Confession time: I love mechs.

I’ve watched Godzilla Vs Megalon more times than I can count because Jet Jaguar is so awesome. Pacific Rim was the highlight of my 2013.

Giant robots are clearly the answer to all of society's ills.

I usually enjoy mech games, as well, with a few exceptions (lookin’ at you Armored Core: Nine Breaker). Most of them put you in the pilot’s seat of a mech, but a few, like MechCommander 2 put you in charge of a whole squad. MC2 is the last game in the MechCommander series and one of the last of its caliber.

MechCommander, released in 2001, is a Real Time Strategy/Tactics game. You’re the squad leader for a mercenary company of mech pilots, and you lead them through a variety of missions. In the distant future on a planet called Carver 5, you are hired by one of the great houses to defeat a bandit uprising on the planet. Allegiances change quickly as houses rise and fall, but you don’t have any control over who you’re following and whose missions do. Instead, I would have preferred a branching path storyline, with three possible campaigns depending on which of the three factions you want to join. As it is, the plot is largely forgettable, except for the use of unintentionally funny live action sequences.

At the beginning of each mission you must choose mechs and a pilot for each one. Keep a careful eye on your weight limit; you can’t bring everybody. Once formed, your squad of pilots are dropped into a map to fulfill a few generic objectives. Usually you have a few extra objectives that can be completed for bonus currency, as well as new ones that you uncover as you head through the mission.

You can select, modify, and buy/sell mechs before every mission. Each mission is replayable, so you can always try out a new squad or mech.

You don’t really want to bulldoze through all your enemies because after each mission, you can salvage any mechs that aren’t completely destroyed. While missions are similar, you encounter new kinds of enemies and opposing mechs in each one, so they don’t feel too stale. Finding new kinds of mechs is always exciting, and some of the later missions are decently challenging.

You spend most of your time in MC2 in combat, controlling a squad of mechs in real time. You can pause anytime to set up waypoints or issue commands, but you don’t control the mechs directly. Rather, you point them at a target and they choose what to do (hint: it’s shooting).

Look at all this shooting. Combining long and short range mechs covers you for most combat situations, but specializing one one or the other can be fun as well.

All of the parts of the mechs in MC2 can be damaged individually, although you can’t target them directly. You can blow off an enemy mech’s arm and they’ll lose the weapon attached to it, or one of your mechs can step on a mine will limp for the rest of the mission. This high detail to the different types and aspects of damage adds a level of realism and fun to combat. Each mission takes place on a variety of different terrain, which plays into combat as well. You have to put some thought into your firing positions, and taking the high ground improves your chances a lot. For example, by hitting the top of an enemy mech, you have a higher chance of hitting the pilot and disabling your enemy faster.

By customizing the loadouts of your mechs, you can define their operating style, adding depth and complexity to team building for each mission. Your mechs can equip a variety of different weapons from long/short range missiles, lasers, pulse weapons, machine guns, and more.

Decisions, decisions. Every weapon generates heat, with higher damage weapons usually generating more heat. Every mech has a max heat rating, though you can improve it with heat sinks, but they take up weapon space. — Decisions, decisions. Every weapon generates heat, with higher damage weapons usually generating more heat. Every mech has a max heat rating, though you can improve it with heat sinks, but they take up weapon space.

Each weapon has a usage range that determines when the mech will try to use that weapon. For example, a mech equipped with a long range missile and a machine gun array will only try to use the machine gun if it’s within a short distance from an enemy, and will use missiles from farther away. You can also add armor and jump-jets to certain mechs, which allows them to perform more versatile roles.

Each in-mission comes with a set amount of credits. You can pay to repair vehicles for you mech, minelaying vehicles, airstrikes, radar probes, or even a mech salvage team. A resource depot or two are usually located in the mission area, which extends your line of credit a bit.

From left to right, you can see the airstrike, fixed artillery, radar probe, repair truck, scout helicopter, minelayer, and mech salvage plane.

Therefore when you’re told to hold a base/defend an area because they create a wide variety of tactical choices, you can push ahead with your mechs, but you can also lay mines down and position a few mobile artillery units to shell the enemy before they get close enough for your mechs.

Each one of your mechs is piloted by a member of your team, and they gain experience by defeating enemies on missions. Once they advance a level, you can choose specific skills for them, like the ability to read sensor data more accurately, or pilot certain weight classes of mechs more efficiently.

Pilots go from green, to regular, to veteran, to elite. At each new level, you can choose a skill. With each mission and each instance of combat, your pilots shooting and piloting skills go up as well.

By the end of the game you’ll be quite attached to your squad. This was a clever move on the part of designers, because any of your pilots can die during a mission if their mech is destroyed. You’ll want to reload if anything bad happens, but resisting the urge makes for a much more intense experience.

One of the only downsides to the combat in the game is the difficulty. The game is fairly easy on all of the difficulty settings except for the highest one, borderlines unfair. On the hardest difficulty, your enemies gain increased health, damage resistance, and damage output, and you can’t dodge a majority of the weapons that they use, so you’ll end up losing pilots and mechs faster than you can replace them. I think a better route would have been to up the damage output for both sides and increase the number of enemies. Being a little overwhelmed leads to some of my best moments in MC2 were because I had to plan on the fly.

"“Crap, there’s 10 mechs behind us. Okay, I’ll send the scout ahead to that base on the radar, she can jump-jet over their walls and take control of their gate and torrent systems, then I’ll put my long range guy behind the walls and keep the enemy … — "“Crap, there’s 10 mechs behind us. Okay, I’ll send the scout ahead to that base on the radar, she can jump-jet over their walls and take control of their gate and torrent systems, then I’ll put my long range guy behind the walls and keep the enemy occupied out front with my heavy.”

Worth Playing?

Yes.

There really aren’t many MechCommander 2 it in terms of replayability and depth of combat. Most games with giant robots are basically just shooting games with a giant metal body, but MechCommander 2 shows you the power of that giant robot by giving you a sense of scale to the world. Installing this game on a modern system is a little bit of a headache, but it’s worth playing if you’ve got the time.