MechWarrior

"Mock-Warrior"

I was excited back when I heard this game was coming out for the Super NES. I'm an old Battletech junkie from way back when, and I'd played the DOS PC version of Mechwarrior at my friend's house and I'd loved it. Sadly, (and I'm sure Spawn fans will agree with me) these things just never seem to fulfill your expectations.

First and foremost, I was confused to be saddled with a selection of strange Mechs, none of which existed in the pencil-and-paper Battletech universe at that time (they were later released in a "special" booklet, thanks FASA). Problem number two with the Mechs was that fully 6 out of 8 of them looked exactly the same except for little things like their legs being different or the addition of arms...or both. Now I know that SNES carts have a limited amount of memory, but COME ON! The Rajin is better than the Fujin (or vice versa, I forget which is which) because it's feet look cooler?

That was just the start. They allowed you to upgrade and customize your Mech, and then turned around and made 90% of your options in this field unnecessary and, in fact, a hindrance to completing the game. Using jump jets is typically confusing and you'll never run into a situation where you absolutely need to use them. Almost all of the weapons are worthless. The guy at the beginning tells you homing missiles are the best. He should have said, "The hell with everything else; homing missiles are the only thing you need." That would have been more truthful. Since missiles hardly create any heat (something they did get correct from Battletech) you don't have a wild need for heat sinks or a desperate necessity to even look at your heat gauge.

There are some good, large stills in the game, the Mechs in combat are decently animated, and you do get a different cockpit view for each Mech, which is something that I guess they could have just as easily ignored. There's a modest amount of detective work that you need to do as you hunt down the main villains. But the actual guts of the game get very boring rapidly, and it's pretty much the same thing, over and over until you reach the end.

Mechwarrior is pretty lousy game in general and a severe a disappointment to a Battletech fan-nerd. Steer clear of this game; you'll be doing yourself and your posterity a favor.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05