Mech Sims - Beyond Battletech

[Judge Dredd]

What mech sims (or even mech action games) do you like and do any hold up today?

I missed the boat on mech sims for various reasons. I never played MechWarrior during it's glory days and it's difficult to go back to them now with compatibility issues and the typical late 90s "jank". I don't have a Sidewinder Pro or any other high end flight stick that I hear is needed to get them most out of them. I also missed out on Earthseige, Starseige, and Heavy Gear for the same reasons and have the same issues going back to them.

But what about the rest? What games would you recommend or just want to share nostalgic memories about?

Single player mech sims are rare these days. Most like Chrome Hounds, Hawken, and MechWarrior Online are PvP only.

And since it's bound to come up, I'm going to keep this open to other, non-sim mech games. FPS games like Shojo: Mobile Armor Division and Titanfall 2, tactical RPGs like Front Mission 3 and Super Robot Wars, or whatever Left Behind was supposed to be.

 

[Recoil]

You should check out Steel Battalion on the 1st Xbox.
This is the dedicated controller.

 

[Easterling]

I assume your aware of battletech, its a turn based game set in the mech warrior universe, which itself is based upon a table top war game.

 

[Judge Dredd]

You should check out Steel Battalion on the 1st Xbox.
This is the dedicated controller.

If only I had the space for it and could afford it.

There was controller like that being made for the PC called the Mek-Fu, but it became vaporware.

How is Steel Battalion to actually play? I only really hear about the controller. Outside of that old Classic Game Room video, no-one talks about the gameplay.

I assume your aware of battletech

Trannytech? I heard of it when it launched and read the thread here. I don't know what state it's in now.

 

[Recoil]

How does it play? It's.... dense.

If you want a 16 bit experience, try battlecorps from CORE on the Sega CD

 

[Oddjob OTP]

There's actually a pretty good lesser known rogue-like mech sim I enjoy called Gearhead. The appeal is the autistic mech creation system, where you can salvage parts and limbs from enemy mechs and then bolt them together into a frankenmech. In my furthest playthrough my final mech was a 4 armed angel with energy weapons that flew at several hundred miles an hour in a universe that normally has a powerlevel that's pretty close to Battletech or early Mobile Suit Gundam. It's actually pretty forgiving for a roguelike although the on-foot combat has always struck me as it's weakest point.

I've been kind of thinking about getting MissionForce: Cyberstorm from GoG, which is a hex turn based strategy where you decant genetically modified pilots and make them drive mechs for you. I remember it being a pretty cool demo when I got it on a PC Gamer demo CD approximately 100 million years ago.

I've also been eyeballing Daemon X Machina which pretty much looks like Armored Core meets Zone of the Enders.

 

[Clop]

Well I absolutely love Shogo, but I'm fairly sure it's just my nostalgia talking. To me that game's combat still feels viscerally rewarding and the mech weapons are ludicrous penis extensions. That, and the game wasn't technically finished by Monolith, which I never even knew, but it explains the occasional jank. The game still feels like a complete story with both its branching paths.

 

[An Ghost]

Metal wolf chaos is more action than sim but it was a Japanese only xbox 360 game that just got an hd pc and console port (literally a week ago). You play as the president of the United States of America and the game never lets you forget that.

 

[Recoil]

Well I absolutely love Shogo, but I'm fairly sure it's just my nostalgia talking. To me that game's combat still feels viscerally rewarding and the mech weapons are ludicrous penis extensions. That, and the game wasn't technically finished by Monolith, which I never even knew, but it explains the occasional jank. The game still feels like a complete story with both its branching paths.

CIvvie did a nice review of that game. It hasn't aged well.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Well I absolutely love Shogo, but I'm fairly sure it's just my nostalgia talking. To me that game's combat still feels viscerally rewarding and the mech weapons are ludicrous penis extensions. That, and the game wasn't technically finished by Monolith, which I never even knew, but it explains the occasional jank. The game still feels like a complete story with both its branching paths.

I liked Shogo. If it wasn't for that critical hit system then I think it would be fondly remembered instead of the obscure game it is now.

I'm not sure what you mean by unfinished. I know there was a cut childhood scene which was meant to be a story branch (you can still see it in the intro if you pay attention), but I don't know what else was unfinished about it.

It's a shame Shogo 2 was cancelled. All we have now is this low res trailer.

 

[Splendid]

If only I had the space for it and could afford it.

There was controller like that being made for the PC called the Mek-Fu, but it became vaporware.

How is Steel Battalion to actually play? I only really hear about the controller. Outside of that old Classic Game Room video, no-one talks about the gameplay.


