I've got a list of complaints but I'm jaded. It's story-lite (maybe if you know nothing about Smoke Jaguar it sells), the combat isn't as satisfying (for me), the mech lab is kind of a joke even when compared to vanilla, and a dozen menus with questionable options isn't good. The graphics are pretty... but there's just... inconsistencies in choices here.
The things that bother me the most at this particular moment being so far in the game are 1) These mechs are as tall as buildings. So why instead of trees, are we knocking down tall plants? Like literally, there's maps with weeds as tall as you are that you walk through but it sounds like a tree is falling. 2) The mission parameters will say something most everyone ignores but my OCD ass. "We've arrived at the AO from the NorthWest" it says. But you land and you're looking NorthWest... so you came from the SouthEast!
At the beginning you miss a bunch of these because it's a lot and yeah I know I'm nitpicking. Just a thought stream here.
But there's other stuff. 3) You get weird level ups all over the place and one of them is affinities in the barracks menu. You can choose a bunch but you can get one for each mech weight class that gives you a bonus. Ok, so there's Light, Medium, and Heavy. No Assault. Huh? 4) The story hints repeatedly that your clan's tech is miles better than the Inner Sphere and when I'm melting Battlemasters with my mediums I start to agree. So what does the Inner Sphere bring you for serious fights then?
Flying vehicles. I shit you not. Bullet sponge flying fortresses. Guess they should'a used these in some of their wars, huh?
But I think for me, the worst offender here is the fact that it's named Mechwarrior 5: Clans. Five. Okay, that should mean that it's somehow related to the other Mechwarrior 5 games right? MW5 Mercenaries' story talks about a protagonist whose father is revealed to have been a spy for 'somebody' that lives outside the Inner Sphere. It's not Clan Wolf, they've got their own thing going. You play the whole campaign, nothing is revealed, but there's a trailer for MW5: Clans. Surely they're gonna answer all our questions about who this guy was, right?
....two guesses. Completely different game, same name. I just don't get it.
On the different game, same version number thing: That’s a tradition that dates to the mid-90’s with the 3 games published under the title Mechwarrior 2.
31st Century Combat was the first, it featured two campaigns from both sides of the Wolf/Jade Falcon Refusal War. Ghost Bear’s Legacy is also post-Clan invasion but largely to do with the Draconis Combine. MW2 Mercenaries is set pre-invasion up through the Battle of Luthien.
Mechwarrior 4 was fairly similar; Vengeance was a relatively small story set on Kentares IV (and its moon) and is kind of a microcosm of the FedCom Civil War. Black Knight does continue the bad ending of Vengeance, and MW4: Mercenaries is more broadly about the FedCom Civil War; most missions are either Davion or Steiner aligned though other units and factions appear (including the Jade Falcons and the Capellans). Kentares IV isn’t so much as mentioned.
So what does the Inner Sphere bring you for serious fights then?
This is something I don’t think any of the Mechwarrior games ever really brought to life because yes the Clans had outright superior weapons and the Inner Sphere to my knowledge never won a toe-to-toe fight during the invasion. Name one time an inner sphere lance stood against a Clan star in a fair fight and won. The clans ultimately lost because it turns out blitzkrieg is a dumber thing to base a religion around than the phone company. And it’s really difficult to build an action cockpit simulator game around that as a primary gameplay mechanic.
Name one time an inner sphere lance stood against a Clan star in a fair fight and won.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wolcott did just this and turned the tide. The Battle of Tukayyid in particular?
And yeah the rest of your post is good... I guess I'm still just kinda confused why Piranha doesn't really use the canon narrative to drive their stories. It raises the stakes in each game, which is great for player engagement.
Wolcott comes the closest as the Kuritans did actually answer the batchall and bid the fight, they played by the clan’s rules. They also presented the Genyosha as green troops instead of the elite force they were, and they dug traps, hid explosives and hung strips of metal from the trees in the swamp they were to fight in. I see it as reaching a similar place that the Lyrans did at Twycross, both took significant planning ahead to take advantage of prevailing conditions that reduced some of the clans’ technical advantages, both involved setting traps, and both still resulted in a lengthy and brutal knock down drag out fight.
As for Tukayyid, the clans lost at Tukayyid through a failure of doctrine. With the exception of the Wolves, the clans thought they were fighting a trial of possession. Comstar thought they were fighting a siege. Comstar was right.
