The BattleTech games don't get a lot of press these days, but I'm sure I'm not the only one with fond memories of the franchise. In particular, I've got a lot of love for MechWarrior 4 and its RTS sibling, MechCommander 2. These games have a way of making you feel immersed in a universe much larger than the conflicts you see, and I've got a soft spot for the overacted FMV sequences that drive the story.

MechCommander is something of an anomaly of the RTS genre. Most games in that family follow a simple formula for constructing an army: set drones to work gathering resources, then spend those resources on soldiers. Here the resource management is done mostly outside the mission, meaning only troop orders are part of the real-time gameplay. Army size is limited to a handful of Mechs, leaving the player free to micromanage to his heart's content. This runs counter to the current evolution of the genre, which seems to be a constant march towards complexity, marked by larger armies and wall-sized tech trees. But as Supreme Commander and its ilk push for a grander scale, they leave a niche for games like MechCommander which emphasize tactical precision over army size.

Now you know why I love the game, but what would I change? MechCommander was a fusion of RTS and RPG elements before anyone even thought to use the phrase "RPG elements" in an ad campaign, and I think the inclusion of more RPG inspired aspects would create an unparalleled gaming experience. Already present are character leveling and inventory management; pilots gain skill points after each mission and learn skills as they are promoted, while the Mechs you put them in become more sophisticated as your resources expand. Missing are emotional ties with the members of your party (the pilots), and freedom to shape the game world outside of the mission->briefing->mission structure.



The player can build attachment with the pilots through use, but bonding is limited by the lack of backstory for most of the faces on the roster. The solution is to expand the opportunities for contact between player and pilot, which requires a substantial revision of the between-mission space. It would be possible to accomplish this with the standard videophone console interface, but a much more powerful solution would be to make the player's dropship, his home base, an explorable space akin to the Normandy from Mass Effect. The ship would be populated by both pilots and Mechs, allowing the now embodied commander to walk among his troops and build ties with them. The additional face time with these characters would give the narrative substance beyond the motivations of the player's clients, making it easier to craft a satisfying story when the rigid structure tying missions together is removed.

If the game is to emphasize tactics over all other aspects, then shouldn't mission selection be included in the player's tactical responsibilities? I say do away with the linear mission structure and instead separate the story into contracts, each contract defined by a timeline. Missions are chosen from a map of targets, and scripted events scattered throughout the timeline will periodically change the map for better or for ill. For example, the player may be alerted to troop movements that leave an outpost temporarily weakened or the presence of a supply convoy that adds a potential mission to the static list of targets. It might even be interesting to completely break out of the mission selection framework by allowing the player to pinpoint a drop location instead of a picking a predefined mission, then leading a team to accomplish contract-relevant objectives before calling for an extraction. With this change, the entire planet would be reachable from any drop point, but natural barriers, travel time, and Mech repairs would make extraction the more attractive option.



One of the most disappointing aspects of MechCommander to me was the fact that it is possible to play the entire game using only a fraction of both your pilots and Mechs. Half the fun of playing these games is to amass a small navy's worth of weapons, and to never have the opportunity to use the extent of that force is quite a let down. Within the timeline mechanic, there are a few ways to force the player to deploy a greater percentage of his team. The first is to create situations in which running missions simultaneously offers a strategic advantage, and give the player the flexibility to initiate two or more missions at once. The second is to render pilots and Mechs unavailable for a certain period of time after a mission, making it necessary to choose others to keep the schedule defined by the contract. The last is to end contracts with large scale assaults in which the player can drop in many more Mechs than in a typical scenario. This would create a peak in the action caused by the necessity of managing a larger number of units, would break the established paradigm without straying too far from the core gameplay, and would also subject the player to greater casualties, setting the stage for some rebuilding at the beginning of the next contract. And it would be epic.

I loved MechCommander 2. But if a sequel were ever made, and these changes brought in, I would never have to play another game again. Not even Starcraft 2.