a tabletop game, but at first it had cardboard standees, then skinny miniatures, but now miniatures were resculpted to look similar to Mechwarrior 5. There are 3 boxes: Beginner box. Starter pack with simplified rules. The full game is just very complex. A game of armored combat. Core box. Clan Invasion (expansion.) Then you can buy Battlemech Manual and any of the forcepacks. A video with a battletech catalog is here in RUclips. It shows the content of 2020 force packs.
Even without the texturing, the original DOS version really does look superior. It seems smoother, it's more visually striking and less dated, and even has higher resolution support. It really is quite a feat!
Also, thank you for the incredible retro episodes - I hope this continues to be a thing for a long time to come. Bringing me back and filling me with awesome warm feeling of nostalgia :D
Well i think at the time, high resolution support in DOS version was really rather... theoretical in nature. DF doesn't say what kind of PC would be needed for that, but a Pentium 90MHz sure wasn't enough. By the way, i believe there's a Voodoo emulator that can help you bump up the resolution. But i agree that when shoving textures in, a lot of design quality was sacrificed.
The dos version would have been written in C with assembly for some parts for direct hardware access for ultra low latency while the windows version runs through windows api and was one of the first directx/direct3d games. In its infancy directx was super shit. Even idsoftware bagged the shit out of it and microsoft had to PAY idsoftware for a license to make a windows port of doom2 because idsoftware wasnt going to bother.
Sabin1981 Interesting,y, the lack of textures is the reason why it looks so good in my opinion. Any old 3D game with textures looks ancient as the textures are blurry and low-res, also often with flawed filtering, but any game without textures, even going back to something ancient like Starwing or Virtual Racing which use flat shaded polygons, will still look great as the textureless polygons scale perfectly to any resolution.
I can still remember putting the mech into nav point auto pilot while i would refill my bowl of chips. Those little immersive details and admittedly slow pacing was strangely compelling. I still enjoy the soundtrack today. Always will. I miss having great single player campaign mechwarrior games. MW3 rests in total legend.
SengirShowsU Well Mechwarrior 5 sure blew me away with it's trailer before it got sued into oblivion and forgotten. I just want one mech game where you start on foot first person in a building, and have to work your way out into the open amidst a raging mech battle and have to safely make it to your own chasis then kick a bunch of ass. I really think the hardware is there to facilitate that level of detail and variety. Mechwarriors just become a soft franchise it seems.
DuesX187 omg yes! Autopilot! Gave the whole game such a sense of realism, because OF COURSE those things would have auto pilot in real life. That's attention to detail.
Still have my original Dos version from when I got the game around 1996. This is one of the first PC games I remember playing that got me into PC gaming.
These Retro videos are awesome! I grew up playing these games and in my first computer(dads really) was Matrox Mystique and in bundle was MechWarrior 2.
Oh man this takes me way back, You guys should also spotlight Mechwarrior: Living Legends that games really amazing and the Mod community is still alive and kicking there
Nor do they know how much they should appreciate how great it is to have standardized APIs and universal video drivers. This game came from a time that was both absolutely amazing and very painful. There were a lot of growing pains as developers and hardware manufacturers had to learn how to set standards for new concepts, software and technology and it was a rough time for the gaming industry on PC as it was changing all the time. But that being said, it was one hell of ride and it came with some amazing memories and experiences.
Was? You mean "is". This is still one of the best games ever made. Dynamic destruction, heat management, radar based stealth tactics, exploding ammunition. Nothing on the market before or since has had such a deep vehicular combat system.
It had really cutting edge grafics back in the days however. I still remember the actual fire textures causing people to stare at the monitor in awe. Leave alone that the flat shading even looks relatively good today, and is actually seeing some kind of "revival" in some indie games theese days. That ofc doesent yet adress the badass missions, that only could be rivaled by I-War or the X-Wing series (i agree it had alot in common with flight/space sims), fully customizable Mech builds(dual UAC20 dakkadakka, lol), and an errm "interresting" network mode, that sure was tons of fun back on those lans, and quite uncommon for any sort of simulation with some depth to it. Bttomline is, this is still one of my all time favorites, and well worth a playthrough even in 2016, if you havent had the pleasure of doing so when its been released.
It's funny how nearly everyone hated the game when it launched. Obviously it ran like crap, but pretty much everyone agreed that this was not a good game and a tech demo instead. They really really disliked the gameplay. I also wasn't really impressed at first, but as I went back every time I upgraded my PC i started to like the game more and more.
Still have the original boxed copy of MechWarrior 2, bought at release. Good times, good times indeed. Ran like shit with the infamous (overheating) K6-2 450, and GeForce 2MX (32) equipped PC i had back then though. MDK, original boxed copy sitting on the shelf too. That game was so much fun, and ran suprisingly well with a relatively subpar PC.
Big fan of these retro video series.... Used to build PC's for clients and family. Got into the gaming side after my freelance design work took off before I got injured.... I'm disabled now, but I still have a fire in me for all things technical and gaming... I always look forward to watching them with my kids...Can inspire them as artists if they how some of their favorite old games work... Keep doing what your doing...
