Another Timesink
Jun. 15th, 2004 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuSo I haven't yet bought City of Heroes. And I'm not at all certain that I will. But that's okay, because...I've found another timesink.
MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. Actually, Twoson found it.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snippy and I were cleaning up the house last weekend and amongst the long forgotten debris on a disused computer desk was a demo disk containing several games, including MechWarrior 4. Twoson discovered the disk and asked if he could install it on my computer and I let him do it.
He really liked the demo. Liked it so well, in fact, that he nagged us about taking him to buy the full game. Which Snippy did this past Saturday morning. So now the complete game is loaded on my computer and Twoson plays it every chance he gets. And--god help me--I've been playing it also. I've been playing the same single-player mission over and over again, trying out different Mechs and figuring out the best keyboard configuration for the controls. But I am having fun with it, no matter how stupid the game is.
And it is stupid. I mean, really. If modern warfare has taught us anything, it's that if you can be seen on the modern battlefield, you're dead. So naturally the future of warfare (in the year 3066) is giant (tens of tons in weight) anthropomorphic robots* (standing eight to fourteen meters tall) running (yes, literally running on two legs) around bludgeoning one another into scrap with a wide array of energy and projectile weapons. It's ridiculous. Absurd. And yet, it's fun. Kind of like a computerized version of Rock Em Sock Em Robots with heavy weapons.
It was a tabletop wargame first, and one that I've never been interested in playing precisely because it's so completely idiotic in concept. I like my futuristic wargames to be a bit more realistic, he sniffed. I didn't think the computer version would be any better, but it represents the triumph of nifty graphics and gameplay over stupid concept. What would be tedious and unthinkably stupid as a tabletop game turns out to be a lot of fun when all I have to do is steer my robot steed and fire the weapons. Plus, there's the MechLab, where you can start with stock robot designs and fiddle with the array of weapons, the amount and placement of armor and electronic upgrades to try to build the perfect killing machine. Or the perfect machine for a given scenario or mission. Then, of course, you have to try it out to see how well it works. (In a campaign game, you'd also have to do repairs after each scenario, and manage your resources by earning pay and salvaging enemy mechs and so forth.)
It's a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
*If you can call it a "robot" when it has human pilot sitting in a cockpit in the "head" of the robot.
MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. Actually, Twoson found it.
snippy and I were cleaning up the house last weekend and amongst the long forgotten debris on a disused computer desk was a demo disk containing several games, including MechWarrior 4. Twoson discovered the disk and asked if he could install it on my computer and I let him do it.He really liked the demo. Liked it so well, in fact, that he nagged us about taking him to buy the full game. Which Snippy did this past Saturday morning. So now the complete game is loaded on my computer and Twoson plays it every chance he gets. And--god help me--I've been playing it also. I've been playing the same single-player mission over and over again, trying out different Mechs and figuring out the best keyboard configuration for the controls. But I am having fun with it, no matter how stupid the game is.
And it is stupid. I mean, really. If modern warfare has taught us anything, it's that if you can be seen on the modern battlefield, you're dead. So naturally the future of warfare (in the year 3066) is giant (tens of tons in weight) anthropomorphic robots* (standing eight to fourteen meters tall) running (yes, literally running on two legs) around bludgeoning one another into scrap with a wide array of energy and projectile weapons. It's ridiculous. Absurd. And yet, it's fun. Kind of like a computerized version of Rock Em Sock Em Robots with heavy weapons.
It was a tabletop wargame first, and one that I've never been interested in playing precisely because it's so completely idiotic in concept. I like my futuristic wargames to be a bit more realistic, he sniffed. I didn't think the computer version would be any better, but it represents the triumph of nifty graphics and gameplay over stupid concept. What would be tedious and unthinkably stupid as a tabletop game turns out to be a lot of fun when all I have to do is steer my robot steed and fire the weapons. Plus, there's the MechLab, where you can start with stock robot designs and fiddle with the array of weapons, the amount and placement of armor and electronic upgrades to try to build the perfect killing machine. Or the perfect machine for a given scenario or mission. Then, of course, you have to try it out to see how well it works. (In a campaign game, you'd also have to do repairs after each scenario, and manage your resources by earning pay and salvaging enemy mechs and so forth.)
It's a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
*If you can call it a "robot" when it has human pilot sitting in a cockpit in the "head" of the robot.