Found a couple references on Reddit this morning. Some are suggesting that you take a heavily modified TimberWolf just because the captured mechs are so fast, and to use different strats with your Star as a firing line just to take on the rest while you leg the targets.
I wasn't keen on modifiying the mechs as I'm not fond of the mech bay, but I guess if I wanna progress I'm gonna have to roll up my sleeves.
And apparently Executioners aren't the best mech in this sitch. Too many fights, too little ammo.
For myself I made it to the final battle a couple times, but just got wrecked in it. See if you can park your firing line in the water in various places, maybe mod them for ER large lasers and take advantage of the cooling.
If I might offer some advise for what’s coming. Keep the play style that let you beat Disciplinary Action going. It’s gonna serve you well in missions to come.
And hit the Sim Pod for mech xp and to level up your star. Cuz you’re gonna need every edge you can get.
If patch notes are announced in an official blog, it’s likely that it has an RSS or Atom feed. You can subscribe to the blog from an RSS reader and it’ll appear in the feed.
And if you haven’t heard of RSS readers before, welcome to the world of being able to subscribe to almost any website you want! The news and webcomics come to you, not the other way around.
Update: an example.
I open my reader (Inoreader), select “Add feed”, and enter https://www.teamfortress.com/. It detects the TF2 official blog and I select “Follow” to add it to my feeds. Now, when TF2 updates and patch notes are posted, I can refresh my reader to see the latest patch notes.
I’ve been out of the RSS metagame for a long while, so I don’t have any particular recommendation. I’ve just been using Inoreader on mobile as well for the past several years since it works for my purposes. There very well could be better choices out there but there’s no urgency for me to switch.
From what I've seen, the SH2 remake looks really good. Honestly, it's a fine starting point if you want to get into the series as SH1 is pretty inconsequential to the rest of the games, so you can definitely just skip it and not really miss out on much.
I really hope that Bloober gets the greenlight to continue remaking the rest of the series. I'd love to see a modernized SH3.
Thanks for your replies! I’ve started playing SH2 remake just today and I’m thoroughly enjoying it thus far. Bloober Team really surprised me with this one.
The following are incoherent rambles pls don’t bother to read/don’t be mad
I’m finding this hard to articulate without rambling but despite enjoying it, I’m not feeling truly immersed in the moment-to-moment gameplay as much as I’d like to be. The reason being this is my first exposure to SH2 and I personally feel like I’m trying to retroactively “catch-up” on almost 20 years of missed themes and nostalgia, therefore I’m trying to absorb & consider every element of the story a li’l too much.
I’d say “well, don’t,” but that’s pretty obviously useless. :p
I think I can say this much, though: Silent Hill, being so metaphorical, it’s kind of built like a big puzzle? It’s okay to “not get it” while you’re playing. Most of the stuff I know I’m pretty sure I picked up from fan wikis later on.
So, easier said than done, but: try not to think so much, haha.
The remake is also a little better about explaining its own plot, I think just by being a little more obvious. So, by the end, some things might click into place a little more.
And yeah, the sound design, (minor early game spoiler) have you noticed that >!the radio!< >!is a positional sound?!<
!Normally, you hear it kind of left and behind you. My instinct that the sound is supposed to be telling me where to look was so strong that I kept turning away from enemies I knew were right in front of me. That’s so genius I almost feel it must have been an accident.!<
You live up to your name, thank you King! I’m going to try to put that critical part of my brain away, just enjoy the ride and worry about having a deeper delve & thinking about the themes after my first run-through.
I’ve recently upgraded TV and sound systems and that li’l detail about the radio is genuinely so helpful.
Metaphor! I’m at the third town and loving every part of it.
I’m kinda struggling with the difficulty on hard, so I might turn it down a bit, as the resources feel a little too strict and stressful, but it makes finishing a dungeon more satisfying.
So close to great. I wish more developers were making environmentally detailed, high production value, single player linear games like Callisto Protocol. Just that little bit better executed to round out the total package.
If you want to double down on the puzzle aspect, check out Toki Tori 2. It’s a metroidvania side scrolling puzzle game. The wild part of it is you basically only have 2 moves, but you have to figure out how to use those moves to solve puzzles in the environment to progress. There are no actual hard walls like in a regular metroidvania, it’s just your understanding of how you can manipulate and influence objects in the world that gates you from getting to new places.
It was much more fun for me than the originals. Back then it was just about seeing how clear I could render the boobs on my voodoo 3Dfx. Teenager things
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