Ooh this makes me think of... Descent! I've only played a few levels of Descent 3 but the atmosphere and graphics and gameplay feel unmatched. Great video series :)
@@PPX14 If you love Freespace play until the end. It is freaking awesome. And when you thought the peak of awesomeness was reached, Freespace 2 kick arses even more.
This game started as a tabletop game. It called Battletech. Reddit has a community. Tabletop has advanced rules for terrain, weather, and you can do many things the videogame cannot. It has an RPG rulebook, and advanced rules allows the mechs to skid, there are rules for forest, lava, water, etc.... Your pilot can take wounds. And some mechs even have rear weapons. Just be advised that it has lots of dice rolling and games take very long, veery long. That is the type of board games from the 1980s.
Boy am I glad I ended up with the DOS version back then. It looks sooo much better. The other versions just look like cheap half assed early 3D games while the DOS version really has style. You should have mentioned the awesome menu background screens though, they really gave the whole game a sense of depth and meaning.
You must keep in mind how running MechWarrior 2 back in 1995 was like running Crysis smoothly in 2007. It was really expensive. Also, I'm fairly sure that BF1 plays at 30fps at 16:9 widescreen on the XBONE. The PC's of the era at that resolution that could even run that resolution would most likely run at 15-25 fps.
temannopellaria 1280x720 is plenty good enough. With a monitor or TV with a decent upscaler, basically any monitor or TV, 720p will look great, nearly as good as 1080p. I use 720p all the time for games that my PC can’t run in 1080p properly.
Atari Jaguar's Garage 640x480? Nah. Maybe PCs with 3D Accelerators or powerful rigs in general. Most people were still relying on 320x200 or 320x240. MechWarrior 2’s 1024x768 mode is utter madness as almost no one could’ve used it at the time, 768p monitors must’ve been really rare too.
The amazing thing is Zipper Interactive made that game in a short time span. Mechwarrior 4 started as Mechwarrior 3 but FASA Interactive was still working on the game engine so Zipper was given the project.
one of the first game i run after installing my shiny 3DFX voodoo graphics ! (then i became a 3DFX fanboy for the 4 next models). and with my Soundblaster AWE-32 with the 8Mb module, the music was wonderfull !
If you're like me, you're a badass who got the Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries 95 1.1 patch to run in windows XP and are enjoying the dynamic salvage and bugfixes B)
MW2 had so deep atmosphere. I was a BattleTech universe fan, read a lot of books, played every game, but only MW2 gave me what I wanted from BattleTech game. It was better than books, it was like to participate in movie about Mechs (that what I was thinking when I was 13 in 1996). And It was so smooth with high FPS on my Pentium-100 in high resolution. If I not mistaken, you could turn textures off in win95 version to make everything look flat-shaded (I prefered this variant too).
The music and atmosphere aswell as the weapon feel was extremely captivating! The reincarnations completely missed the ticket of what made the game sooo good!
I played this when the expansion was released and the graphics blew my mind, particularly the intro graphics. I didnt even know there was a textured version until now! Wow.
Oh, nostalgia! This takes me back to the fall of 1999, a few months after getting my 2nd Mac, the Blue and White G3 350 MHz. I picked this out of a Mac game bundle for under $10. I also got a Thrustmaster Top Gun flight stick to play it with. It was a similar design to the flight sticks used in Virtual World Entertainment's Battletech Tesla cockpit simulators. So MW2 filled my appetite to play Battletech while I wasn't at the site dropping $8 per round. Good times!
Just like 1984 mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat". Read the rulebook while watching "Battletech fan" visual guide for a betrer experience.
Great video as usual, this is sla milestone of pc gaming. Can't wait for MDK next week, and since you are checking Shiny games, Earthworm Jim is a classic that might make for a great episode in the future
Wow I can't wait for the next episode! I love MDK 1 and 2 (and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I hope at some point there'll be a video on that game aswell :) )
really cool video, thanks so much for these John! Like you I also prefer the "dystopian" dos look. I hope to see goold old Delta Force one day on DF Retro; especially due to the Voxel (?) tech used
I remember when they had circuit city around back in the day and MechWarrior 2 was actually on the demo PC's on display for you to try out. Wish I could go back to that time.
The mechwarrior stuff was incredible! I'd love to see another two vids, give us Mech: Mercenaries, Mechwarrior 3, and Mechwarrior 4! :) I remember losing my life to Mech2 and Ghost Bear's Legacy on my first PC.
I still have my original cd and my sidewinder pro which it came bundled with. The sound and music really made this game. Like he said it looked really clean and the ability to disable your opponent was different. Just an amazing game. Mech 2 and I76 so many memories. I had a matrox mystique too :).
Love this series, liked and subscribed! I'd love to see a big Naughty Dog retrospective. Keef the Thief, Way of the Warrior, Crash, Jak, Uncharted and how their tech has improved over the years. Or a comparison between Jak, Ratchet and Sly on the PS2 and how they use their tech to do different things. Keep up the great work John!
