ADG Episode 55 - MechWarrior 2
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Episode Originally Released: August 6th, 2011
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Few people had ever heard of or played the original MechWarrior for DOS as MechWarrior 2 basically eclipsed its predecessor, raking in critical acclaim due to its extreme amounts of customization and content, along with being very simple to play given its simulation nature. Even nowadays, this game is still just as fun to play as it was 18 years ago! :D
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Additional Information and Corrections:
* Apologies for my voice sort of conflicting with the computer voice in the background. Wasn't quite sure how to get around that without removing the voice entirely or removing the sound effects too. Ultimately, that's what I started doing when I had to deal with conflicting voice clips. :P
* I'd also like to note that video compression makes all the thin HUD lines look very blurry. In the actual game, they're razor-sharp and bright, just like a real HUD... not that I've ever seen a real HUD in person but you know what I mean. :P
* I made a small mistake with the mission count. The 16 missions you get for each of the two clans INCLUDES their Trials of Position, so not counting the trials you actually get 12 missions with each clan. That's still 38 missions overall, counting the trials and training, and still quite the decent amount!
* One tip I forgot to mention is the slower you're moving, the faster you can turn, but considering jump jets turn the fastest no matter what, this is kinda pointless because not having jump jets in this game is a major hindrance! (Future games would make the jump jets more specialized as they're supposed to be.)
* There's an expansion called Ghost Bear Legacy which almost doubles the mech roster and adds another full selection of missions to play... but alas, I don't own it. :(
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ADG on Pixelmusement: www.pixelships....
Alphabetical Index of ADG Episodes: www.pixelships....
The MechWarrior 2 trilogy are some of my favorite games of all time, especially Mercenaries. At the time MechWarrior 2 came out it was one of the greatest games ever made and one of the older 3D titles that still plays amazingly well today.
Never playd this game, all that I know is that its engine was used to make one of the best games ever: Interstate '76 (which also has an amazing soundtrack)
The last MechWarrior I played was 4, and I actually liked 2 better than 4. 4 just had better graphics, but to me, everything else about 2 was better. Especially the music!
Love it, my ringtone and notifications are all .wav sounds from this game. Miss these days.
Am reading the Blood of Kerensky trilogy which has brought me here. I've never played this game as my PC at the time couldn't run it :) such a cool universe so am happy to have finally got into it!
Wow.. I forgot all about this soundtrack. Still have the cd in my binder :)
That music brings me back! I played so much MW2 and the Ghost Bear Legacy expansion. My favorite thing to do was select the Nova mech, load it up with all LLasers, and the rest with heat sink. Than in-game, I'd set weapons to FireAll, and one shot would instantly kill any mech...though I'd instantly shutdown from overheating. But after a few seconds I'd manually bootup and move on to find my next victim. This was a dangerous strategy, but it was a fun way to play in Netplay.
When MechWarrior 3 came out, I came up with a neat game to play online with it called "Shoot The Firefly!" where anyone could join but I would be running around in a nearly unarmed Firefly (save for a single small laser) no armour at all and the biggest engine I could fit in the thing, resulting in a LUDICROUS top speed with everyone struggling really hard to shoot at me because lag compensation wasn't quite a thing yet with most online gaming! ;D
i got a copy of this game at goodwill for $4. i regret nothing.
I remember glitching this game myself back when I played it in the 90s. Somehow on the construction screen I managed to break it to the point where it let me remove the same item over and over until I ended up with a zero ton mech. So I promptly fit jump jets to it and when I got into the level (I think the same level as in the intro to this level, must be something weird going on with that) I of course immediately activated the jump jets, causing my weightless mech to shoot up at an absurd speed, reach a peak height of something like a kilometre, fall for about a full minute, and eventually hit the ground at terminal velocity, causing my mech to explode on impact. It was pretty amusing.
+AmysFantasies I think these glitches were patched out of the 1.1 update. I also remember the 1.1 update was somewhat mystifying at the time and few people realized it was actually a thing you could get. Guess Activision didn't do a good job letting everyone know it existed. :P
+Pixelmusement There is a distinct possibility that the system I was playing this on had no internet access (I didn't get that until 1999) so updates were kinda hard to come by. :-p
Sure weren't the times of forced automatic updates.
