20 years of service on Steam, I've never, not once, reviewed a game. So let me drop one as I have the game on pause after 18.6 hours of the Campaign with Story difficulty. Also, I don't read other reviews. So truly an unhinged review.
In short form: it's fun, highly accurate based on official rules but with plenty of randomness to stay away from the MW4 missile boats, and goes over the top in graphics - a bit too much. A few of my screenshots showed a nice combination of laser-melted-metal-dripping while at the same time an ammo box exploding, sending what looks like shrapnel and explosives. Over the top, but wow detailed. Though certain sound effects like missiles are not correct IMO.
There's a bug with the graphics "Safe Zone": it doesn't save. The bridge screen before entering into a mission, with an Ultra Wide 32" 1440, the "Safe Zone" has to be adjusted in order to be able to CLICK onto the next mission - the modal popup blocks the click through! No keyboard, no tabs, no enter, no way to get to the mission to click it. It was buried deep deep within graphics, Safe Zone.
The only really negatives are the long walks between way points and the length of most missions (20-45 minutes, or start over). I get it, the scale of things, but - it's past midnight here and I just need sleep. The other negative is if you don't remember to scan every damn thing, on certain missions you'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere wondering what to do - for like 30m to 45m. These missions just take too long, and the hints are hinting enough to get through the campaign - set to Story Mode.
EDIT: Another bug! It's the scanning objectives! I was just in a mission, where I'm always scanning now so I don't miss anything, and they said to scan the destroyed mechs. But there's nothing to scan. Running around for 10 minutes through past waypoints and mechs, nothing. Nothing to find to be scanned! Went all the back to the most recent kills (another 6 minutes, man...), scanned them and nothing. Guess what? I turned OFF the Scan Mode, then turned right back ON, and poof - there it was to scan! Yeah, that's the scanning bug that i mentioned impossible scanning earlier.
It took around 40 hours to beat the original Clans campaign. And another 25 hours to beat the Ghost Bear Legacy campaign.
Finally, as a throwback to the original 1990s MW2: Ghost Bear add-on pack that ended with the first ever "space" mission of zero-g combat, the Ghost Bear campaign throws you right into destroying dropships from the top of your battleship after 2 or 3 missions. That's what I paid for, and I got it with this game. Thank you, and good night!
/TL;DR
With a family I never get to play games, but here I am past midnight to try... try so hard to play this game I've been waiting for.
Over 30 years ago, I didn't find anyone local for BattleTech but MechWarrior 2 LAN via GameSpy know who I am talking about as the first hacky way around LAN meetups, over dialups. MW2: Ghost Bear Legacy's ending was absolutely the best ending of all MechWarrior games - for the only time I know of (I didn't beat all games), you actually got to pilot a mech IN SPACE. Jumping from one dropship to another dropship, invade it, destroy reactor, and bail out back to your dropship using only your jump jets for navigation in zero-g!! It was the sweetest ending of all time, the opening scene of "Kodiak! Kodiak!", and also piloting that Kodiak. Then the buggy as hell MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries came and all the cheats people were doing, requiring anti-cheat checks running that checks everyone's mechs for valid load outs instead of like 1000000 armor. Very funny when we all launch, and get dropped back to DOS because someone - we don't know who - but someone's load out was cheating. Yeah, MW3 sucked a**. And MW4 was Missile Boat / Sniper heaven. MWO was actually pretty decent - enough for me to sink too much into the pay-to-play crap before bailing. And what was up with resetting everyone's stats over and over and over again? Smelled too much like tech debt. When MWO disabled the turns in jets to be "more realistic", that was it for me. That was my signature move from the old GameSpy MW2 days - run straight at, jump over, rotate backwards in air, and fire at their back.
I have MW5 Mercenaries but haven't had time to play. Then Clans went on sale, and... Here I am for my first review of all time. I'll get to MW5 Merc next, or sooner than later if I can't get past this one mission.
The real negatives was mentioned earlier in tl;'dr. Missions are too long for the impatient.
Also, I don't feel vulnerable in a sense of loud explosion hits and disabling tech onto my mech. I feel invincible instead, almost like it's a toy. MWO had more of an investment of mechs and piloting that made it more scarce to pilot a Jenner against Atlas and Catapult - online - and take them both down (my video on youtube - so awesome!).
No spoilers, I promise... However strong feelings ahead. So, let's chat about the story.
So far, it's bleh. MWO made us work our butts off to gain the best Inner Sphere mechs - a year or two before they just allowed people to buy there way in (argh). You gain a new respect for scrap and IS when you fight for all the XP to barely be able to upgrade an engine. Not so with MW5 Clans - instead, you are in the clans with the best tech and best mechs and the best equipment. And it shows, with your team (use those Command assignments) basically living through anything and just plowing through each mission. Given, I am on Story Mode where things are easy. But even at this "Story" level, the missions are STILL OVER 30 - 45 MINUTES! I get it, it's a large world. But all the walking... I don't have another suggestion, other then I find them a wee bit too long.
I didn't appreciate all the We Are Superior trash talk either. Perhaps the kids were just that cocky in some story arc. At the end of the first several missions, there's a significant event that made me just think, "where's the morality in this game?" I won't say what happens next, but I will comment that that's it? Not liking the arc so far or superiority so far, and just continue on? It may be a Clans story arc I'm playing through, where people full of their superiority complex end up with some big revelation. I hope that's what happens at the end of MW5 Clans, as that's really the only reason I'm playing through it - for some type of redemption in these political times.
EDIT: Ok, things changed drastically in Clans at the end of the campaign. So the above paragraph is just part of the bland story. It works, I now understand everything, but eh, it felt a bit too underwhelming to be honest. Ghost Bear though was far more fun of a campaign.
My biggest brush off was the use of our old school tactics we honed over 30 years ago are not recognized in this game as achievements. Where's the Death From Above (DFA) achievements? I've landed on 2 mech's cockpits - just like I did in MW2 - and, while one was a kill and the other was critically damaged from this tactic, I get no achievement for this critical piloting technique? We had "downward facing cameras" back in 1990, but none here so it made it far more difficult - but still no achievement? Also, where's the Melee achievements? I've beat down several to kills when i run out of ammo; but yet, no Fists of Fury achievement? These alone are almost enough to make me stop playing and find something else.
Ok, tired. Going to unpause and continue playing. Hopefully I don't miss the scannable items this time... This is my 3rd attempt at this mission, because I can't find one sensor thingy to scan. This may be my last mission, in which case I'll return to give it a Thumbs Down. If I get stuck at another mission, that's it - not worth loosing sleep over.
EDIT: Ok, I beat through the dread and finished the Clans. That is what was recommended before playing Ghost Bear.
