Introduction: It is the 31st century and mankind is once again at war...
MechWarrior 3 is arguably one of the best MechWarrior games (depending on who you talk to), let alone mech-sim titles ever to be made, but nothing in its creation says that it should be that way. From having multiple developers (Micropose, Hasbro Interactive, Zipper Interactive, Mondo Media, FASA Corporation, and Microsoft — whew!) taking over various aspects of the game to the apocryphal lore and single expansion, Pirate's Moon, MechWarrior 3 continues to grow in fame as a cult classic on its own merit and not just as another MechWarrior title. The love for the game has grown to the point that various mods have given the title new life on modern machines, from upscales to full blown resolution support. Since MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is finally free from the clutches of Epic Games, how does a game from 1999 fare against a modern interpretation?
Gameplay: The first thing you will notice with MechWarrior 3, along with its predecessor, is that there are a lot of controls. You have to remember that this was the late 1990s, PC gaming ruled, consoles were still glorified arcade machines, and if a computer was going to have all these keys, might as well give them a purpose, right? It wouldn't be a full-fledged sim if your hands weren't flying all over the keyboard, moving the mouse, or adjusting your joystick all while trying not to get shot at and returning the favor ten-fold.
The second thing of note when it comes to MechWarrior is that this is not an FPS. Depending on the mech you're piloting, your upper torso can move independently from your legs. This mechanic is better known as "tank controls" and takes some getting used to. On top of that, you can choose to lock your arms with your upper torso, so that your aim is always in the center of your cockpit or allow your arms to move freely, giving the option to engage multiple targets at once if one is skilled enough.
The third thing I'll mention is that the mechs move slowly, even the smaller, more agile mechs in the Light division. For most modern gamers, this might seem stupid, tired, sluggish, and even cumbersome, but one must remember that these 20-100 ton bipedal machines, these aren't Mobile Suit Gundams or the Titans of Titanfall. While modern day tanks can weigh between 60-70 tons on average and hit speeds between 65-75 kilometers per hour with frightening agility, they are also moving on track threads that can make it turn on a dime. If you take one of those tanks and put legs on them, I can guarantee you they will move much slower (and yes, I know that the general design of the battlemech is a poor choice for combat, but this is fiction in a future where warfare is not what we see today. The reason for this is covered in detail in BattleTech history, but in short the battlemech was a response to political powers glassing [nuking] entire planets from orbit just because they couldn't have them. If you want to know more about BattleTech lore, I highly suggest the Tex Talks BattleTech series on YouTube).
Now that those things are all covered, one last topic needs to be mentioned: MechWarrior 3 is equal parts strategy and expertise. Knowing your enemy is just as important as having a big weapon, or more apt - the right weapon. As with all MechWarrior titles, each mech has variants and therefore different builds. Knowing this can save your life. Think of it this way - this is submarine warfare on ground. While the controls are definitely rugged compared to modern systems, I find the lowered sensitivity and reactivity adds to the immersion of the universe at hand. On top of the various weapons, there are groupings you can set certain armaments to fire when a certain button is pressed. This can be done to maximize damage or to manage heat better. Within the grouping, you can select three different sub-settings: Single Fire (stays on selected weapon unless manually changed), chain-fire (automatically selects the next weapon within the group after being fired), or group fire (firing all weapons within a weapon group at once). Lastly, there's the deadliest of firing groups: the Alpha Strike. The Alpha Strike is when all weapons are fired at once. This is a dangerous move that can secure victory or defeat.
As you progress, you'll pick up three more lance mates (Dominic Paine, Epona Rhi, and Alan Mattilla) as well as your Mobile Field Bases or MFBs. For the rest of the game, these will be your sole companions for the campaign that was supposed to be a full scale assault now being handled by you and your pals. Nothing like going from the Normandy invasion to a commando operation. With that in mind, communication and salvage is the final pillar of this game. From the start, every mission ends with a set amount of salvage. What this salvage contains all depends on how you play the mission, such as but not limited to how damaged the opponent's mechs are or if you come across salvage by exploring the relatively large area of operations. And while this may all sound standard, the balancing act comes into play in the form of your MFBs. Each MFB can carry 300 tons of stuff. This includes mechs (limited to six plus the 4 you can operate with your lance), armor, ammo, equipment, and weapons. You will be rotating and replacing all of these quite frequently, especially as newer and superior counterparts come your way. In this regard, MechWarrior 3 is almost like a survival horror game than a mech sim as not only are you fighting with your salvage and determining what you may or may not need later, but repairing your mechs in a battle is one of the most intense parts of the game as not only are you shut down and vulnerable for the process, but should your MFBs get shot and destroyed, you lose that salvage and carrying capacity.
