T
thunderfoot
Deleted Due to Inactivity
Former MSFC Member
Hey, Y'all! My name is thunderfoot and I am a BattleTech junkie!. I freely admit it. I have been a BT fanatic since the first time I ever saw one of the paperbacks, which was about 1986. Then I found out the book was based on a game! Yowza! Went on an extended recon for anything I could find made by FASA for the BT universe. Got the game books. Got the miniatures (Miniatures!! How kewel izzat?) In short, I had a very intense love affair with all things BattleTech, however remotely connected. It was my Kyrptonite. Still is. I'm a sucker for a 90 ton Highlander, all decked out in Forest Green, spattered with touches of Red Brown and Dark Yellow, leveling its Heavy Gauss Rifle at a Clan Smoke Jaguar Mad Dog and firing. WoooHooo!
Then I found the PC games. I immediately went into a sort of semi epileptic state of extreme enthusiasm. FASA sold the License to Micro$oft Game $tudio$(no I did not mis spell it, either) after the first few BattleTech based PC games were done by Hasbro. M$G$ had the capital and marketing reach which Hasbro did not. M$G$ went one further. They hired or placed on consultancy nearly every single person at FASA who worked on BattleTech when it was still a PnP game. So now, one of my favorite game genres was going to be supported by one of the biggest software makers in the world which hired the people who originally created the game in the first place to make a new version. This sounds too good to be true dos it not? Well, yes and no. M$G$ released something called MechWarrior IV. Which was actually very good. It had two follow on games and two expansion packs which added additional BattleMechs, weapons and equipment. MW4 had a pretty good story, really good graphics for the time, and online Multi Player support which was generous and very very active. Problem was, it lacked the ingredient which takes a very good game and places it in the forefront of everyone's brain, so it becomes something which is a gamer's must have. It was successful, both critically and commercially, but it never took off like WoW or HALO. The potential was there, it just never got that little spark.
During the same timeframe, M$G$ also released an RTS game which was based in the BattleTech universe. This was called MechCommander 2. Hasbro had released the original MechCommander which was given an excellent storyline, great game play, numerous missions, and an easy to use editor for making more maps and missions. It was also given terrible renders of all of the objects in the game. The graphics were cartoony and cheezy. This is being very generous. MechCommander 2 was a vast improvement in all areas except the story, which was on a par with the original MechCommander. Then M$G$ promptly forgot about the game. Literally from day one, it received almost no support. Fans of the genre and the game loved it and it was available for a while in the M$ online games site(I cannot remember what this was called). There are or were a large number of fansites which supported the game heavily for many years and had new missions, maps, and campaigns. Some even had mods which added things to the game which M$G$ never considered.
The demos for MechWarrior IV and MechCommander 2 are still available over at M$G$'s site. If Y'all are looking for something a little different, you might wanna go check these out. I have been considering D/Ling the demo for MC2 to see just how amenable to modding it is.
Then I found the PC games. I immediately went into a sort of semi epileptic state of extreme enthusiasm. FASA sold the License to Micro$oft Game $tudio$(no I did not mis spell it, either) after the first few BattleTech based PC games were done by Hasbro. M$G$ had the capital and marketing reach which Hasbro did not. M$G$ went one further. They hired or placed on consultancy nearly every single person at FASA who worked on BattleTech when it was still a PnP game. So now, one of my favorite game genres was going to be supported by one of the biggest software makers in the world which hired the people who originally created the game in the first place to make a new version. This sounds too good to be true dos it not? Well, yes and no. M$G$ released something called MechWarrior IV. Which was actually very good. It had two follow on games and two expansion packs which added additional BattleMechs, weapons and equipment. MW4 had a pretty good story, really good graphics for the time, and online Multi Player support which was generous and very very active. Problem was, it lacked the ingredient which takes a very good game and places it in the forefront of everyone's brain, so it becomes something which is a gamer's must have. It was successful, both critically and commercially, but it never took off like WoW or HALO. The potential was there, it just never got that little spark.
During the same timeframe, M$G$ also released an RTS game which was based in the BattleTech universe. This was called MechCommander 2. Hasbro had released the original MechCommander which was given an excellent storyline, great game play, numerous missions, and an easy to use editor for making more maps and missions. It was also given terrible renders of all of the objects in the game. The graphics were cartoony and cheezy. This is being very generous. MechCommander 2 was a vast improvement in all areas except the story, which was on a par with the original MechCommander. Then M$G$ promptly forgot about the game. Literally from day one, it received almost no support. Fans of the genre and the game loved it and it was available for a while in the M$ online games site(I cannot remember what this was called). There are or were a large number of fansites which supported the game heavily for many years and had new missions, maps, and campaigns. Some even had mods which added things to the game which M$G$ never considered.
The demos for MechWarrior IV and MechCommander 2 are still available over at M$G$'s site. If Y'all are looking for something a little different, you might wanna go check these out. I have been considering D/Ling the demo for MC2 to see just how amenable to modding it is.