I definitely share your adoration for this gem.
This game got something like 95% or 96% in PC Gamer back in the 90s; it's undeniably one of the best DOS games ever made! ;)
This is still one of my favorite games. I have played this game so much. I also have the expansion Ghost Bear. There are a few interesting mission. I always play it with a joystick. Even got the win95 version with my Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback.
Oh, this game. I love this game so much. Easily my favorite DOS game, and one of my all time gaming favorites. Great atmosphere, great music, great sound, great graphics, great game-play. Can't get enough. :)
good, thorough commentary! Sub added
I loved the desert/mesa levels back in '94. Even today they still look cool, despite the graphics are made of polygones large as skyscapers.
One of the best games of all time.
Also, you seem to forget that canonically, Autocannons don't necessarily fire one round per shot. Some fire around three, even FIVE rounds per trigger pull. You can actually see this in game. If you fire an AC round, you'll see multiple projectiles, i guarantee to you. So taking that into account, an AC20 "round" in-game is ACTUALLY around 3-5 rounds, so that's 15-25 rounds per ton, depending on what company made that specific model. Still heavy, but not a whole FIFTH OF A TON.
Also, something to note about machine guns is, similar to Autocannons, each "round" in tabletop is most likely around 5-10 actual bullets. So, if you have 200 "rounds", that's probably about 1000-2000 bullets. However, MechWarrior 2 doesn't work that way, and each round is represented as a bullet. That, combined with the fact that the machine gun is a rapid fire weapon, explains why the machine guns are so powerful. Now, if Activision had multiplied the rounds by 5, divided the damage of each round by the same number, and kept the fire rate the same, they would be much more accurate...and balanced.
I remember having the game on Mac. I played it so much that my Brother got mad and threw away the CD. He never understood why I loved it so much. TT_TT Years later, I have the game, but DOS Box is having problems with it. Nothing that can't be worked around! Thanks for your review
Wow, I must say that it is as great review for one of my favorite childhood game as it could possibly be from a not BattleTech fan. Good job.
You say that MechWarrior 1 wasn’t known much. It was actually very well known for a time after it’s release, and was well received. But, like you said, it was mostly forgotten after the 2nd released.
One more thing, not only is there a self-destruct key combination, but also an EJECTION combination, as well as a key combination to turn auto-ejection on or off. Do note that self destructing actually kills the pilot as well (at least, I'm pretty sure), while also blowing up your 'Mech in the process, whereas ejecting saves the pilot but leaves the 'Mech for collection for salvage and such.
+MasterBuchannon Ejecting? What do I look like, some sort of inner sphere coward? ;)
Pixelmusement Arrogant fool! Putting honor above your own life, hah! Your ‘Mech shall be your grave, Clanner!
Pixelmusement at least we know how to fight dirty, which is why you bucket heads lost the Battle of Tukayyid!
LOVE this game to death ! :D
I remember back in the day how hard it was to get some of the mechwarrior games up and running; in many cases being the reason we needed to upgrade something in the machine.
+ReddmanDGZ I never had issues "running" them, but geeze... Mercs was full of bugs, 3 liked to crash at random, and 4... umm... actually 4 was pretty stable, just very unlike the previous games and thus hard to get used to. :P
When we FIRST got one of these games, my friend was upgrading from a 486 DX somethingornother to a pentium to run the game, and the board simply wouldn't accept the new CPU, even though it was spec'd out for it. I basically achieved a 'degree in computer science' just building PC's back in the 90's to get stuff running sometimes :D
+Pixelmusement hi I just saw the video and about mercs I only encoutered a crash once during a arena mission this is one of the few games that made me keep coming back once in a while when I boot up my windows 95 VM and mechwarrior 4 is very stable I managed to get it running in my old K6-2 266 that is below the minimum specs for that game I think
sergito2040 Mercs on Windows is more "stable" than the DOS version, but is still prone to some really stupid bugs, such as the Small Pulse Lasers having so short a range that they cease to exist before they can even run their first frame of hit detection. Mech 4 doesn't do a lot of advanced graphical tricks so as long as you have the right OS and DirectX support, it should work on underpowered systems, however, if you skimp on the RAM requirement you're going to find certain missions or large multiplayer matches may run into severe lag.
