Hello, everyone!
Time for a little overview for BATTLETECH. Some words to say before I get to the main spot. First – yes, I’m a fan of Battletech Universe, which was the first among the three. Tons of books were read, lore explored, battlemechs studied about 20 years ago and still the desire burns through Mechwarrior 2/3/4: mercenaries, Mechcommander Desperate measures/2. I was one of the kickstarter backers years ago. And back then it was fascinating to see how with guidance from Jordan, Mitch and Mike (all the Harebrained studio staff included of course) we all pulled this through together in such a short period of time, hitting all the caps and gathering funds far more than originally was planned. It was an astonishing and positive experience to see that there are so many people around the globe sharing the same interest, passion whatever you name it. What else can I say? Harebrained Schemes – you’re the best!)
p.s. For all those whiners who are upset with no russian localization – whine all you want! My native language is Russian too. Yes, I know English a bit. And I recommend you to learn it a little or be patient. All these very short negative posts like «wtf, still no russian language. I’m a Russian and want to play on my language!» are only lowering the game’s rep. for no reason. Nothing’s to complicated considering English language in this game. Harebrained Schemes is no monster-resourceful studio like Activision-Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft etc.
Moving on.
Positive sides:
1 – Setting.
Great work on specific situation of a rim «kingdom» in the boiling conditions of the Inner Shpere’s four greatest Houses.
2 – Graphics/animation.
I’m not a professional but it looks great running on my 4 years old bucket of bolts). I mean it’s not like some AAA+ project but it’s not even needed here. All the mechs look individual, solid and behave respectively. The same goes for shooting, blowing up and off mechs. All the effects, sounds are fine by me. Remembering the Mechcommander 1 with it’s old «picture» I find myself thinking «Hell, I’d play the game 10 times over again with BAТТLETECH’s graphics!».
3 – Music.
11 from 10. Just watching for the first time the intro showing Inner Sphere’s story in a shortcut with THIS music took my breath away, seriously.
4 – Game mechanics.
It’s relatively simple to grasp… but far more difficult to use properly. No tons of rules to remember but some situations on the real battlefield in specific conditions will make your grey cells work hard. Especially when you play to win with minimal losses (no critical damage like blown off arms with some LRM 20 +++))) or when your enemies represent 3 lances of heavy-to-assault mechs concentrated in one spot.
5 – Overall strategy and specific tactics
Do you use energy based most or prefer ballistic shells? Maybe more missiles? All is up to you. Every mech has a role but you can change the basic outfit into something new for your own needs. Strip off almost all the armor from Stalker to load it with 4(!!!) LRM 20 +++ and rain hell – your choice. Faster mechs are harder to shoot at but they die easier. Do you specialize on melee or is it only for desperate situations?
6 – Mech bay.
And here comes the screen that will eat away your time and brains on constructing «your» lances) This concept of hardpoints, space and weight is very good and pushes you over the limit to create the best outfits of your mechs for different purposes. And it is very tight combined with your main gameplay strategy, environment, mechwarrior skills and so on.
7 – ship customization.
Good thing to spend free C-bills and gain solid advantages + more rooms = more random events when travelling.
8 – Money-salvage-reputation «lever»
Good thing to bargain when a mission is commencing regarding on what you need more. You lack on C-bills, need more mechs or equipment? Your choice.
9 – Reputation.
Good to have a discount and higher paygrade with friendly employer.

Negative sides:
1 – Elevation of the main storyline.
The story is nice but the further you go the more predictable and typical it becomes. It’s a bit dull but still ok with that – not so easy to create mass effect storyline).
2 – Taking on the priority missions.
You can take the mission whenever you want. Looks like the no one is in a hurry. Strange. The war rages on but I can spend years collecting gear around the fringe. Yes, I’m a merc but still…
3 – Gear for the priority missions.
Since I am free to roam the fringe I may go on a 2 skull priority mission with a lance of assault mechs and win in my sleep. Or I can go with what I have at that time a have a hard time. Unbalanced.
4 – Having the best lance or how the lighter mechs are thrown away.
For the moment I have all the types of assault and heavy mechs. Highlanders, King crab, Atlas whatever. 2 Battlemasters, 2 Highlanders – a regular lance. And then you go on a 4,5 skulls mission thinking bored «omg, what the hell of a junk is there against me?» It’s really boring to be at the top cause you can smash almost any odds one way or another. Assault mechs carry so much firepower that they vaporize anything or crush in melee. When you’re outnumbered by enemy assault mechs – that’s the only problem there might be. Lighter mechs are useful only on earlier stages of the game. As you salvage heavier mechs you throw lighter away, because they just can’t overpower assault mechs and withstand their weaponry. Evasion can’t help when you concentrate fire on a single target. There must be a way to bring back usefulness for lighter and faster mechs to the end of the game.
