MechWarrior is back!

edit: Oh, Steel Battalion? I wouldn't count that, since it couldn't be played without its own $200 controller. Technically, I could play Falcon 3.0 on my PSP, but I wouldn't be able to control it with its eight buttons and two direction pad things.

$200 controllers are just as stylish as ever. Steel Battalion was just way ahead of its time. Rock Band is ultra popular with its $250 ensemble. $100 Wii Fit has sold something like 16 million copies. The next Tony Hawk will be based around an expensive skateboard peripheral.
 
Am I the only person in the world who has some kind of existential problem with mechs? I'm glad a classic game is coming back (in a genre that's getting closer to ours!...) and I appreciate the level of seriousness and detail in the MechWarrior/BattleTech/etc. fiction... but big walking robot suits bug the heck out of me. The most versatile form for futuristic superweapons is *us*, but giant and made of metal and with weapons stuck on in awkward places? *Really*?

They just seem like such unnecessarily complex designs; all sorts of needlessly arranged parts just to make them stand and walk instead of roll or float or something. Like that stupid skull-shaped Skull fighter in Privateer 2, but with entire universes based around the idea that every faction in the universe makes their weapons look like human bones* for some reason. (You know what never bugged me, though, were the mechs in Exosquad... I wonder why...)

* - This would actually be awesome. And the Skull is amazing, if stupid.
 
Yeah, I kind of understand what you're saying. This is the main reason why I could never get into the series. I tried the first game, and ultimately got frustrated that I wasn't flying or something.

That's not meant to take anything away from the games at all; just that I didn't feel like the scenario made sense.
 
Well I'm still hoping for a decent film based on the games. I mean theres been plenty of FMV seen in the games, so why hasn't someone like FOX taken the bull by the horns. Okay so theres been a couple of let downs (Robot Jox and its sequel).

Anyway. I really will be looking forward to this. I just hope they allow usage of the Elemental power suit :p
 
The idea of having a giant robot body to do things you can not normally do, makes sense... In Macross(Robotech), the fighters were specially developed to engage the enemy one-on-one in physical combat, since they were known to be "upgraded" 60-feet tall humans, (they learned that from the library of the crashed spaceship). (ofcourse, the scene where the enemy commander actually walks across the outer hull, holding his breath, and climbs back in IS totally ridiculous).

What always bothers me is the controls, why not link the damn thing up to your nervous system instead of sitting in a chair pushing control switches and handles?
 
The idea of having a giant robot body to do things you can not normally do, makes sense... In Macross(Robotech), the fighters were specially developed to engage the enemy one-on-one in physical combat, since they were known to be "upgraded" 60-feet tall humans, (they learned that from the library of the crashed spaceship). (ofcourse, the scene where the enemy commander actually walks across the outer hull, holding his breath, and climbs back in IS totally ridiculous).

What always bothers me is the controls, why not link the damn thing up to your nervous system instead of sitting in a chair pushing control switches and handles?

'Mechs are hooked up to their pilots' brains using neurohelmets to aid in keeping the vehicle standing upright, but that is about all they can do. According to the background of the Battletech universe, technological development stagnated and began its decline at a point where mind control interfaces were on the cutting edge. One of the last technological breakthroughs in that universe was an artificial limb that used artificial muscle fibers, controlled directly by the central nervous system.
 
This game looks pretty neat and clean. Hopefully it will still have the feeling during this specific time in the BT universe.

3015 place it around the 3rd and 4th Succession War. The wars basically bombed technology back centuries, and it took like 200 years to climb back out of the hole. A combination of Hanse Davion investing in the future and the discovery of the Grey Death Memory Core.

These events still are a decade or more off according to the timeline. This period should be a time when Mechwarriors are like landless knights/nobles whose entire status is based on battlemechs that could be decades if not centuries old.

I trust Smith & Tinker though. The CEO is the guy who brought our favorite BT games onto our PCs and consoles.
 
I like Mechs personally. I'm not the biggest fan of anime out there, and I generally don't care for the anime mechs (I'll forgive Macross though since it's rather awesome) with the faces and 100% humanoid bodies and such, but mechs are rather cool to me. MechWarrior and EarthSiege had the best-looking mechs to me. In my opinion, mechs should just do the things that tanks do. Heavy and medium mechs could serve like tanks, MICVs, and maybe APCs, mobile artillery, and AAA in the militaries of WW2 to the present. Lighter mechs could serve as squad support platforms providing small-arms AAA, supressiing fire (think of 1 mech being able to bring the firepower of 4 M-60s to bear on the enemy), and maybe serve as a fighting shield in some cases to provide the squad protection from enemy small-arms while still firing on its own. That's just how things would work if I wrote a story ;).
 
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