My review of Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries (without the most recent DLC).

TL;DR, I would give the game a solid C (75%), probably would be a C+ if I had bought the DLC.

I'll also address the new DLC before I really begin, too. It looks pretty good, and I can totally understand how it would fit into the game well; however, I'm not interested in paying $15 when I'm already most of the way done with the campaign just for melee weapons. That said, if there's another sizable expansion (clans???), I would consider replaying it after buying both DLC. I did play the game with all the other DLC, I assume I bought the game during a Steam sale or something.


If you aren't already interested in large, slowish, stompy robots, don't buy this game. This is not for people who like Armored Core (I assume, I've never played it but it looks dumb) or only enjoys Gundams flying around with energy swords. The more familiar you are with the Battletech/Mechwarrior/MechAssault universe, the more you'll get out of this game, to a point. Looking at Steam now, the base price for MechWarrior 5 is $30, and sadly the game feels like it. I don't know if its because I've had my expectations lowered by other mediocre modern games or if certain aspects of this game are higher quality than you'd expect, but knowing the game is $30, I'm not surprised. While pretty much every basic Battletech weapon, given this series' lineage, there's a lack of options (where are the ER Medium Lasers, Streak LRMs, or the UAC/2, /10, or /20?), but the inclusion of Burst Fire auto-cannons and stream and single shot (not to be confused with single use) launchers is nice. Additionally, the handling of some weapons is just downright stupid or lazy. Splitting the LBX AC into slug and shot makes no sense to me and comes off as lazy, especially when there's other equipment that do allow toggling modes (turning ECM on/off, AMS, MASC, ect.). The number of mechs to drive, while more than MechWarrior 4, with all the expansions, still feels like not quite enough. If you play through the campaign, you'll more than notice the lack of variety. It does have slightly less variety than Battletech (the 2018 strategy game), but given the additional work that goes into a first/third person mech including cockpit instead of just a smaller RTS model, I can understand it. There is also a lack of variety in non-pilotable enemies, such as only having two VTOL models and a handful of tanks. You'll also notice the lack of biomes pretty quickly too.

The bigger issue is the implementation of customization in MW 5. Unlike my experience with other Battletech universe games that allow customization, MW 5 eschews many of the options other games have. Weapons are grouped into three slot sizes (small, medium, and large) and three-to-four categories (energy, missile, ballistic and melee with the most recent DLC). There are a few other slots, such as active probes, electric warfare countermeasures, and anti-missile systems. The main problem comes from the handling of these slots. Slotting a small or medium laser into a large energy slot makes the weapon take the same amount of space as a large laser or PPC. Given the fixed and severely limited number of slots on any mech (unlike other games, a mech will only have the available slots that are utilized in the stock loadout), you end up having very little reason to not stick with a stock or semi-stock loadout. Changing an SRM 6 for LRM 5 or 10, or PPC to a large laser or large pulse laser is about the only real decision you'll make. Additionally, when modifying a mech, leaving slots empty (such as not equipping a Beagle Active Probe) does not free up the slots for use with heatsinks or other uses. You just end up with a dead slot. This becomes especially apparent once you start finding MASC or superchargers (equipment that can speed up your mech) or want to install jump jets. Almost no mechs have a slot of MASC/Supercharger, so you're pretty much better off selling them to pay your Comstar bills. While this forces you to pursue other loadouts for mechs, especially hero mechs, it makes it feel like you can never really make a mech your own. In the end, I just ended up dropping small lasers or flamers and maxing armor. It's also a bit interesting the lack of use that upgraded armor or structure a mech has. Ferro-Fibrous or Endo-Steel has almost no impact. It barely adds any free weight (both of these are weight reducing but more expensive material to build your mech that should also take up free slots on your mech as a trade off) and the refusal of including them as space taking equipment is curious. The absence is doubly strange when (although not shown to the player) extra-light engines do take up free slots on mechs that feature them, though I am unsure if XL engines render a mech inoperable if a side torso is destroyed in MW5.