The first (and I think last) Mechwarrior game I ever played… on the Sega Saturn :P I did like it though. Again I kinda have a little nostalgia for these simpler rendered polygons back int he 90s than the super detailed stuff of today. Of course my favorite mech to use was the Timber Wolf. :P
+Jonny D The Mad Cat (aka Timber Wolf) is a fan favourite for sure. My favourite's the Marauder line. ;)
Reminds me of Earthsiege 2, which I loved to play the demo version of it! :D
Dat computer voice.
clan wolf for life!
Yesssss, I absolutely _love_ this game. I probably spent as much time customizing mechs as playing the missions themselves. It was also because of this game that I found out you could play some game CDs of this era in a CD player. Which I did. A lot.
I recently got into DOSBox and found out you can now get all 3 MW2 games online for free. Since I never actually got around to playing MW2 Mercs, I'm eager to try it (after replaying the other two, of course). However, I'm finding that the mouse and keyboard is kinda awkward in the native MW2 control environment, since you can't reassign some keys (like WASD to movement). Did you use the DOSBox keymapper? I'm almost intimidated to try it, given the sheer number of controls that would need to be shuffled around
Nah. I grew up with the game and have the defaults embedded into my skull, although I do alter the internal keymap (as MW2 has some impressive control customization abilities) to make the up and down arrows increase and decrease throttle. :B
@@Pixelmusement "make the up and down arrows increase and decrease throttle" my god, I can't believe I didn't think of that
I myself grew up using an MS Sidewinder joystick, so the M+KB is taking some getting used to. I might try setting it up with a Logitech two-stick gamepad like I did with TIE Fighter
@@hewh0wearspants So, having played all the MW games up to 4 Mercs (and will be playing 5 as soon as it hits Steam) I've noticed that certain games seem better/worse for certain control schemes than others. All MW games up to 3 seem better optimized for keyboard+mouse play and you can get much better control and precision out of it. The MW4 games however added "weight" to the controls, to make the mechs feel more like lumbering machines, and because of that, the joystick controls in the MW4 games tend to work considerably better than keyboard+mouse as the physical limits of joystick movement tie in better with those physics. MW:Online on the other hand, don't even bother with a joystick because everyone still playing that can headshot you with their eyes closed. :P
i was in love by this game when i met it.. still am sort of... but the new versions can't capture me like the old ones... probably be cause the game become more an action game than a technical one
+João Serra Actually, the reasoning is a little more insidious than that. You're right, the later games don't hold attention as well as the earlier games despite being better balanced and having better graphics overall, but each of those games has a flaw which works against the original gameplay and design of Mech 2. Mech 2 Mercs has a terrible UI, game-breaking bugs and the computer voice isn't done very well, Mech 3 has insta-death from losing a leg and overheating to death is too easy, Mech 4 has long, drawn-out cutscenes and battles and made it impossible to overheat to death.
+Pixelmusement mechwarrior online is pretty solid, lots of customisation and deep teamwork, has a fair community too.
Aaron Babyblue Oooh, but there's one massive hurdle to MWO and that's the skill of the people still actively playing it. Last time I attempted to play MWO I was headshot-destroyed four times in a row on four separate excursions and barely got to shoot at anyone all four times. The skill of the players is so high that you absolutely must master the game or it's near impossible to enjoy it anymore. Part of the reason why I really wish they'd take the engine and make a purchasable single player campaign with it. :P
MechWarrior 5 just announced from the MWO team a few days ago.
Which enemy mech is at 15:08? Looks like an Altas, which wasn't in the game, IIRC.
+d3jake At that exact moment it's still an Elemental from several seconds prior, but then transitions to a Warhawk on the ice plains, also known as a Masakari. :B
BEST GAME EVER !
Oh, ONE LAST THING, depending on the speed of your processor it's usually a BAD idea to run DOSBox cycles at max, at least with 31st century combat no ghost bear's legacy. The reason is that the recharge rate of the jump jets is tied to in-game frame rate, and if you cent your cycles to high, you'll get a super high frame rate, which will severely slow down your jump jet's recharge rate or even stop it completely!