Audio: As dated as the effects may be, they still sound great: the mechs sound heavy; explosions have thunder behind them; lasers electrify; and "Bitchin' Betty" is my personal favorite in this iteration, followed by MechWarrior 2's legendary AI. Yet, in light of this, the true highlight is the voice acting and production behind it. Everything is just a little bit staticky, as if the radios are being held together by tape and hair ties, and just might fall apart at any moment. Add this to the fact that conversation triggers for allies and foes can overlap during battle, giving a true "chaos of the battlefield" feel.
Many might find this as a garbled mess and terrible for a video game, but for me it's perfect and more war-themed games should do this. Enemies aren't going to stay silent just so that your commander can pass on some critical information cause everything is going to hell: missiles are flying, cannons are roaring, Betty is bitching, and lasers are pew-pewing. Even the pre- and post-mission briefings are filled with character and charisma as your lance mates sometimes rag on the MFBs on their bad intel or just plain old jackassery because everyone is stressed. In essence, the longer time goes on, the better the lo-fi audio quality benefits the game.
If there was one glaring criticism I would have in this department, it would be the soundtrack as there are only two tracks, both clocking in just over 3 minutes each. This could have been due to the game development constantly being passed on from one studio to another or maybe just ran out of time. While the two tracks aren't bad by any means, there is a want for more. I personally made a playlist of MechWarrior 2 & 3 music and just had that on shuffle. This of course only highlighted how good the MechWarrior 2, Ghost Bear's Legacy, and Mercenaries soundtracks are.
Visuals: Graphically the game is rugged, to put it nicely, but at the time it was near bleeding edge with its fully rendered and articulated mechs. Each mission area is loaded and there are not loading times once the mission begins, everything is there, everything is active, and everything is out to get you. There are some weather effects as well, such as rain and snow, and even lightning from time to time across sweeping vistas, leaving consoles in the dust. Various mods have even been able to up the game to a glorious 60fps and it's still a beauty to watch in action, but to me the visual highlight is in the little details.
Your mech leaves footprints in the ground, appropriate to your mech, missiles create craters (massive ones in-fact that can cause vehicles to fall into or provide a nice place to crouch and avoid fire temporarily), machine guns shot at your cockpit can sometimes cause your protective glass to spider web as you hear that spine tingling crack, wondering if it'll hold; armor strips off and you can see parts of your mech as they get damaged - and so much more. You see, it's graphics may not be great compared to now, but so much effort went into making this believable in-universe, that it doesn't matter, this is what makes a game great to me, and sadly, the later MechWarrior titles have not quite lived up to this game overall. Not everything has to be clean cut, crystal clear or fluid. Hell, the most internal damage your mech takes, the worse your sensors become: your radar gets progressively garbled and filled with static along with your targeting computer and weapon statuses, something the newest installment, MechWarrior 5 even fails to grasp, but that's a discussion for another time.
Content: There's well over 20 missions that can play one way or another. Coupled with the salvage mechanic, this actually adds quite a bit or replayability whether in tackling a mission a different way or finding something else that may make a mission easier. There's also enough mech variety to keep you wanting to try different styles and tactics from the quick Owens to the massive Annihilator. The missions are also quite varied with Primary, Secondary, even Tertiary objectives that may alter the outcome of the current or preceding missions. Not everything is "dispose of the opposition." Some require certain buildings to be destroyed (yes - there are destructible structures), dropping artillery on a massive gate, to catching a train before it leaves a certain area, but not before it picks up some valuable salvage, or one of my personal favorites: trapping a convoy on an island by blowing out bridges after they have crossed over them.
There is also an Instant Action mode where you and your lance mates can take on an AI controlled lance with different objectives to mess around with, such as defend the base, destroy the base, and Team Deathmatch.
Story: MechWarrior 3 takes hold towards the end of the Clan Invasion of 3050, specifically as a part of Operation Bulldog to eliminate remaining Clan Smoke Jaguar members on Tranquil in 3059. Two dropships (The Black Hammer and Eclipse) are deployed by the Eridani Light Horse mercenary outfit, who have a long standing holding in the Inner Sphere, dating back to before the collapse of the Star League. As the two dropships approach Tranquil and prepare their offensive, dropship Black Hammer erupts in a sudden explosion, knocking reconnaissance probes out of orbit and forcing Captain Nathan Taylor of the Eclipse to abandon the rest of their run, taking orbit at a safer distance, leaving Team Damocles the only successful deployment.
As mentioned earlier, things go from bad to worse as the operation barely begins. This is something that has been replicated and imitated in other military style games, but something about the way it all begins pulls you in, from the calm franticness in the MFB commander's voice as they ascertain the situation to Captain Taylor making the decision to leave Damocles alone. Everything about has an authenticity that hasn't been matched very often in the 22 years since it launched.
It is hard to talk about the story without spoiling much because part of its narrative is the gameplay itself. Tidbits of info is dropped during combat, sometimes clearly, something garbled in the haziness of combat, or missed entirely because you chose not to investigate a certain area of the map. The primary plot revolves around the surviving members of your team carrying out their original mission plan with an albeit smaller force, targeting barracks, mech production facilities, as well as other targets of interests. As things move on, your focus shifts from attacking Smoke Jaguar targets to getting your team off the planet in one piece with Smoke Jaguar hot on your tail. While the plot itself isn't the most creative, it is still well crafted and paced out through the missions. The pre-mission and post-mission dialogues are filled with information as you don't know when your next moment of rest and reprieve may be, keeping together barely repaired machines and equipment.
