"MechWarrior 4 = MechWarrior flop"

After seeing all the screenshots and watching all the preview videos, I was extremely excited to finally be able to play MW4. Too bad it couldn't deliver much past its good graphics.

Graphics - 10/10
I might as well start on a high note. The graphics are simply amazing. Trees blow up as you walk across them, rockets that miss the target the first time sweep back around in a beautiful arc, 'Mechs smoke and burn where they've been shot. There are some subtle effects that may go unnoticed but should be commended, like the way a 'Mech's feet curl under slightly when they're dropped for the mission, or the slight inward bend of the backward knee 'Mechs, which suggests that the artists took gravity and physics into account more on this one.

Story - 2/10
The story, the story. As far as I remember, the story for MW4 is just a vessel for the graphics. Your life consists of two things: raiding outposts and capturing convoys. There were some walk-to-this-nav-point-kill-stuff-go-to-next-nav-point missions thrown in somewhere, but not many. The pre-mission briefings are terrible in this game, with little two minute video clips of various characters that you don't care about anyway. In one particular mission, there were 8 or 9 of these clips to watch, and about 3 times in a row my game crashed at about the 7th. Did I mention you can't fast forward? Oh, what I would give to see some basic text briefings from MC and MW2, or the recon data and MFB lecture from MW3. Basically, you'll want to skip the briefings and just pull up your objectives to see what you have to get done.

Gameplay - 5/10
Well, MW4 has the one redeeming factor for gameplay that all the MechWarrior games have: its a MechWarrior game. Anyone who has ever sat in the cockpit of a Timberwolf (Mad Cat to you freebirths out there) knows exactly how much fun it is to watch your other equally massive enemy fall to the ground and explode in a nuclear fireball. Weapon groupings have been changed for this game to a constant group fire with different hotkeys for different weapon groups, typically with lasers, ballistics, and missiles all in their own groups. Your lancemates are worlds easier to command in this game as well, with no individual targeting or bringing up a command computer necessary. Of course, your lancemates are that much dumber in this game. Expect to be killed or hit hard by 4 or more enemies who have nothing better to shoot at while your lancemates are a click or so behind you trying to figure out where the throttle is. Now, my issue with the 'Mech lab. Each MW game since MW2 has brought something new to the table as far as modifying your 'Mech goes. In Mercenaries, you had to more or less pay for everything. In MC, your equipment and options were regulated by what you salvaged and how many resource points were available to you. Of course, they cut out things like customizing your heat sinks, ammo loads, and critical spaces to over simplify. This was a good thing to a degree, since doing a full 'Mech loadout like one would do in MW2 could take hours for 3 lances of assault 'Mechs. In MW3, your equipment was regulated even more, with ammo and armor reliant on salvage, and a severe limiting of what you could carry with you. MW4 decided conveniently to throw out the limiting factors of MW3 and make things ''easier'' for you. Basically, you can salvage as much as you want of anything, ammo is infinite, and criticals are way too simplified. The interface has gone from actually having to think about what you want on your mech to drag and drop some weapons, make sure your stat bars (the designers gave us bars that measure your 'Mech's firepower, armor, speed, and heat efficiency) are relatively high, and go fight with it. Gone is the majority of thought involved. There is one very good thing in the 'Mech lab this time around: hardpoints. Of the three weapons groupings (lasers, ballistics, missiles), every 'Mech has hardpoints where only a certain type can be mounted. For instance, a Timberwolf has two shoulder mounted missile hardpoints where the racks on the default model, laser hardpoints on the arms, and omni (any weapon) hardpoints on its torso. While this is a very good thing and adds to realism, the designers neglected to put more omni hardpoints on the aptly named Clan OmniMechs. One of my favorite mech configurations (Mad Dog with a Gauss Rifle on each arm) is now nonexistant.

Sound - 5/10
The weapon sounds for the 'Mechs are great, and the bass rumbles of a walking 'Mech are superb as well. However, this category is losing alot of points for the absolutely terrible acting by your allies during briefings. Your enemies, and not even all of them, are the only ones worth listening to most of the time. Also, the in mission radio chatter is pretty bad with little exception, not to mention the voicing the times you get challenged to duels by enemies.

Replayability - 4/10
MW4 has one - count 'em, one - opportunity to pick which mission you go to. This game could've been ten times better if it had just included the oppotunity to make calls about where you advanced to. So, yes, there's basically no reason to replay it, unless you want to see the other ending, which is just as bad as whichever one you see the first time you beat it. Multiplayer seems to be ruled by people with bad connections and cards with almost no 3D acceleration.

Overall - 5/10
An overhyped, mediochre ruin of a game. Perhaps if less attention was spent on graphics, the other facets of the game could have been brought up to par. But alas, twas not to be...

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/02, Updated 04/22/02