Post your comments on the Mech Warrior 4: Vengeance Review.

Review: http://www.systemlogic.net/reviews/.../00/12/29/mech4

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I'm rather disappointed in the review; pre-release reviews painted MW4 in a dim light, and I was expecting the worst MechWarrior software title ever.

Instead I was rather pleased by the new title; the opening movie is nothing short of spectacular and including actors with their mechs was a great idea. As for the acting, remember there is little for these people to work on... after all, how many people have YOU seen go through neuro-feedback from having an actuator destroyed?

The mission briefing movies are the ones I have to agree with the review about; they were poorly done blue-screened videos (it shows) and the acting isn't the best.

What WASN'T even discussed? The fact that the videos play automatically whenever you come back to the mission screen from the MechLab.

Or how about how mechs are now limited to mounting certain types of weapons in certain areas? Good and bad idea there, especially in missions where specific types of weapons are required, making the task of mounting others rather pointless.

In fact, I appreciate the new TIC setup; being an anti-joystick gamer, I much prefer being able to keep my hand in one place and fire off any and all all 6 TICs while keeping some of my fingers on the controls for the 'mech. I don't waste time cycling TICs, I fire off the one I want direct with its own key.

As for the reports of its continual crashing, I place the blame on the system used to do the test; I have played the entire campaign out on my system, during which I had an 5 hour session inside the software with narry a crash or hang - and I'm using a CPU that is just barely above
the minimum stated system requirements.

The graphics, compared to MW3, have certainly improved, while the sounds are average... though I doubt our reviewer spent time really plowing through trees or he would have noticed some really sad graphics when you get close to them. (I could care less about tree trunks being left behind).

No mention is made of the superior graphics provided when reticle-zoomed in on moving objects such as VTOLs or aerospace fighters - objects are blurred JUST enough to look realistic!

Also not mentioned are the new mechs introduced for the purposes of the game only, or the new weapons systems, both of which help distance this game further from MW3.

Omitted were any comments about the mission launch graphics - similar to how Activision had short intro 'movies' run before each mission using the game's engines itself to generate the movie - movies that help establish the mission atmosphere. And there's the fact that lancemates actually obey the order to repair and refit their mechs on the field.

Another improvement: the ability to choose lancemates. Some of them prefer in-fighting or long-range sniping. Some are inexperienced, or have experience in areas you need for missions (night fighting, gunnery skills, sensor-reading skills).

Of course, I do agree with the rating provided; MW4 is an excellent game and has many improvements over MW3 (which I also liked and think the reviewer should actually try before he compares MW4 to the rest of the MW series).

Things I would have liked to see:

- better mission briefing videos (better actors, more FMV-style footage)
- specifically, more full-screen movies with action (news footage, holo-tables, etc.)
- the ability to discard equipment and mechs as the player sees fit... it's annoying to have to find that Osiris you took down 3 missions ago among 30+ mechs.
- better adherence of default keyboard settings to MW3's settings... players who appreciate such settings must remap several key commands or toggle the num lock on and off to access commands slaved to the keypad numerals.
- return of being able to amputate mech's leg to take it out of the fight. When a PPC
gets internal hits and cracks the bone, the leg should snap right off, not just drag
- better mission briefing materials; the in-depth info for each mission shows nav points and points of interest, but says nothing of importance about them until you are launching into the mission itself.
- larger selection of lancemates to choose from with additional 'specialties'.
- allow operation of more than one lance (company, regiment, etc) ala MechCommander/MechCommander2

It's all stuff we'll hopefully see in MW5.

- D

Great comments on the review :-) We'll make sure to take what you said into consideration for future reviews and articles :-) Look for some comments from the reviews author soon.

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BattleBoards.com - Co-Founder & Systems Administrator
SystemLogic.net - President
HalfNakeBabe.com - Co-Owner
RateYourPics.com - Coming Soon