The gameplay is the only place the game truly shines. It it pretty fun to core a Panther from 1000m away with dual gauss rifles, and some of the slower, larger mechs really do provide a different feel from a standard point and shoot FPS. Managing weapon groups so you don't say, have 4 large pulse lasers firing at once and causing you to overheat constantly is fun. When you're actually piloting a mech, every one I used felt at least in some way different. Even small changes such as having a laser placed higher on a large mech's shoulder instead of in the torso can completely change the feel of piloting it. For instance, the Nightstar's large laser slot is great for headshots, while the Atlas-K's arm lasers often will hit the torso instead of the head. There are some small issues, such as the start up routines being reused across cockpits so that the actions don't line up with actual buttons on some cockpits, but the general feel is pretty good. With the Heroes of the Inner Sphere Cantina upgrades, you do lose some of the differences, though. Slapping turning rate upgrades on an assault (the highest weight tier, 80-100 tons) often removes some of the feel of piloting a hulking death machine.

Another issue that arises in single player is lack of squad control. Too often I would notice my Archer (long range bombardment with missiles unit) had decided to rush in and use his medium lasers or fists instead of hanging back where units would be outside of his missiles' minimum range. Similarly, at least for my play through, you, as the only human, seem almost forced into a close range or medium range brawler. Enemies will focus on you over your squad mates and occasionally objectives once you fire on them and quickly close the distance. If you're planning to be the long range rocket, PPC, or guass rifle sniper for your squad, you better max armor and stock up on medium lasers anyways or you'll be needing to throw robotic fists in no time. I will point out that this game has full campaign and career mode coop, so if you play with another human (the game supports up to 4 player coop), I assume this would be much less of an issue. Even with one other human player, I could see you being able to specialize roles and play much more tactically than one person and 3 CPU lancemates.

There are a few additions that are barely touched, though. In one or two mission types, there will be artillery which fires on your position (again only targeting the player, not the CPU lancemates), and in literally only three missions do mech repair stations show up. It almost feels like someone had a cool idea towards the end of development and it never got fully implemented.

The campaign is where the gameplay really shines. Unlike the randomly generated missions, campaign levels do have some level of difficulty. You may find yourself replaying 2-3 missions more than once after getting killed for playing stupidly and rushing in. Campaign levels are what every mission should be, a multi-part mission with shifting objectives, ambushes, and can make you feel like you're barely scraping by. On the other hand, the randomly generated missions feel very standard. "Defend this objective from 20 enemies," "Destroy these three buildings," all the objectives are very simple and generally extremely short. The Legend of the Kestral Lancers DLC is an excellent example of what the game can be. The DLC campaign forces you to take part in a multi-year war for a planet, with set dates of battles, making you keep multiple lances of mech ready at all times while others repair. There are also a small number of quests in game, normally with missions somewhere in between campaign and randomly generated missions, and offering a large reward if you complete the quest. The only other difficulty comes from multi-level missions, which require consecutive deployment. Generally, these are pretty simple, but you can find yourself hoisted by your own petard if you deploy too many mechs early on and leave yourself with little or no undamaged units for the last missions.

It should be noted there are a number of large, popular mods which fix many of the issues I outlined here. That said, I didn't play with them and cannot comment. Some of the more popular ones, such as the Clan Invasion mod, seem to be pretty new, though, and update frequently, even if their content seems scattershot and have yet to build something I would be willing to put my time into playing. I have to assume a lot of these either gained new life or began development with the recent Steam release (the game was previously an Epic store exclusive). Compared to the other recent Battletech universe game, being Battletech 2018, none of the mods are near the level offered in that game just yet. I should note that I've read many of the mods do work on Xbox, if you're a console player.

If you're like me and have more than a little familiarity with the Battletech universe, you'll likely be a bit disappointed with the setting. Maybe I just have a soft spot for the Jihad or Dark Age, but man, I have zero interest in more Succession Wars content. Given all the new toys to play with, more varied units, and tiers of tech that are even introduced with the Clan Invasion, I can't help to be a bit salty when the new games keep focusing on the older time periods instead of what I find more interesting.

In the end, I'm sure this comes off as more negative than I'm intending. While there are a lot of issues, the game is fun if you like large, more western-style mechs. Don't come into this expecting a $60 AAA game or super fast Japanese mecha and you'll have a good time. I'll probably remember something I wanted to include, but more or less, that's all I have to say on this game. If I want to mess around with big robots, I'll reinstall Battletech with BEX or BTA instead.

