Robots

The Glory Of MechWarrior 2

How can I forget one of the best games in the history of the PC gaming world? MechWarrior 2, warts and all, was a joy to play from start to finish. I bought the game bundled with the Microsoft Sidewinder Pro 3D joystick and they were a nearly perfect combination. It was worth every penny of the $89.95 I paid for the combo back then. This specific version of MechWarrior 2 had a custom driver written to take full advantage of this legendary Microsoft joystick, and it gave me a real advantage over other MechWarriors.

Precision Aiming Pays Off

Blowing Off Mech Limbs

Bye, Bye Drop Ship...

With the Pro 3D and MechWarrior 2, I could control the entire game without touching the keyboard. I could torso-twist and go full throttle so I could literally run circles around my enemy and take shots at him like a sitting duck. Those players who did not have a torso-twist joystick had to coordinate the keyboard and regular joystick and not too many of them could do it well. I could do it all from one place, and learned to aim and shoot at all angles while still being a moving target that was hard for them to hit. I could switch weapons groups quickly and easily, launch salvos of missiles, whip out the laser pulse cannon and all the other great weapons. Man, what fun this was.

Evolution Of A Legend

Like Descent 2, the MechWarrior 2 series had a whole bunch of patches and other downloads that came along to help you get the most out of your game. As 3D accelerators became more prevalent, you could get high-resolution images generated in hardware, and even though they were chunky and blocky, I didn't care, because it was very cool and justified the cash spent on the 3dfx hardware.

The Original Ruled

Best Expansion Ever!

Online Madness!!!

After a while, MechWarrior 2 got an add-on pack called Ghost Bear Legacy, and it is perhaps the best expansion pack ever made! It added groups of mechs that you could command and lots of cool looking snow and ice scenarios. Man, what a rush. Then when NetMech came out and you could download it over the modem and then go online to blast people, life took on a whole new meaning. What a rush it was to go full-on 14.4 with dudes at work and take on all comers. Again, cheating eventually ruined some of the online fun, but if you limited yourself to the people you knew, it worked pretty well. Eventually they bundled the different versions together in Platinum and Titanium packs, so you could get the whole group with all the latest patches at once and play them in Windows 95, which made things easier. Unfortunately, Mercenaries was not such a good follow-up and Activision lost the MechWarrior franchise completely. I think MechWarrior 4 from Microsoft is good, but still, it is not as legendary as MechWarrior 2 was, and will never have the same level of reverence for many of us.