Dunno if it's nostalgia or whatever, but i REALLY dig the DF Retro videos. THey're so interesting from a vintage technical standpoint. Plus the platform comparisons are always a big plus :D
This is one of my all time favorite games. To this day the gameplay of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries has not been matched. Being able to headshot and salvage any mech you see is an amazing feature. I'm also still kind of ticked off that all Battletech games afterward restrict your loadouts so much.
Didn't mention the Macintosh version which came optimized for the ATi Rage Pro cards popular with the second generation of PowerPC Macs of the time. It was basically a port of the DOS version without textures but with the excellent color gradients at 1024x768. It ran smooth and had the excellent Red Book CD-ROM soundtrack. Still own my copy. Great Retro retrospective.
Great vid as usual. Even if I'm going to be driven mad by having Billy Ze Kick's version of "Non Non Rien Na Changé" stuck in my head until the next episode comes out.
I had the Matrox M 3D Power VR card. Some games looked great with it (Nightmare Creatures in particular looked excellent). As for the next episode, MDK came bundled with my P166 MMX PC back in 1997. Great game. It sounded like the enemies constantly shouted "RUGBY RUGBY BALL"
I definitely prefer the flat-shaded polygons of the DOS version over their texture-mapped counterparts, there's just something so charming about them. Having only played the Saturn port myself, while I do find it thoroughly enjoyable, believe the developers should have ported the original DOS version but kept the control scheme of the final port, surely the Saturn/PS1 could have handled what a PC could render in software, but then again every game had to have texture-mapped 3D graphics at the start of the fifth generation without exception (look at SONY, they wouldn't even allow 2D PS1 games to be localised at the time).
Did you play the 1984 mechwarrior tabletop game? Battletech a game of armored combat. Rules are intimidating so "Battletech fan" youtube channel made a visual guide to watch while reading the rules. It is very simulationist.
Dynamix were the masters of pushing the bounderies of gaming. I still fondly remember Tribes 1 and 2, I hope DF Retro cover these landmark multiplayer games someday.
Man this was my childhood. I had the DOS version running on win 95. I ran the "Rifleman" mech with those four huge barrels set to PPCs. Overheated like hell but I dominated. :D I requested MW2 during the Half Life 2 DF Retro vid. Woo!
Try the mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat". "Battletech fan" made a youtube visual guide because tabletop rules are very complex.
Download nGlide from Zeus software. It emulates 3DFX on Windows 10 like a charm. There is "Starsiege complete" version out there so you can test its 3DFX graphics.
Flat shaded is definitely my favorite. Played so damn much back in the day. Used to love the internal Mech's system voice. "All systems... nominal. Autopilot... engaged."
Oooo! Looking forward to the MDK video already. Despite owning all of the Mech Warrior PC games I never really got into them. I was at the phase where I would buy a tonne of games and never play them. Wait a second! I'm still doing that only now Steam is my video game store.
This game (in its first iteration and later on W95 along with Mercenaries) influenced my childhool verrrrrry much. Ever since then I've been chasing that same athmosphere these games portraied for me and I haven't been successful.... I might be chasing a feeling warped by nostalgia, but I yearn for something that delivers the same package.
I had the Matrox Mystique version. Damn I still wish I could play it with the textures. Also this game to day has the best soundtrack. I wish that MW:5 would simply update the MW2 OST.
As a huge fan of MechWarrior 2, this episode was actually quite informative for me. I always assumed the Titanium Trilogy version was the same as the older 3D-accelerated versions, outside of them running on Mercenaries' engine (notice the different heat and damage displays, and for some reason using Mercs' computer and weapon sound effects). But yeah, many many days were spent on this game, especially in NetMech (on a hastily-cobbled LAN, at that).
I only came into the Mechwarrior scene around Mechwarrior 3. I was playing the free Mektek version of MW4 up until it shut down too - love these games.
What a great game *Mechwarrior 2* still is. The best thing about the series is that you control the mech like driving a tank, opposed to many mech games where you play just like a FPS.
On the next episode of DF Retro: I think I've seen that game, it was 15 years ago, on an imac. If it really is that game, I'm pretty excited to finally figure out what that crazy game was all about.
Love the DF retro videos, this one hit me right in the childhood
Nice meme.
Same here man, I took a direct hit to the childhood watching this one.
***** It's gone nuclear.
Pabla Digital This video socked me square in the childhood though
***** Like literally square in the feels / childhood?
Really loved this video!! This game was a classic
Thanks so much, Metal Jesus!
This game (Win95 version) and Earthsiege 2 made my 10 year old self fall in love with mechs.
Mechwarrior 2-4 absolutely need remasters. I can only imagine the amazing combo of MW2 graphics and textures, taking the best of all
The missile camera view as they flew into the target was hands down the coolest I loved doing in this game. That feature alone made this game stand out for it's time.
