Robot fights are wonderfully animated: a Vulture with a busted leg limps missiling the arm off a Masakari removes its deadly PPCs critical hits knock mechs flat on their back. But the modular nature of mechs is meaningful where it counts: combat. And the game determines where weapons reside on your mech, not you. The feeling of popping a mech, the sound of air being flushed and a five-pixel escape pod streaking up the screen, immediately keys loot lust-what'd I get? Bringing home a salvaged chassis, PPC or LRM was instant cause to min-max and reallocate.įASA did limit the complexity of what you could customize-heat is simplified (weapons fire on a cooldown timer) and you don't allocate heatsinks.
Really, it's MC's salvage mechanic that drives everything important: every kill is an opportunity to add spare parts or a whole new walking tank to your inventory. I've got to make a call: do I sprint to the extraction point and attempt to complete the mission without a fight? Do I use the nuclear option and zap the rows of gas tanks near the MadCat for a sure kill-but with no chance of salvaging it? Or do I fight it head-on, and maybe-if I range correctly, kite it away from my damaged scout mech, and find enough finesse-knock the beast down without killing it, adding it to my squad and taking it into mission four as a playable prize? The MadCat's iconic frame emerges from the fog of war, its egg-shaped cockpit perched atop raptor legs, shouldering twin blocks of long-range missile racks. My four-man rookie squad is piloting wiry light mechs (Commandos and Firestarters) essentially, I'm about to send a gaggle of Chevy Cavaliers against a Ferrari. I'm replaying the third mission of MechCommander, a few giant robot steps away from a big moment: my first run-in with a MadCat.