5 – having more than 2 lances ready… and useless for most of the time.
When you work with 4-5 skulls missions you can afford maintaining 2 full hangars – 12 mech. It should be so – you’ve earned it through hard work but a bit cheating. Moreover those backup mechs are mostly not used.
6 – Main characters acts.
It’s a real pain and I can’t ignore that. 2 most «screaming/heating» examples. First – shooting the directorate’s transport not knowing what’s inside! OMG, couldn’t you just check it?! Maybe send some marines inside instead of blindly trusting that your dad’s old fella? Pffff… Second – plundering the untouched Star League armory. Everyone told her highness NOT TO GO there! But NO! She MUST do it herself ‘cause her father WANTED that. Ok, fine with that. Everyone knows that this mission reeks with danger so you have to send best pilots in best mechs with best outfit. Soooo I send Atlas, Battlemaster, Grashopper… and the princess joins my lance in a freakin’ Kintaro!!! Is it the best what a Magistrate of Canopus could afford for her?! More to that the Kintaro is a basic outfit for close combat filled with SRM6… The last beacon of hope for the aurigan people goes in a fight against LosTech in a pile of junk… The main objective then was not to get her killed. I mean really – Kintaro is 50 tons medium mech, a fine one for it’s time and difficulty of the missions in front of you. But it’s suicide to use in that specific mission.
7 – Loading times.
It’s not that annoying but when you’re in a pinch and have to reload several times in a row becomes a real pain. Already a bit shorter that before the patch but the longer you play the more time they take.
8 – Mechwarriors skill trees.
They’re really simple and comparatively short – tons of experience nowhere to spend. Pilots stuck, no evolution, no expectations, no planning. That’s really boring. And eventually not much difference between the professions.
9 – Mission types.
Not many of them. Ambush/protect convoy, kill target, save agent, destroy/capture base. Boring. And then you go hunting on a specific mech. For me it was the Cataphract. Again and again, mission after mission…
10 – Hidden mission objectives.
Destroy turrets, kill reinforcements, save all the convoy. Should be more of them and they shouldn’t be so plain to discover maybe.

Hello, everyone! Time for a little overview for BATTLETECH. Some words to say before I get to the main spot. First – yes, I’m a fan of Battletech Universe, which was the first among the three. Tons of books were read, lore explored, battlemechs studied about 20 years ago and still the desire burns through Mechwarrior 2/3/4: mercenaries, Mechcommander Desperate measures/2. I was one of the kickstarter backers years ago. And back then it was fascinating to see how with guidance from Jordan, Mitch and Mike (all the Harebrained studio staff included of course) we all pulled this through together in such a short period of time, hitting all the caps and gathering funds far more than originally was planned. It was an astonishing and positive experience to see that there are so many people around the globe sharing the same interest, passion whatever you name it. What else can I say? Harebrained Schemes – you’re the best!) p.s. For all those whiners who are upset with no russian localization – whine all you want! My native language is Russian too. Yes, I know English a bit. And I recommend you to learn it a little or be patient. All these very short negative posts like «wtf, still no russian language. I’m a Russian and want to play on my language!» are only lowering the game’s rep. for no reason. Nothing’s to complicated considering English language in this game. Harebrained Schemes is no monster-resourceful studio like Activision-Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft etc. Moving on. Positive sides: 1 – Setting. Great work on specific situation of a rim «kingdom» in the boiling conditions of the Inner Shpere’s four greatest Houses. 2 – Graphics/animation. I’m not a professional but it looks great running on my 4 years old bucket of bolts). I mean it’s not like some AAA+ project but it’s not even needed here. All the mechs look individual, solid and behave respectively. The same goes for shooting, blowing up and off mechs. All the effects, sounds are fine by me. Remembering the Mechcommander 1 with it’s old «picture» I find myself thinking «Hell, I’d play the game 10 times over again with BAТТLETECH’s graphics!». 3 – Music. 11 from 10. Just watching for the first time the intro showing Inner Sphere’s story in a shortcut with THIS music took my breath away, seriously. 4 – Game mechanics. It’s relatively simple to grasp… but far more difficult to use properly. No tons of rules to remember but some situations on the real battlefield in specific conditions will make your grey cells work hard. Especially when you play to win with minimal losses (no critical damage like blown off arms with some LRM 20 +++))) or when your enemies represent 3 lances of heavy-to-assault mechs concentrated in one spot. 5 – Overall strategy and specific tactics Do you use energy based most or prefer ballistic shells? Maybe more missiles? All is up to you. Every mech has a role but you can change the basic outfit into something new for your own needs. Strip off almost all the armor from Stalker to load it with 4(!!!) LRM 20 +++ and rain hell – your choice. Faster mechs are harder to shoot at but they die easier. Do you specialize on melee or is it only for desperate situations? 