OFFICIAL RATING:

C

Buy if you're interested in the genre.

Shout out to the Zeus, most fun I had was piloting that as a long range cavalry mech with LRM 20 and an ER PPC, even if it really isn't as useful as other assault mechs. Second place goes to my Black Knight.

54
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I appreciate this effortpost though I only care about this genre of game insofar as I wish Harebrained Schemes would do more with the Shadowrun IP instead of only working on Battletech.

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I love SR dragonfall

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me too

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I liked the Disco Elysium room, pretty accurate.

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ikr it's crazy how good it captures the style/feel. My favorites the Super Mario RPG one, I wasn't sure if it would actually work but it scaled/sized everything really well haha

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SRR & Dragonfall were great, the third one was okay; small improvements to gameplay but the plotline felt like 1/3 the scope of previous games.

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SRR & Dragonfall were great, the third one was okay; small improvements to gameplay but the plotline felt like 1/3 the scope of previous games.

Oh crap, I literally beat hong kong too and got it blended in my head with dragonfall lol.

I did love at the end how you were asking people about the crazy story events and people were like "Who fackin cares? We have magic here and see crazy shit everyday. Stopping some eldergod from returning is just another fricking Tuesday, chump."

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Funny, doesn't Microsoft own both?

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I'm pretty sure Harebrained Schemes is a Paradox subsidiary.

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No, I mean Shadowrun and Battletech. 99% sure HBS licenses both from MS.

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oh true, I didn't realize that

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Oh, I just looked it up. MS owns the video game rights to both, but not the tabletop stuff. Weird split lol

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Yeah its been too long since the last Shadowrun installment.

As I recall, HBS only does the turn based Battletech. Mechwarrior is a different developer.

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SHADOWRUN: GAG ME WITH A SPOON by William Gibson

No relationship. No permission. Nothing. Nary a word exchanged, ever.

Except that the admixture of cyberspace and, spare me, elves, has always been more than I could bear to think about.

I've just been ignoring it for years, and hope to continue to.

:#marseyxd:

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probably the best game review I've read since RPS shat the bed :marseypixel:

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I used to really enjoy RPS but haven't ready any gaming sites in about 6 years. How did the site go downhill?

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All the good writers left. Jim, Kieron, Quinns, Tom, all realized that games journ*lism is r-slurred and went on to better things. They were replaced with garbage writers and now it's nothing but blogspam.

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Did they move onto another site like Jeremy Parish did with gamespite or did they call it quits completely?

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Jim and Tom went into game development. Tom has been moderately successful for one guy releasing Game Maker games. Kieron is a comic book artist. Quinns is doing Shut Up and Sit Down now. I dunno about the other OG RPS authors.

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the eurog*mer/pcg*mer conglomerate took a firmer hold over their editorial content, their best reviewers left, including the remaining founder, with the specialized warsim guy being fired over some lukewarm transmisia. They now post tons of shit content, like product "reviews" copypasted from presumably press releases, and game update news right off of the same. They rarely/never cover the more obscure and interesting stuff released. Most of this went down in 2020 or so, IIRC.

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Well that's a shame, RPS was one of the few outlets where you could get an actual opinion instead of regurgitated info straight from the developer saying "BEST GAME EVAR BUY PRODUCT NOW" plus they covered some weird niche shit that I never would have heard of if not for them

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tyty

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Ah, I already remembered something else I wanted to include. The campaign has some really interesting ideas that you only see in it. Like a level where 90% of the enemies are already damaged, but there's way more than a normal level. It convinced me my 4 UAC/5 King Crab was a top tier build (LBX Slug x4 would have been better) because I melted everything. Again, an interesting idea that never shows up in the rest of the game. Also you can mix dual and single heatsinks and there's no LBX 2, 5, or 20. Both nitpicks, though. Mixing heatsinks almost feels required since the slot management is so weird.

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I am a simple moid. I see big mechs with guns, I like

:marseyautism:

I think that game was quiet fun. Could be a lot better generated mission design wise.