Although, I did notice your jump jets were recharging just fine. Are you using some sort of special DOSBox build that allows for frame rate capping, or just used a PC with a slow processor?
+MasterBuchannon Actually, I have to cap the cycles for recording using DOSBox's built-in recording features to achieve maximum recording quality, so that's what was going on there. I have since noticed that bug but it's considerably less of an issue if you play the game in DOSBox at 1024x768 resolution. ;)
Pixelmusement what do you cap your cycles to while recording, and have you played around with the setting at to see what’s best for playing at 1024x768 since you made the video?
+MasterBuchannon The jump jets issue is almost a non-issue with max cycles at 1024x768 res, except when there's very little on-screen. For recording this episode I think I set something between 80,000 and 120,000 cycles, though I don't remember. :P
Pixelmusement interesting. One thing to note is that even if recharging works relatively fine during normal combat, you're almost guaranteed to have slow recharge with Image Enhancement on. In fact, us MechWarriors over at the Mech 2 community usually turn on Image Enhancement during NetMech matches to improve frame-rate. I wonder if some where between cycles=max 75% and cycles=max 85% would do okay?
By the way, would you like a link to the MechWarrior 2 Discord, if you're not already a member?
+MasterBuchannon I don't do Discord stuff; not my cup of tea. As for using % values of max, keep in mind that max is relative to what your system's capable of emulating, thus you can't rely on a % of max to be consistent for everyone. If consistency between multiple systems is important then it's better to use a fixed cycles count.
Does honor (the score) actually matter in this one?
Nope. It's just bragging rights. :B
I hope the game lets me play as Roo.
I'm going to be completely honest, I've always wanted to like this game, but I could never get past those stupid training missions. :P That said, the last time I played this was around 5 years ago, so if I went back to it I probably wouldn't have as many problems.
136 likes vs 0 dislikes. Wraps it quite nicely..
$30 for a boxed copy of a game that is great is "not that cheap"? I think that's a steal!
There are quite a few games that are great that go for $100 just for the game.
I've found the average price for a typical, fully boxed DOS game on eBay is around $20, which is why I consider $30 to be "not that cheap". Games that are going for $100+ are typically very rare because they were produced in very limited quantities compared to the demand for it.
mission on ice planet: equip as many PPCs as you can and alpha strike everything :D
*temujin9000 Good idea in theory. In practice you realize that the external temperature only affects heat reduction, not heat generation, so after you alpha strike that many PPCs you explode anyways. :P
There's actually a funny bug in that heat damage doesn't get applied until you stop shooting your weapon(s). So if you never take your finger off the trigger then you never die. This can be horribly exploited with LPL's and using something like a Warhawk with 5 of them allows you to just melt any target in seconds. Just never stop shooting!
so is some one spamming in steam chat to this commentator, or has steam copied it's chat sound from this game ? :D
Some sound in that game is too similar to the Steam message sound.
This game came out way before, so I think Valve copied Activision, if anyone. But I don't think this is the case. I think many software companies used public domain sound effect libraries for some of their sound effects in various games. Even today I keep running into games where I hear a familiar sound effect with slight changes to them (Warframe being one example, some Infested enemy sounds).
There's about a zillion variations of that particular sound effect. A couple other incredibly commonly re-used sound effects include the door opening sound from Daggerfall and the photon torpedo sound from Star Trek. I can't count the number of unrelated TV shows, movies, and video games I've heard them in on just one hand. :P
Sometimes, companies intentionally re-use sounds in a sort of trademark way. Compile had a particular sound effect in almost every single one of their games, either used as a 1-UP sound, or in the case of The Guardian Legend, as the sound to indicate collecting a Lander powerup and becoming more powerful as a result.
***** Yeah, for example, the monster scream in Hexen had this sound effect for those centaur things when they died, but it has been popping up a lot, even in very recent games. :P
***** The DOOM door open sound, and the X-Com alien scream and menu buttons. I hear those a lot, too.
hi
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