Multiplayer: There is an online multiplayer component that can be made to run over a LAN network similar to the Instant Action combat, just with human opponents and teammates instead of AI players. I did not get to try this out as I didn't know anyone else who would be willing to play. At launch, the game promoted Microsoft's MSN Gaming Zone (Yeah, remember that piece of LosTech?)
Design: This is the category that divides the BattleTech/MechWarrior community the most. Despite its solid narrative, gameplay, accurate mechs, and visceral combat, the customization aspect drives most MechWarrior fans, if not regular gamers up the wall. The reason for this is that traditionally, Battlemechs as like cars and each car as various models and variations and even limited editions and one-offs. Each of those have their own pros and cons. All of this centers around the Hard Point system. Multiple mechs of the same type may have completely different weapons based upon its designated battlefield role. The stock Annihilator, ANH-2A boasts four LB-X 10 Autocannons and four Medium Pulse Lasers, but the ANH-1E carries four PPCs (Particle Projector Cannon) four Medium Pulse Lasers, and two Medium Lasers. While these are both Annihilators, the ANH-1E cannot equip autocannons because it wasn't designed for that, it's hard points were made for energy based weapons. Every single mech is like this, save for Clan mechs, which introduced the Omni-Mech, a modular approach to Battlemechs, allowing engineers and Mechwarriors alike to swap out weapons and equipment like Legos at the cost of durability. This distinction is what separated Inner Sphere mechs from the Clans with only a few exceptions crossing over from one side to the other.
I bring this all up because in MechWarrior 3, all of this is sort of sent through the cockpit glass via yeet-seat ejection. You could, in theory, place an LRM-5 in the legs of your mech without restriction, taking on the feline mantra of "if it fits, I sits." To many, this breaks not just the the game, but the traditions of BattleTech and MechWarrior, and I'm inclined to agree as a game designer, but as a lore fanatic, I have adopted this simple head-canon to explain this quirk of gameplay design: you're part of a team that is barely holding on with little support. You aren't working to follow tradition, but to survive as well as accomplishing your objectives, making due with what you have and doing what it takes to get it done. If the game was made today, I can imagine the mechs you acquire looking like Corsairs or Frankenmechs, literally mashed together pieces of equipment from multiple sources from the Inner Sphere and the Clanners. Honestly, if a remake or remaster of MechWarrior 3 ever happens, I'd love to see this kind of visual upgrade happen.
As for the rest of the game, the mission briefing page is spartan, but it gets the job done with a simple overview of the map, Op-Points, and key objectives. The mech customization area can take some getting used to, but with time, it'll all come together. While not as in-depth as other systems, its simplicity makes you spend less time fiddling with numbers and rather building something effective with what you have left. If I had a complaint, I'd say that the weapon groupings can be a little tedious to set up, but it's not game-breaking. The HUD tells you everything you need to know even with three different visuals for your targeting computer: a standard paper doll outline, bar graphs depicting each component, or a 3D render of your target. Even the radar has multiple forms with two major visuals choices and a variation each.
Performance: I played MechWarrior 3 on an Intel Core i7 with 16GB RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX1050 Ti w/Max-Q Design video card as well as some minor mods to get the ancient game working on modern machines. Specifically patch 1.2 and the RivaTuner Statistics Server that comes bundled with the MSI Afterburner suite, which you don't really need, but can't install the RivaTuner without Afterburner. All it is really for is controlling framerates as MechWarrior 3 has a habit of making vehicles shoot up into the air at Mach 45 if no framerate cap is put in place. On the upside, this allowed me to play the game in a non-stretch, 1080p resolution and a glorious 60fps. Some other mods actually allow you to play the game in 4k resolutions.
Verdict: MechWarrior 3 has a lot of charm and passion built into it, so much so, it almost crashes over its faults, both major and minor, but as a BattleTech and MechWarrior fan, this installment has far more heart than the most recent release, and that says a lot. You can throw in all the lore text you want, but if you do nothing with that, then it just remains just that: text. MechWarrior 3 told you a story from the 31st century through audio logs that didn't bore you to tears. There's colorful and distinct characters, mission variety, and a constantly evolving narrative leading up to a climatic ending. It's a tale that's been told many times before, but it's told well nonetheless, and to me, that is far more important than being original. So do I recommend MechWarrior 3? Absolutely. It's worth getting up and running on modern machines and customizing the controls to suit your style. Is it perfect? Of course not, but if you haven't caught on yet, that's the theme of the whole game: not everything goes the way you want. It's imperfections seemingly add to the game's immersion and those are the best kinds of games.