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I haven't used it, but there's a mod that is supposed to help with that. I think it's something like Coyote's Missions or something. There's also a biome mod and a mech lab mod that people like.

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If you aren't already interested in large, slowish, stompy robots, don't buy this game

Would it be good for titanfall fans? I mained Ronin but always had just as much fun with Northstar, Ion and Scorch and also mained the Atlas chassis in TF1.

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Probably not. Unless you're playing a light or maybe medium, nothing is going to go that fast and it's a completely different speed of game apart from your movement. I'd recommend watching some gameplay if you're really curious. TF 1's MP was great imo. Never got into 2's, but the campaign was 10/10.

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>TF 1's MP was great imo.

I honestly think the division of titan/pilot gameplay in TF1 & TF2 should be studied by game devs. Too many games split up infantry/vehicle combat in ways that either make players ignore one for the other, fight their teammates for vehicle access, or favors infantry or vehicles too heavily. Titans have a strong advantage over pilots, making titan dominance a major threat, but all the same pilots have all the tools they need to evade/combat titans or get their own even when overpowered. As well, Titans are acquired by actually contributing to your team as a pilot, so no body is sitting in a spawn zone or respawn screen waiting for titans to be available because the quickest way to get one is to work for it. Most importantly, it's not a sheer skill reward like a kill-streak, but is an objective reward making it both a major part of the gameplay dynamic and allowing lower skill players to access it.

:marseyautism:

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They also deserve points for taking Battlefield's idea of having every action give you points and refining it. Adding AI to the map (in most modes) that even bad players can kill and feel like they're contributing and also help get access to their titan is super smart. Also the movement is that game was amazing, even without the grappling hook. You could practically fly through the levels if you knew what you were doing. I'll never forgive Respawn for nerfing the EVA-8 in 2, though.

Talking about division between mech/vehicle and on foot, if you ever looked into MechWarrior Living Legends, it was a mod built on Crysis that I'm told had a pretty good division between power armor, tanks and mechs. I never got to play it and I'm pretty sure it shut down when MWO launched, but it always seemed like a super cool idea and peopled like it. I might be misremembering after15+ years, but I think the second MechAssault game on Xbox original also did it. You could steal mechs as a power armor or use tanks, ect. I remember liking both those, but I have no idea if they'll hold up at all.

Nice golden marsey btw

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>I'll never forgive Respawn for nerfing the EVA-8 in 2,

Hop on the northstar client so you can git gud with the mastiff. It's a spiritual experience. Nothing hits like the kill sound after perfectly timing every plasma bolt into sawing a CAR pilot in half right at the midriff during the three whole frames he was on your screen.

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Is that the user server thing they had to use to get rid of bots? Flying around with an EVA-8 hipfiring sideways as I zoom past someone try-harding with a rifle is a top gaming moment for me.

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>is that the user server thing they had to use to get rid of bots?

Yeah. The official servers are pretty much ded now, but Northstar is pretty cool last I checked (which was admittedly a while ago) because now with custom servers comes custom game-modes/game-rules.

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Apex did this

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EA did this. This happens with so many studios but people get surprised every time it happens, and act like you’re crazy every time you predict it happening.

Never forget what they did to bullfrog.

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Posts like this is why I do Heroine.

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The tism is strong in this one

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I'm just so sick of having half my team in every battlefield match sitting in the respawn screen waiting for the guy in the jet to crash.

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As someone who wanted to play the game for the mechs, I found them to be the weakest part of the game, I just loved zooming around the map with boosts, double jumps and the likes

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I find people tend to prefer one over the other, but true enlightenment comes when you realize that one pretty much can't survive without the other. The titans encourage high-skill movement and discourage camping by dominating the low and open spaces while at the same time the pilots provide both lower level enemies for titans to nail the feeling of being a killing machine as well as a buffer between titan spawns that doesn't lead to large periods of inactivity. I personally do prefer pilot game-play though, because it's something that just can't be found in any other game.

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RIP MWLL

that game was so fun

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I've heard MWO is decent, but I have zero interest. I really would recommend BEX and BTA (especially BEX), both linked at the bottom, if you like turn based games.

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You could get mech warrior 5 for $30 on steam or you could get chivalry II on steam for $30

My observation from your review is both are most likely worth the $30 tag and i'm glad good games arent costing an arm and a leg to acquire.