Alway a great pleasure to see your DF retro video ! Very good ! Thanks.
But compare to Iron Soldier on Atari Jaguar in 1994 ... yes Iron Soldier is more arcade but in visual, I prefer this (I love so much this game ! One of the best Jaguar's game ever !)
I recall this one trip to a Dave and Busters or Jillian’s with my older brother where we got to go inside cockpits and play a multiplayer version of this game or some clone of it. Never found this again. What was really neat at the time was how the game would print out a verbal description of how your battle went. It was in relatively natural language and just seemed out of this world at the time. This was around 2001-2002.
That was Virtual World, we had one here in California at Newport Beach. This was in the 90s, years before Halo 2 LAN parties, let alone XBox Live. They really leaned into the immersion, the game cabinet completely sealed around you. Lol half Disneyland and half video game. And it was not cheap for me and my high school buddies
Thanks for putting this out, MW2 was the first PC game I ever played and this was a lovely trip down memory lane.
The soundtrack is one of the best ever made.
I remember my parents bought a PC in 1996 with this game and it freaking blew us away. Those were the days when we were still impressed by 15 second FMV clips on the pc encyclopedia hahaha
*Comptons Encyclopedia with Patrick Stewart as the guide in small short videos?* :)
Was it a Sony VAIO computer by any chance? I know it came with ours (ATI Rage3D version)
All of your videos are put together so sharply. Thank you for doing the retro side of things as well!
Hey, this was great. I still got the same feeling of awe and amazement when I saw your footage of MW2 original. Still looks stunning. What a beautiful time in gaming that was, strange, foreign, wonderful, just like the game. Looking forward to more episodes. As a side note, I was in the Rendition Verite camp of video cards, they had the best image quality but not the most horsepower.
The mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat" is where it all began in 1984. There was a revamped and improved edition of that game in 2018. Mech miniatures are top notch.
Instant classic, so much influencing other. The intro is simply unbeatable. Great job Digital Domain. Best mechwarrior game in my opinion.
df retro is the best! I look forward to it in more than anything else on RUclips. keep up the good work!!
Every aspect of this game it's fantastic, an instant classic
MechWarrior 2 was the first 3D game I ever played. I remember it fondly. The game was first introduced to me via a demo disk that came with a Windows 95 PC my dad got. The demo disk was loaded with about ~15 games, but the demo for MechWarrior 2 is the only one I remember. After playing it almost constantly after school I begged my parents to get me the game. They relented and the rest is wonderful history. Later on I got MW2: Mercenaries and found it was everything I loved in 2 taken to the next level. I still have the disks for both games (I'm literally staring at them as I type this) but haven't played them in more than a decade. This video was a welcome trip down memory lane. Thank you.
Mechwarrior mercenaries was such a masterpiece. In some ways the technological limitations help immerse me more. I personally like the old fashioned text diary over the flashing videos that the later iterations of mechwarrior had. And the I loved the branching mission structure, and the ability to salvage mechs from your mission by strategically blowing up their legs and leaving them crippled.
I haven't played this game in over 10 years and the fact that I still remember it so vividly really speaks to it's quality. Oh and the soundtrack was and is amazing. I still listen to it every once in a while.
@@efarrell If you loved MW2 Mercs you will love the tabletop game with Inner Sphere miniatures. It has 8 plastic miniatures. You will recognize the Commando, Catapult, and Awesome. The game name is "Battletech a game of arnored combat". If you play with the rulebooks from Catalyst Game Labs store you will find more than the game had. Activision development was rushed and it did not have many features the tabletop game has.
The tabletop game has different types of terrain with advanced rules. Weather can destroy mechs and you can even use your jump jets as weapons under some circumstances. With nornal rules there are physical attacks like kicking, pushing, punching, clubbing, ramming, etc.
There is advanced equipment and weapons. You can even have 2 pilots in one mech. If one gets hurt the other may take the seat.
Pilots can lose consciousness. Mechs can fall....
What a way to start.
Mechwarrior started as a tabletop game, but at first it had cardboard standees, then skinny miniatures, but now miniatures were resculpted to look similar to Mechwarrior 5.
There are 3 boxes:
Beginner box. Starter pack with simplified rules. The full game is just very complex.
A game of armored combat. Core box.
Clan Invasion (expansion.)
Then you can buy Battlemech Manual and any of the forcepacks. A video with a battletech catalog is here in RUclips. It shows the content of 2020 force packs.
REACTOR ONLINE.
SENSORS ONLINE.
WEAPONS ONLINE.
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL.
Gotta love that shout-out to the S3 Virge 3D decelerator!
Love these episodes!
Even without the texturing, the original DOS version really does look superior. It seems smoother, it's more visually striking and less dated, and even has higher resolution support. It really is quite a feat!
Also, thank you for the incredible retro episodes - I hope this continues to be a thing for a long time to come. Bringing me back and filling me with awesome warm feeling of nostalgia :D
Well i think at the time, high resolution support in DOS version was really rather... theoretical in nature. DF doesn't say what kind of PC would be needed for that, but a Pentium 90MHz sure wasn't enough.
