I went through the Base game, Ghost Bears and Wolves of Tukayyid, 57hrs total to do so.
*Warning possible spoilers ahead* - Played at Expert level.
Considerations about the game.. the UE5 is garbage. I discovered hot water I know.
My PC is a 7800x3D, 64Gb 600, RX 9070XT at 1440p 180Hz, but I also went through a 7900XT and a 5800x3D/32Gb 3600 at 2560x1080 144hz.
I played on High, ultra is not enough to achieve any meaningful high FPS for any decent fluidity and even went with FSR4 on the 9070XT, playing native on the 7900xt.
The traversal stutter is a thing; still there since UE4; 1% lows can be brutal especially in the Ghost Bear DLC. Whoever greenlit such an horrid stutterfest in that DLC should be fired, besides the few "space" missions, the rest on the ground is choppy as hell, with 1% and 0,1% lows even in the single digits, the AVG FPS on both system was well beyond 100. My bet is the terrain with basalt colums caused memory leaks or something like that. In short, don't the Ghost Bears DLC if it stays in this state. Bear (lol) in mind that I game on BF6 often maxing out my monitor's refresh rate (180hz), and have 0 issues in the likes of Space Marine 2 or other AAA I played recently.
The base game and Wolves played far more decently. Luckily. But dips here and there were a thing even there, albeit more tolerable.
Your friendly IA is.. useful as a forward meat to distract the enemy IA from shooting at you. You'll order them to focus fire a medium mech; you have mowed down heavies and assaults all by yourself and then turn at the team mates that are still there dealing with that pesky, single, limbless but not yet cored Griffin.
All the IAs had their proper loadouts, proper weapon groups set, this isn't different from MW5:Mercs.
You are the target of the enemy IA, that can erase you in your cockpit in a blink, but your expert pilots are crap.
The whole campaigns suffer from huge balance issues that we can assume like so:
-Base game (CSJ): endless waves, no darn ammo, you bring extra, you still have endless waves of stuff (and still no sufficient ammo) and when you are there, barely holding together, you have to drop down an union dropship with like 5 further enemy dropships.
This always with NO DARN EXTRA AMMO found anywhere else. Repair bays are scarce or non existent. You are forced to laser vomit builds.
You rarely manage to have the typical clan range advantage because you are always thrown in narrow CQB brawls where your cERLLs are useless and, guess what, you can't make DPS.
The top is the end of the campaign; PGI in their wisdom decided to use the same level, you play it on one side or you go through it in the opposite way, depending on what you decided in the "pivotal" point that splits the main campaign in two different stories.
If you play on one side, you get a turret hacking scan point that is useful played in the "campaign A". It's still there even if you play the "campaign B", just you get there where all the turrets are already long gone because you had to destroy them to reach the hacking terminal to turn them friendly.
Not even the decency to remove it or place it in a more convenient location...
-Ghost Bears: probably weary of the feedback of the CSJ campaign, PGI overdelivered in ammunition and repair bays. I mean, cool, I could finally employ ammunition based builds at least.. but the game ran like ♥♥♥♥, hitting stuff was a mess, whatever weapon you could use.
-Wolves of Tukayyid: this is probably the more balanced approach, ok ammunition, okayish repair bays and overall, this could be the most wrapped up campaign. I'd say skip GB DLC and get straight to this tbh if you want more after the Clan Smoke Jaguar side of things. I was always short on money in this campaign tho..
Odd choices regards omnimechs and the mechbay in general: PGI in their infinite wisdom, doesn't allow you to edit the armor values on your mechs. I can't shift armor forward or add it or remove it. It's fixed. But hey! You can add an armor pod! 1 ton of armor pod that consumes a precious slot in already fixed and slot limited mechs! WONDERFUL!
I mean I'm fine I can't change an omnimech engine or fixed slots/equipment, these are the omnimech rules. But at least the armor values? Really? Why?!
Mechs such as the HBK IIC or Jenner IIC are completely useless because they have so little armor (yeah I know, HBKIICs were used as last coffins for Solahma.. but still); most Clan designs relied on mobility and range with relative little armor; the game escalates tonnages quickly so light mechs are a meteoric appearance at the beginning of the campaign.
In the end the usable, good mechs are ("*" only if you own the DLCs):
-ADR
-Nova
-Stormcrow
-MDD
-Timber Wolf
-Night Gyr*
-Warhawk
-Kodiak*
-Dire Wolf (when you get one just use this, otherwise the Kodiak or the WHK for the AI mates).
The "meh" ones are
-Shadow Cat
-SHD IIC*
-Hellbringer
-Naga*
You can pretty much can't do anything decent with the Linebacker, Gargoyle, Executioner, Summoner, EBJ; these have far big too engines or weird slots (mostly the EBJ) to actually make any use of them in the way the game puts you through. They lack the DPS and firepower, due to the small payload they can bring and the mobility isn't a plus here. The armor is insufficient, so pods or not, they are just mostly horrid to use. Just skip them. Don't and I mean, it, DON'T waste precious merits or points to unlock these!
Ah the Bane.. a giant barn with severe convergence issues.
The few Battlemechs, share the same fate with PGI's limited mechlab, as there are very few engine ratings available, that make obtaining correct builds harder. And again, you still can't edit armor values not even on battlemechs.. so this unexplicable oddity continues.
The positive thing, which I guess took most of the effort from the developer, was to finally add cutscenes with 3D actors and the relative acting.
And admittedly this game delivers on that. Briefings aren't just text or few lines of dialog as in MW5:Mercs, we finally get a full Clan side of the story of the IS invasion. This is nice and appreciated and probably is the most interesting part. Again, probably the Ghost Bear campaign is the one lacking under this POV, if it wasn't for the few space levels that are at least original.
All in all I've played the game and I say that if you like Mechwarrior, you could give it a try. At least we get a Clan side of the story of the Invasion, with proper cutscenes, albeit unfortunately with very little fight cutscenes, that still can't rival MW:4 Vengeance opening scenes. We mostly get dialogs, the mech action is limited.
To an extent I'm ok that someone is still making games with this license. But after having been an avid MW:Online gamer that didn't appreciate what PGI made of that game with convoluted overcomplications, I still wonder what would have happened if another, better developer could have picked up this branding/license.
All in all if you are more of a mechlab geek like me, you'd probably should just pick up MW5: Mercs (or the good old BATTLETECH turn game especially with BTA3062 Mod) and play with the gazillions of Mods that are available there on both of these games and do the craziest builds.
After all the scripted/generated stuff is repetitive in that game, but you get more Clan machinery in these games than what you get here. But you won't have ok-acted cutscenes and campaigns.
I'd say grab the base game. Then unless they fix the Ghost Bears (which at this point they won't since the release of Wolves of Tukayyid), just gloss over it and go straight for the Clan Wolf DLC. It's also the only one with a properly laid out tactical map that makes you see also what happens to other units and how the frontline shiftes during the campaign.
Reccommended? It's ok. But even this game could have been better if it wasn't in PGI hands..