Trannytech? I heard of it when it launched and read the thread here. I don't know what state it's in now.

What are you talking about?

 

[Dreamland]

Does Brigador count?

 

[An Ghost]

Zone of Enders, created by hideo kojima, is also a series that has a current gen HD port. I haven’t played them but may be worth a look.
If you like gundams, there’s Gundam Versus which is a regular Namco Bandai fighting game.
Front mission evolved let’s you jet around and kill people with swords, on PC.
Again these are action instead of simulation, but can you really simulate something that doesn’t exist?

 

[BrokenWokenBespoken]

I am still miffed the bastards at Pihranna took EGS money.

 

[Clop]

I'm not sure what you mean by unfinished. I know there was a cut childhood scene which was meant to be a story branch (you can still see it in the intro if you pay attention), but I don't know what else was unfinished about it.

In general it feels rushed. A base frame. A beta. You finish it in just a couple hours, there's fair bit of odd lack of polish here and there and yes, a lot of stuff in the intro isn't in the game. The game was also supposed to have fully animated cutscenes, but those were dropped (the official page had one short clip of what the flagship Sanjuro was on looked like.)

It's obvious it was meant to be bigger. It was a passion project to the Monolith team at the time. I don't particularly care what the reasons were, but it's a shame.

 

[Judge Dredd]

What are you talking about?

Since you quoted the whole post, I'll cover both.

The controller was called Mek-Fu. It was meant to be a Steel Battalion like controller intended for use with Hawken and MechWarrior Online, but the amount of buttons seemed to imply they were hoping original games would be made for it. They showed it off at trade shows with Angry Joe even doing a segment on it, but then there was no news for years.

Trannytech was the joke name given to Harebrained Schemes Battletech when, after lots of good development and happy kickstarter backers, they suddenly got woke. I don't remember if a dev became a troon, or the devs hired a troon, but the game got woke with personal pronouns, and the removal of attractive women and white men with the exception of NPCs. I didn't follow it closely, but the launch version apparently had some serious bugs, balance problems, weighted RNG, or some combination of those. I haven't heard anything from the game since then, so I don't know if it was fixed or if they added anything.

The last page talks about them patching some of the performance bugs at least. I should look into it when I get the time.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/battletech.42164/

can you really simulate something that doesn’t exist?

How you define simulation? People call MechWarrior a simulation, but it has more in common with a shooter than a simulation. But it is aiming for a higher level of realism than Titanfall or Shogo.

If you like gundams, there’s Gundam Versus which is a regular Namco Bandai fighting game.

I thought about importing Gundam Breakers a while ago (I own a PSVita) but never went through with it. I'll look into Versus though.

Front mission evolved let’s you jet around and kill people with swords, on PC.

I've played that. The opening levels aren't bad, but it decides to shit itself about a third of the way through and never recovers. It does stupid things like giving you mech customization, but then forces you to use specific parts. The bosses are almost all terrible as well.

 

[BrokenWokenBespoken]

I've played that. The opening levels aren't bad, but it decides to shit itself about a third of the way through and never recovers. It does stupid things like giving you mech customization, but then forces you to use specific parts. The bosses are almost all terrible as well.

Every game that forces some on-foot section is a red flag. I am here to play stompy mech/tank. Not squishy meatbag with an assault rifle

 

[XYZpdq]

How is Steel Battalion to actually play? I only really hear about the controller. Outside of that old Classic Game Room video, no-one talks about the gameplay.

it's rough, but you're probably playing it for a rough time
after a couple of tries you might get out of the hanger before the bad guys blow you up



Gundam Rise From The Ashes and Zeonic Front are a bit more on the sim-ish side compared to some other stuff with the Gundam license.

 

[TFT-A9]

Every game that forces some on-foot section is a red flag. I am here to play stompy mech/tank. Not squishy meatbag with an assault rifle

It can actually kind of work, as long as there's some way to make a squishy meatbag an actual threat to a walking tank. Look at, say, Star Wars Battlefront 2, namely Hoth as Rebels. Rebel Vanguards can be a credible threat to something like an AT-AT, if not dealt with. Also, Mechwarrior: Living Legends (yeah, I know, you're in Powered Armor, but still) - you can really get your shit pushed in by a smart Elemental/PA player at times if you don't pay them mind. Pretty sure the MechAssault games had on-foot parts, but I'm not gonna hold them up as a good example of... anything, really.

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

There's a great indie Mech game called M.A.S.S. Builder where you build & customize your own mechs. It's only an year old & actually pretty great looking.

https://youtu.be/QbKM4GE5RUE