By the way, i believe there's a Voodoo emulator that can help you bump up the resolution. But i agree that when shoving textures in, a lot of design quality was sacrificed.
The dos version would have been written in C with assembly for some parts for direct hardware access for ultra low latency while the windows version runs through windows api and was one of the first directx/direct3d games. In its infancy directx was super shit. Even idsoftware bagged the shit out of it and microsoft had to PAY idsoftware for a license to make a windows port of doom2 because idsoftware wasnt going to bother.
Sabin1981 Interesting,y, the lack of textures is the reason why it looks so good in my opinion. Any old 3D game with textures looks ancient as the textures are blurry and low-res, also often with flawed filtering, but any game without textures, even going back to something ancient like Starwing or Virtual Racing which use flat shaded polygons, will still look great as the textureless polygons scale perfectly to any resolution.
PLAYABILITY.... is the MW2 watchword (not "Textures") / that and networking so you and your buddy could fight each other ducking around the terrain
Great episode, again. Roll on next Sunday! MDK, what a classic.
I can still remember putting the mech into nav point auto pilot while i would refill my bowl of chips. Those little immersive details and admittedly slow pacing was strangely compelling. I still enjoy the soundtrack today. Always will. I miss having great single player campaign mechwarrior games. MW3 rests in total legend.
ReBoot! ( Click, click )
I was so dissapointed when mechwarrior online got the way it is. I so wanted a single player campaign.
SengirShowsU Not gonna lie an old school simulator campaign sounds awesome right about now.
SengirShowsU
Well Mechwarrior 5 sure blew me away with it's trailer before it got sued into oblivion and forgotten. I just want one mech game where you start on foot first person in a building, and have to work your way out into the open amidst a raging mech battle and have to safely make it to your own chasis then kick a bunch of ass. I really think the hardware is there to facilitate that level of detail and variety. Mechwarriors just become a soft franchise it seems.
DuesX187 omg yes! Autopilot! Gave the whole game such a sense of realism, because OF COURSE those things would have auto pilot in real life.
That's attention to detail.
Just got back from a 7 hour long trip, turn on PC, go to RUclips, and a new DF Retro vid is up
Thanks for making my day John!
Still have my original Dos version from when I got the game around 1996. This is one of the first PC games I remember playing that got me into PC gaming.
These Retro videos are awesome! I grew up playing these games and in my first computer(dads really) was Matrox Mystique and in bundle was MechWarrior 2.
Dos version is my favorite! I have it installed on my dosbox and play it every once in awhile!
i was 10 years old playing this on a Radioshack Tandy computer lol. I STILL listen to the soundtrack to this game
Play the 1984 tabletop mechwarrior game "Battletech a game of armored combat"
Oh man this takes me way back, You guys should also spotlight Mechwarrior: Living Legends that games really amazing and the Mod community is still alive and kicking there
oh yeah, Long Live Living Legends, the currently best Mechwarrior game :-)
Absolutely, check out MWLL!
Fully agreed. I enjoyed this video, so I would be very interested in what he would dig out on MWLL.
A true Mech game must have terrain-aligned feet and toes. Otherwise it's really only a mod.
Gamers today have no idea just how ahead of its time this game was. It was released on DOS. Fucking DOS.
So true
Nor do they know how much they should appreciate how great it is to have standardized APIs and universal video drivers. This game came from a time that was both absolutely amazing and very painful. There were a lot of growing pains as developers and hardware manufacturers had to learn how to set standards for new concepts, software and technology and it was a rough time for the gaming industry on PC as it was changing all the time. But that being said, it was one hell of ride and it came with some amazing memories and experiences.
Was?
You mean "is".
This is still one of the best games ever made.
Dynamic destruction, heat management, radar based stealth tactics, exploding ammunition.
Nothing on the market before or since has had such a deep vehicular combat system.
Uhm. It is far from the first game to run with polygons on DOS. DOS was insanely supported back in the day, before Windows 95 showed it's face.
It had really cutting edge grafics back in the days however.
I still remember the actual fire textures causing people to stare at the monitor in awe.
Leave alone that the flat shading even looks relatively good today, and is actually seeing some kind of
"revival" in some indie games theese days.
That ofc doesent yet adress the badass missions, that only could be rivaled by I-War or the X-Wing series
(i agree it had alot in common with flight/space sims), fully customizable Mech builds(dual UAC20
dakkadakka, lol), and an errm "interresting" network mode, that sure was tons of fun back on those lans,
and quite uncommon for any sort of simulation with some depth to it.
Bttomline is, this is still one of my all time favorites, and well worth a playthrough even in 2016, if you
havent had the pleasure of doing so when its been released.
I'm loving the technical aspect of DF retro. In fact, I need more of these videos in my life - really awesome!
I hope GOG releases this game (and all the other versions) in the future.
