The robot builder gave you an incentive to replay the entire game with a different robot design philosophy each time - you could have a large, slow-moving battleship, or a small, fast frigate that could dodge incoming missiles, or something in between. The process of modifying your robot was uncomplicated, with enough depth to be fascinating, but not so much that it became tedious (MechWarrior 2 was superior to its sequels in this respect). Each could store a certain weight of weapons and equipment in a certain set of locations, and if you overloaded your robot it moved slower, heated up quicker, and couldn't jump as far. One of the best features was the way that you could customise your robot, indeed you could choose several different robot bodies. The game system had been well thought out, and benefited from its RPG roots.
From what I remember the game supported the extravagant resolution of 1024x768, which was jerky unless you had a 486DX50 or something similar. There were a couple of cities, and although most of the buildings were just shaded blocks, they seemed large and real. Later instalments in the series - the add-on pack Ghost Bear's Legacy, and the sequel Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - pushed the engine beyond its limits, including underwater and indoors sequences, but plain old Mechwarrior 2 had a fine set of large, expansive alien landscapes. The gouraud shaded 3D polygons were fast and detailed, and they moved well, with mass and heft. The voice acting of your robot computer and mission briefings etc was professional. The sound design was effective as well, with a good range of clanks and robot noises that added greatly to the experience.
Your robot strode around the landscape exactly as if it was a hundred feet tall and made of iron. The impression of moving about in a giant robot was extremely well conveyed. In this respect it was again very much like X-Wing or TIE Fighter, but set on the ground, and far in the future rather than a long time ago. In terms of plot I have no idea how strictly it adheres to the Mechwarrior "universe", but basically the game puts you in charge of a series of fighting robots, and you have to blow up other robots and protect friendly installations and so forth. It resembled Lucasarts' X-Wing games in that respect, with its combination of accessible depth and slick audio and visual production. MechWarrior 2 was a nifty cross between pure action and simulation, with a level of polish that lifted it above a host of competing giant robot fighting games.
0 kommentar(er)