6 – Mech bay. And here comes the screen that will eat away your time and brains on constructing «your» lances) This concept of hardpoints, space and weight is very good and pushes you over the limit to create the best outfits of your mechs for different purposes. And it is very tight combined with your main gameplay strategy, environment, mechwarrior skills and so on. 7 – ship customization. Good thing to spend free C-bills and gain solid advantages + more rooms = more random events when travelling. 8 – Money-salvage-reputation «lever» Good thing to bargain when a mission is commencing regarding on what you need more. You lack on C-bills, need more mechs or equipment? Your choice. 9 – Reputation. Good to have a discount and higher paygrade with friendly employer. Negative sides: 1 – Elevation of the main storyline. The story is nice but the further you go the more predictable and typical it becomes. It’s a bit dull but still ok with that – not so easy to create mass effect storyline). 2 – Taking on the priority missions. You can take the mission whenever you want. Looks like the no one is in a hurry. Strange. The war rages on but I can spend years collecting gear around the fringe. Yes, I’m a merc but still… 3 – Gear for the priority missions. Since I am free to roam the fringe I may go on a 2 skull priority mission with a lance of assault mechs and win in my sleep. Or I can go with what I have at that time a have a hard time. Unbalanced. 4 – Having the best lance or how the lighter mechs are thrown away. For the moment I have all the types of assault and heavy mechs. Highlanders, King crab, Atlas whatever. 2 Battlemasters, 2 Highlanders – a regular lance. And then you go on a 4,5 skulls mission thinking bored «omg, what the hell of a junk is there against me?» It’s really boring to be at the top cause you can smash almost any odds one way or another. Assault mechs carry so much firepower that they vaporize anything or crush in melee. When you’re outnumbered by enemy assault mechs – that’s the only problem there might be. Lighter mechs are useful only on earlier stages of the game. As you salvage heavier mechs you throw lighter away, because they just can’t overpower assault mechs and withstand their weaponry. Evasion can’t help when you concentrate fire on a single target. There must be a way to bring back usefulness for lighter and faster mechs to the end of the game. 5 – having more than 2 lances ready… and useless for most of the time. When you work with 4-5 skulls missions you can afford maintaining 2 full hangars – 12 mech. It should be so – you’ve earned it through hard work but a bit cheating. Moreover those backup mechs are mostly not used. 6 – Main characters acts. It’s a real pain and I can’t ignore that. 2 most «screaming/heating» examples. First – shooting the directorate’s transport not knowing what’s inside! OMG, couldn’t you just check it?! Maybe send some marines inside instead of blindly trusting that your dad’s old fella? Pffff… Second – plundering the untouched Star League armory. Everyone told her highness NOT TO GO there! But NO! She MUST do it herself ‘cause her father WANTED that. Ok, fine with that. Everyone knows that this mission reeks with danger so you have to send best pilots in best mechs with best outfit. Soooo I send Atlas, Battlemaster, Grashopper… and the princess joins my lance in a freakin’ Kintaro!!! Is it the best what a Magistrate of Canopus could afford for her?! More to that the Kintaro is a basic outfit for close combat filled with SRM6… The last beacon of hope for the aurigan people goes in a fight against LosTech in a pile of junk… The main objective then was not to get her killed. I mean really – Kintaro is 50 tons medium mech, a fine one for it’s time and difficulty of the missions in front of you. But it’s suicide to use in that specific mission. 7 – Loading times. It’s not that annoying but when you’re in a pinch and have to reload several times in a row becomes a real pain. Already a bit shorter that before the patch but the longer you play the more time they take. 8 – Mechwarriors skill trees. They’re really simple and comparatively short – tons of experience nowhere to spend. Pilots stuck, no evolution, no expectations, no planning. That’s really boring. And eventually not much difference between the professions. 9 – Mission types. Not many of them. Ambush/protect convoy, kill target, save agent, destroy/capture base. Boring. And then you go hunting on a specific mech. For me it was the Cataphract. Again and again, mission after mission… 10 – Hidden mission objectives. Destroy turrets, kill reinforcements, save all the convoy. Should be more of them and they shouldn’t be so plain to discover maybe.