They are abondonware now
+El Diablo - I think he meant that Mechwarrior 2 is abandonware. Not GOG :)
Simon Christensen Yeah... :|
Yeah let's just pay the void for a free game
Lassi Kinnunen Abandonware is a real thing don't be dumb.
We need a video on the first crysis. That game is legendary.
especially since PCs nowadays can actually run it at full fidelity unlike back then lol.
Agreed. After nearly a decade it still looks and plays better than many "next gen games".
It's funny how nearly everyone hated the game when it launched. Obviously it ran like crap, but pretty much everyone agreed that this was not a good game and a tech demo instead. They really really disliked the gameplay. I also wasn't really impressed at first, but as I went back every time I upgraded my PC i started to like the game more and more.
It looks very dated today.
***** You have to add the word considering if you say it looks good. If it came out today, I would be disappointed with the graphics.
Happy 25th Anniversary to Mechwarrior 2
Still have the original boxed copy of MechWarrior 2, bought at release. Good times, good times indeed. Ran like shit with the infamous (overheating) K6-2 450, and GeForce 2MX (32) equipped PC i had back then though.
MDK, original boxed copy sitting on the shelf too. That game was so much fun, and ran suprisingly well with a relatively subpar PC.
Great series. Please keep making DF Retro.
Big fan of these retro video series.... Used to build PC's for clients and family. Got into the gaming side after my freelance design work took off before I got injured.... I'm disabled now, but I still have a fire in me for all things technical and gaming... I always look forward to watching them with my kids...Can inspire them as artists if they how some of their favorite old games work... Keep doing what your doing...
Holy shit MDK!
Talk about a beautiful game!
FUCK YES MDK!!!
i third this :D
Indeed my jaw dropped to the floor when I first saw it, beyond impressive and also it was a great game.
talking about MDK, Interplay is selling all their IP... MDK... Earthworm Jim... and a lot more !
not like they're doing anything with it anyway...
Ooh this makes me think of... Descent! I've only played a few levels of Descent 3 but the atmosphere and graphics and gameplay feel unmatched.
Great video series :)
I preferred Descent Freespace
@@aquarius5719ooh I have that one and its sequel on the shelf waiting their turn, though I think that only has the Descent name for branding reasons.
@@aquarius5719 lol looks like 4 years ago I was starting sentences with "ooh" too 😅
@@PPX14 If you love Freespace play until the end. It is freaking awesome. And when you thought the peak of awesomeness was reached, Freespace 2 kick arses even more.
@@aquarius5719 the intro to Freespace 2 on the back of the box sounds so epic in scale even without knowing anything about the games.
Spent many hours playing Mechwarrior. Gonna spend a couple more tonight cause of this video! Absolutely loved these games.
This game started as a tabletop game. It called Battletech. Reddit has a community. Tabletop has advanced rules for terrain, weather, and you can do many things the videogame cannot. It has an RPG rulebook, and advanced rules allows the mechs to skid, there are rules for forest, lava, water, etc.... Your pilot can take wounds. And some mechs even have rear weapons.
Just be advised that it has lots of dice rolling and games take very long, veery long. That is the type of board games from the 1980s.
Boy am I glad I ended up with the DOS version back then. It looks sooo much better.
The other versions just look like cheap half assed early 3D games while the DOS version really has style.
You should have mentioned the awesome menu background screens though, they really gave the whole game a sense of depth and meaning.
Loving DF Retro, keep up with this awesome videos!
Great video John, love this series.
1024x768 in 1995.
1280 x720 in 2016.
Battlefield 1 on xbox one.
temannopellaria . So small resolution improvements with great improvements to visual effects and gameplay, sounds like progress.
Rather theoretical though, most games were running at 640x480 if you wanted decent performance
You must keep in mind how running MechWarrior 2 back in 1995 was like running Crysis smoothly in 2007. It was really expensive. Also, I'm fairly sure that BF1 plays at 30fps at 16:9 widescreen on the XBONE. The PC's of the era at that resolution that could even run that resolution would most likely run at 15-25 fps.
temannopellaria 1280x720 is plenty good enough. With a monitor or TV with a decent upscaler, basically any monitor or TV, 720p will look great, nearly as good as 1080p. I use 720p all the time for games that my PC can’t run in 1080p properly.
Atari Jaguar's Garage 640x480? Nah. Maybe PCs with 3D Accelerators or powerful rigs in general. Most people were still relying on 320x200 or 320x240. MechWarrior 2’s 1024x768 mode is utter madness as almost no one could’ve used it at the time, 768p monitors must’ve been really rare too.
PLEASE do MechWarrior 3. I always thought it was a technical masterpiece when it first released.
The amazing thing is Zipper Interactive made that game in a short time span. Mechwarrior 4 started as Mechwarrior 3 but FASA Interactive was still working on the game engine so Zipper was given the project.
Agree MechWarrior 3 was the best of the series. MechWarrior 4 was such a disappointment.
@@Meson10 Well there was netmech for mw2
@@shuboy05 and Hasbro??!
Hmm. a weird combination.
