I am a massive weeb, so I actually enjoy the old patlabor/macross designs, like the Stinger, the Marauder, the Warhammer, Rifleman and so on. I also enjoy the somewhat strange origins of Battletech as a western take on stompy robots based off of japanese mecha anime.
Battletech designs come in multiple phases it seems, based on who was in charge of the designs. The first one was (theoretically) licensed anime-stuff, which is fine by me, but I can see how less weebish people would see those designs sticking out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the setting and what design philosophies it later picked up.
I dislike a lot of the designs that seemed to be based off of design philosophies of those anime-mechs. Stuff like the Falconer or Hussar, that tried to copy the basic shape of the Marauder but ended up looking really weird and every single "Reseen" mech just looks atrocious (with the exception of the Archer, that
new design is actually pretty disco).
There was also a time when many designs kind of looked like this:
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A bulky torso with a head sitting lower than the shoulders, somewhat thin legs and a smooth, flattish round shape. Overall, not too bad.
I don't really dislike these designs, but they usually have way too thin legs and that just looks really bad overall. The old Longbow and the Cestus are guilty of that... which is a shame, I really like both designs, but I just hate the design of the legs so much, I can't bring myself to really field them. There's one mech that literally looks like a turd on toothpicks, but I gorgot what it was called...
In general, a lot of old mechs have way too skinny legs or in case of the old Night Star, the arms are way too bulky compared to the torso and a pet peeve of mine is when the design isn't really functional (like when the shape of the legs, torso and arms wouldn't allow the mech to walk without getting something tangled up).
Compared to that, the jap stuff is actually not half bad. Say what you want about anime and its tropes, the chinks know how to design stuff.
In the end, we can all agree that Battletech has a lot of variation with their designs, there's something for everyone... though I doubt anyone could deny that the Awesome is one of the most amazing looking designs. It just looks like a bunker on legs. I can't look at an image of an Awesome without imagining it tanking a barrage of hellfire without even slowing down while it dishes out enough PPC fire to level a small city.
This one?
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Yeah, it's a bit too bulky. I like the overall shape and design, but it would be better if it was a bit slimmer here and there.
I would pick it over the design for the
Atlas II, though.
But you know, reject modernity, embrace tradition.
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That design is just perfection.
