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MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
WE HAD TO CHECK, but it has indeed been 20
years since the last mainline MechWarrior
game. MechWarrior 4: Vengeance (which,
confusingly, had a standalone expansion
called Mercenaries) was a first-person
mech sim based on BattleTech in which
you shot the limbs off enemy mechs to
reach mission objectives and pick up the
parts as scrap with which to augment
your own stompy killing machine.
Little has changed in MechWarrior 5,
apart from the fact the game now runs
happily in 4K, supports ray tracing and
DLSS, and you have the choice of a third-
person view. You’re a rookie pilot getting
trained up when some bad guys attack,
knock your father’s mech off a cliff, and
damage his mercenary outfit in search
of something you know nothing about.
It’s a classic setup, forcing you to rebuild
the unit and investigate what the attack
was about before taking your revenge in
an appropriately heavy metal manner.
Your four-mech team can be filled out by
computer players or real people online,
and there’s a lot to love about it as your
pilot’s hands mimic your inputs, and
your mech roars into life.
Controller-users beware, however:
the news that many PC gamers have
eschewed keyboard and mouse forMechs come in different
sizes. The big ones naturally
have the most guns.happily walking into buildings, and you
start to feel a bit silly.
Running your mercenary company
adds a welcome layer of strategy, as you
choose which solar systems to enter,
which missions to take, how much salvage
to bid for, and—eventually—which parts
you actually need.
The glory of MechWarrior 5 comes
from blowing stuff up in the most efficient
way, mixed with running a business on the
side. It’s undeniable fun to dodge through
the battlefield in a light, fast mech,
damaging heavier suits just enough to
bring them down so you can pick them up
later. It’s also fun to use those salvaged
bots, repaired and rearmed, to smash
through enemy lines. But you may need
to put some hours in first. –IAN EVENDENthe console-owner’s best friend has
not reached Piranha Games. Sure, you
can walk around, aim, and fire with
thumbsticks, but you have to go back to
the keyboard to do something like reset
your torso rotation; so much, in fact,
it’s worth abandoning the controller and
going back to WASD. There’s an option
to change it, but the throttle control by
default increases and sticks there until
you lower it. It’s not always clear whether
a stationary mech will lurch backward or
forward either, thanks to torso rotation,
and while you have free aim with the
mouse, if you’ve rotated too far, your
chest-mounted weapons can’t come to
bear on a target.
It gets more complicated when you’re
managing temperature, blaster ammo,
jump jets, and armor. Keep your face
toward the enemy while trying to get
behind it to attack weaker rear armor,
your legs going one way while your torso
rotates and arm-mounted weaponry picks
off aircraft coming in for an attack run,
and you start to feel extremely powerful.
Watch rocks fade into the ground as your
mech stomps over them and you begin
to wonder. Get damaged by fast-moving
(but weak) tanks because your lasers are
overheating and your AI teammates areMechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
MERCENARIES Huge
stomping mechs firing lasers
and missiles—what’s not to like?
ADVERSARIES Graphics could do with a
tune-up; voice accents verge on ridiculous.
RECOMMENDED SPECS Ryzen 7 1700/Core
i7-6700K; 16GB RAM; GTX 1070/RX Vega 56.
$50, http://mw5mercs.com, ESRB: Not rated7
VERDICT©^PIRANHAGAMESin the lab
90 MAXIMUMPC MAR 2020 maximumpc.com