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mordhau is better :marseycrusader:

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I havent played so i cant compare :marseyshrug:

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At least wait for a sale. I'm not sure I would recommend this without the 2 DLCs I have, and the third probably improve it a lot more (adds close combat weapons so you can have a sword and axe instead of just fists).

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Never continued playing after completing the first mission, was fun stomping on tanks with my commando (?) though.

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I dont believe in god but goddarn you post makes me want to embrace religion

Snapshots:

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mechwarrior 5 is also on gamepass which is like a dollar :platyrich:

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I appreciate this post.

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Battletech owns as a franchise but there hasn’t been a good official game since mw2. Thst and the cresent hawks’ inception are prolly the only good games in the franchise tbh.

It’s a shame that the only true representation of the actual game is mektek which is like 30 years old and looks like it

Rip FASA tho, who the frick knows who owns the game and source material now.

Powerlevel I used to post lore info and corrections to sarna.net in like 1995

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Sarna still chuggin along. The TBS Battletech from 2018 has a great mod that aims to be super lore accurate with BEX. Has news bulletins and tech updates through 3061, as of the most recent release I think. Also I liked MW4 BK as a kid.

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That’s cool. I used to play with my Marine brothers on deployment and sometimes still at the VFW but only by the BMR rules and MW 2nd edition when a campaign was going. Not even sure what the current rules edition is or what was changed since BMR era

Lost a lot of interest when they tried to rename it to mechwarrior and forced Loren Coleman to write a bunch of terrible bullshit with whatever dark age was supposed to be. Jihad was a cool idea bc they were trying to incorporate a 9/11 into the universe but dark age was such an obvious lore reset that make no Goddarn sense

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Didn't read all that, but I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened, or whatever


:#capysneedboat2::#capyantischizo::#space:

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thanks

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:#xdoubt:


:#capysneedboat2::#capyantischizo::#space:

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lookit all that juice

![](/images/16556851322658014.webp)

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Your fortune: Outlook good


:#capysneedboat2::#capyantischizo::#space:

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that because you have no giant robots.

Your fortune: You will meet a dark handsome stranger

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I tried to edit it and get Your fortune: NEETmaxxxxxxxx: the day is lost if you venture outside but I edited it too much and got rate limited


:#capysneedboat2::#capyantischizo::#space:

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its too late for me, i just got back from a hike

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Most exercisemaxxxxed dramacel

I have been codemaxxxing for days which I count as grassmaxxxing because anything that isn't dramamaxxxing and is actual productivitymaxxxxing is considered grassmaxxxing to Schizocel


:#capysneedboat2::#capyantischizo::#space:

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More comments

Are they using the Zeus or the Zeus X design in MW5? I always liked the feathered shoulders on the Zeus X

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X is a Jihad design, so just normal. At least they didn't also include the Thug which looks like an r-slurred Zeus.

Also you should check out the dark age Jade Falcon fursona mechs. Eyrie, Gyrfalcon and Shrike all look cool imo. Not a big fan of the Jade Hawk though.

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Ah gotcha, normal Zeus is still a fun design, I just prefer the X look. I'll check out MW5 at some point when it goes on sale.

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Please elaborate why a user with the name of loliesports should spend his time playing a mecha game instead of rankmaxxing in cs, valo or league.

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Im not trans so i cant play valorant, dont play moba, and not really into cs lately

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I kinda wish I could get into valo but all my friends prefer cs and I really do not want to solo q

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I hope the Mech genre picks up again like the flightsim/flightarcade genre did

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Now you see i was a big fan of the mw2 mercenaries game. So many different mechs. Loved me catapults with Arrow IV missiles

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It's a real shame they include less and less of the dumb fun stuff like Arrow IV or cluster bombs as time goes on. Let me put a Long Tom on the arm of my mech, as a joke

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I miss playing MW2 and GBL


The time has come for the Necromaster. The unleashing of the fourth joker's card. The arrival of The Great Milenko

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excellent post,:tayclap: ive never played any of this series of games, but this review made want to install MW and gave it a try, its free on gamepass anyways.

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I vaguely recall this game being good.

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