@@StillTheVoid Hasbro ended up with Mech3 when they bought Microprose.
one of the first game i run after installing my shiny 3DFX voodoo graphics ! (then i became a 3DFX fanboy for the 4 next models). and with my Soundblaster AWE-32 with the 8Mb module, the music was wonderfull !
If you're like me, you're a badass who got the Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries 95 1.1 patch to run in windows XP and are enjoying the dynamic salvage and bugfixes B)
Love this series, keep up the good work!
Wipeout 2097 for a future DFR?? (PSX, Saturn, PC, N64)
MW2 had so deep atmosphere. I was a BattleTech universe fan, read a lot of books, played every game, but only MW2 gave me what I wanted from BattleTech game.
It was better than books, it was like to participate in movie about Mechs (that what I was thinking when I was 13 in 1996). And It was so smooth with high FPS on my Pentium-100 in high resolution. If I not mistaken, you could turn textures off in win95 version to make everything look flat-shaded (I prefered this variant too).
*While I prefer the Clans and are a Clanner, Mechwarrior 3 actually had the best graphics and was probably the most fun.*
MW2 rocks!
The music and atmosphere aswell as the weapon feel was extremely captivating!
The reincarnations completely missed the ticket of what made the game sooo good!
as well*
I played this when the expansion was released and the graphics blew my mind, particularly the intro graphics. I didnt even know there was a textured version until now! Wow.
Oh, nostalgia! This takes me back to the fall of 1999, a few months after getting my 2nd Mac, the Blue and White G3 350 MHz. I picked this out of a Mac game bundle for under $10. I also got a Thrustmaster Top Gun flight stick to play it with. It was a similar design to the flight sticks used in Virtual World Entertainment's Battletech Tesla cockpit simulators. So MW2 filled my appetite to play Battletech while I wasn't at the site dropping $8 per round. Good times!
Still one of my all time favourite game series! The hours I poured into Mechwarrior 2 in all it's variations...
Mechwarrior 2. That was the shit!!! Oh man. That takes me back.
Just like 1984 mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat". Read the rulebook while watching "Battletech fan" visual guide for a betrer experience.
OMG the memories.... Still has an awesome soundtrack!
when I was a kid I wanted to play this one, but I forget it over the time. Thanks man, I will try it out.
Great video as usual, this is sla milestone of pc gaming. Can't wait for MDK next week, and since you are checking Shiny games, Earthworm Jim is a classic that might make for a great episode in the future
I was going to suggest MDK for a future video, until I saw its up next week :) I loved that game back in the day.
Wow I can't wait for the next episode! I love MDK 1 and 2 (and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I hope at some point there'll be a video on that game aswell :) )
Wonderful video! My first MW game and introduction to Battletech as a whole. Still a clanner!
really cool video, thanks so much for these John! Like you I also prefer the "dystopian" dos look. I hope to see goold old Delta Force one day on DF Retro; especially due to the Voxel (?) tech used
I remember when they had circuit city around back in the day and MechWarrior 2 was actually on the demo PC's on display for you to try out. Wish I could go back to that time.
The mechwarrior stuff was incredible! I'd love to see another two vids, give us Mech: Mercenaries, Mechwarrior 3, and Mechwarrior 4! :)
I remember losing my life to Mech2 and Ghost Bear's Legacy on my first PC.
The most memorable game I know of from my Snes was Mech Warrior 3050. Gosh that game was so tense and beautiful for its time.
I still have my original cd and my sidewinder pro which it came bundled with. The sound and music really made this game. Like he said it looked really clean and the ability to disable your opponent was different. Just an amazing game. Mech 2 and I76 so many memories. I had a matrox mystique too :).
Love this series, liked and subscribed!
I'd love to see a big Naughty Dog retrospective. Keef the Thief, Way of the Warrior, Crash, Jak, Uncharted and how their tech has improved over the years.
Or a comparison between Jak, Ratchet and Sly on the PS2 and how they use their tech to do different things.
Keep up the great work John!
Dunno if it's nostalgia or whatever, but i REALLY dig the DF Retro videos. THey're so interesting from a vintage technical standpoint. Plus the platform comparisons are always a big plus :D
Thank you. One of the best games OF ALL TIME by far.
This is one of my all time favorite games.
To this day the gameplay of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries has not been matched.
Being able to headshot and salvage any mech you see is an amazing feature.
I'm also still kind of ticked off that all Battletech games afterward restrict your loadouts so much.
Salvage headshot mechs works onlt for Windows version. For DOS it seems houses just dumped their trash on you. It is a way to do things though.
There is a Battletech tabletop game. Rules are intimidating so "Nattletech fan" made a youtube visual guidevto watch when reading the rules.
OMG fuck yes! This is a game of legend right here!
Didn't mention the Macintosh version which came optimized for the ATi Rage Pro cards popular with the second generation of PowerPC Macs of the time. It was basically a port of the DOS version without textures but with the excellent color gradients at 1024x768. It ran smooth and had the excellent Red Book CD-ROM soundtrack. Still own my copy. Great Retro retrospective.
Great episode !!! Cant wait for MDK !!!
My version of MW2 came with the sidewinder pro joystick which I absolutely loved. I had so much fun playing this game.
Great vid as usual. Even if I'm going to be driven mad by having Billy Ze Kick's version of "Non Non Rien Na Changé" stuck in my head until the next episode comes out.
One of the only games I used a joystick for on my old DOS PC. Loved this game
I had the Matrox M 3D Power VR card. Some games looked great with it (Nightmare Creatures in particular looked excellent). As for the next episode, MDK came bundled with my P166 MMX PC back in 1997. Great game. It sounded like the enemies constantly shouted "RUGBY RUGBY BALL"
So fascinating. Early PC gaming history is very interesting.
I didn't even know about all those versions. Pretty fascinating.
Best series on this whole channel
I definitely prefer the flat-shaded polygons of the DOS version over their texture-mapped counterparts, there's just something so charming about them.
Having only played the Saturn port myself, while I do find it thoroughly enjoyable, believe the developers should have ported the original DOS version but kept the control scheme of the final port, surely the Saturn/PS1 could have handled what a PC could render in software, but then again every game had to have texture-mapped 3D graphics at the start of the fifth generation without exception (look at SONY, they wouldn't even allow 2D PS1 games to be localised at the time).
Another great video John,thank you.
Mechwarrior 3 was my favorite. I played the crap out of it in 1999 and even bought a copy for one of my friends so we could do modem-to-modem games.
Did you play the 1984 mechwarrior tabletop game? Battletech a game of armored combat. Rules are intimidating so "Battletech fan" youtube channel made a visual guide to watch while reading the rules. It is very simulationist.
Dynamix were the masters of pushing the bounderies of gaming. I still fondly remember Tribes 1 and 2, I hope DF Retro cover these landmark multiplayer games someday.
Dynamix -Red Baron
"Starsiege complete" and "nGlide" by zeus software. For Windows 10. Try this combo.
Man this was my childhood. I had the DOS version running on win 95. I ran the "Rifleman" mech with those four huge barrels set to PPCs. Overheated like hell but I dominated. :D I requested MW2 during the Half Life 2 DF Retro vid. Woo!
Try the mechwarrior tabletop game "Battletech a game of armored combat". "Battletech fan" made a youtube visual guide because tabletop rules are very complex.
history of 3d accelerators would be amazing
Download nGlide from Zeus software. It emulates 3DFX on Windows 10 like a charm. There is "Starsiege complete" version out there so you can test its 3DFX graphics.
Flat shaded is definitely my favorite. Played so damn much back in the day. Used to love the internal Mech's system voice.
"All systems... nominal. Autopilot... engaged."
Oooo! Looking forward to the MDK video already. Despite owning all of the Mech Warrior PC games I never really got into them. I was at the phase where I would buy a tonne of games and never play them.
Wait a second! I'm still doing that only now Steam is my video game store.
This game (in its first iteration and later on W95 along with Mercenaries) influenced my childhool verrrrrry much. Ever since then I've been chasing that same athmosphere these games portraied for me and I haven't been successful....
I might be chasing a feeling warped by nostalgia, but I yearn for something that delivers the same package.
Heyyo, nice episode on MW2... Upcoming MDK!? Sweet! I really loved MDK2 where you save Edmonton Alberta from aliens lol
Love the Original colors and version Not new 3DFX version...
Great Video man exactly what I had while watching your video I was type.
I had the Matrox Mystique version. Damn I still wish I could play it with the textures. Also this game to day has the best soundtrack. I wish that MW:5 would simply update the MW2 OST.
And lol to the shout-out for the S3 Virge 3D Decelerator :D
Love this videos. A Crazy taxi faceoff ( DC vs PS2 vs GC vs PC vs PS3/ XBOX 360) would be nice
Love these videos keep them coming.
Very informative video. I didn't know about all these versions. Always I was convinced that is the same game. :O
As a huge fan of MechWarrior 2, this episode was actually quite informative for me. I always assumed the Titanium Trilogy version was the same as the older 3D-accelerated versions, outside of them running on Mercenaries' engine (notice the different heat and damage displays, and for some reason using Mercs' computer and weapon sound effects).
But yeah, many many days were spent on this game, especially in NetMech (on a hastily-cobbled LAN, at that).
I only came into the Mechwarrior scene around Mechwarrior 3. I was playing the free Mektek version of MW4 up until it shut down too - love these games.
What a great game *Mechwarrior 2* still is. The best thing about the series is that you control the mech like driving a tank, opposed to many mech games where you play just like a FPS.
Hey man in the pseudo trench coat! I want to say something:
Doing Mech' Fuckin' Warrior 2 is genius and brought a tear to my eyes!!! Thanks
On the next episode of DF Retro: I think I've seen that game, it was 15 years ago, on an imac. If it really is that game, I'm pretty excited to finally figure out what that crazy game was all about.
DOS version by far looks the best. Keep up the hard work John.