A to Z Challenge: BattleTech

 My brother and I had a few BattleTech games for the PC.  I think the first one might have been for the IBM PC that still used 5.25" floppies--low density only.  Or it might have been slightly newer than that.  Anyway, this first game I never played all the way through but it was more of a role-playing game.  It was also so ancient that it had robots like the "Phoenix Hawk" that was a non-transforming Robotech Veritech, the "Locust" that I think was a Zentraedi BattlePod design, and a couple of others.

In the mid-to-late 90s they came out with a new batch of games that also had novels tie-in with them, some of which I read and weren't terrible.  The basic story was human space was divided into these different factions who each had armies of robots with human pilots inside.  Some of the robots were huge, heavily-armed, and slow.  Others were small, light, and fast.  And the Centurion made slow, steady advances.

Then came "the Clans" who were rogue groups of warriors from outside known human space.  They had a strict warrior culture and their robots were better than the ones the regular humans were using.  So the Clans were winning until they took a challenge to fight on Earth's moon and lost.  A fragile truce was then forged.  Meanwhile both sides were jockeying for position with each other.

The mid-to-late 90s games let you pilot different mechs from either side and do different missions.  I think in some you could also be a non-affiliated mercenary.  You'd do missions and try to acquire new and better stuff for your mech--or just get a new mech.  It was pretty fun, like a flight simulator but without a lot of flying, though some mechs have "jump jets" that use jets to fly short distances.

Target, Maximum Firepower!

There was another game later in the 90s that was a strategy game called MechCommander.  Instead of being in the cockpit, you moved the mechs around the board.  There were different missions, some of which could be annoying like trying to protect an ambulance through heavy fighting.  

Here's the list of games from my old web page, including some cheat codes:

Crescent Hawk's Inception - an early BattleTech RPG video game, your character, Jason Youngblood, must journey around the map to find members of the elite Crescent Hawks.  Then you must crack an underground facility to find a valuable prize - a Phoenix Hawk LAM that looks like a Robotech Veritech fighter.

Crescent Hawk's Revenge - a sequel to Inception, this old strategy game pits your Crescent Hawks against the Clans, who hold your father prisoner.  The interface is bulky and makes combat difficult.

Mechwarrior - The first of these classic games, you are royalty of a small planet who must form a band of mercenaries to track down the group who killed your family and disgraced you.  You only get five years and it's harder than Hell to win.  The graphics stink, the interface leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still fun because you get Mechs you can't get in other games like Shadow Hawks, Phoenix Hawks, and Locusts.

Mechwarrior 2 - It took a long time for this sequel to come out, but when it did, it kicked ass!  In this game you are a Clan warrior (either Wolf or Falcon) fighting the Refusal War of 3057.  You fly awesome Mechs like Summoners and Timber Wolfs with cool weapons to blow the hell out of everything.  You can advance from a Mechwarrior to the Khan of your Clan, fly over a dozen of Mechs, and are free to customize your Mech almost any way you want.  My favorite Mech was a Summoner loaded with about 700 LRM-20s.  I could take out Mechs long before they even could touch me.  Of course that only works with the invincibility code (Alt+Control+BLORB) after you strip off all heat sinks and jump jets.

Mechwarrior 2:  Ghost Bear's Legacy - This expansion set allows you to play as the Ghost Bears who are out to recover the genetic materials of their founders that were stolen.  Like the original Mechwarrior this is a simulator with a story that is a lot of fun, and you get to fly new Mechs like the Kodiak and Stone Rhino.  The last mission sucks and I've never actually beaten it, I used cheats to get by it.  The Stone Rhino and Kodiak are slow, but can carry a lot of firepower.  A great close-in fighter is a Stone Rhino with a couple of autocannons (which I named the Stone Rhinox after the Beast Wars character who packs two bad-ass chainguns).

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - This isn't an expansion set, but a whole new game.  Much like Mechwarrior you form a group of Inner Sphere mercenaries.  You start in the early 3040s and the game goes right to the battle on Luthien during the Clan invasion.  This game is loads of fun, except that you have to fly the bulky, slow, poorly-armed Inner Sphere Mechs often against the Clan.  Still, the game is sweet.  It is a vast improvement over Mechwarrior, as you get better missions, more money, and better stuff even if you can't negotiate contracts.

Mechwarrior 3 - Finally, the sequel to Mechwarrior 2 has been released. The game features awesome new graphics and many new Mechs. The controls are mostly the same, but there are some changes. What annoyed me was that there isn't an Autopilot. I hate piloting the thing myself between Nav points, it's usually so dull that I'd rather just have the damned computer do it for me. The story for the game is that you are part of the Eridani Light Horse finishing off the Smoke Jaguars on some planet, not Huntress or Strana Mechty. Most of the Inner Sphere Mechs are Inner Sphere OmniMechs, Mechs that are comparable to Clan Mechs (although they still aren't as good!) and there really aren't the typical Inner Sphere Mechs like Atlases, Centurions, or Commandoes. The game takes some getting used to but it is very cool.

MechCommander - A really cool strategy game.  The interface is much, much better than the antiquated Crescent Hawk's Revenge that predates it by about 10 years.  In this game you command a company of Mechs during the invasion of a Smoke Jaguar planet:  Port Arthur.  Your end goal is to capture the starbase so reinforcements can arrive.  First you have to establish a beachhead, harass the enemy supply lines, etc.  This game is hard without cheats, but still plenty of fun.  There will hopefully be an expansion set to it with new Mechs, scenarios, and a scenario editor.

Cheats:  Hit Alt+Control while typing these in.

Mechwarrior 2 - BLORB is the invincibility code, which is all you really need.

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - superfunkycalifragisexy is the invincibility code, again that's all you really need to win.

MechCommander:  Here you just type in the codes as are.

osmiu - invincibility

lordbunny - unlimited artillery (very helpful)

deadeye - perfect accuracy

lorrie - repair and resupply

rockandrollpeople - type on the Mission Briefing screen to get unlimited drop weight (it makes the last mission especially cool)

poundofflesh - gives you a million bucks on the Mission Briefing screen.

mineeyeshaveseentheglory - reveals the map and all enemies (that way you can kill everything!)

I haven't played any of these games for a while.  I think they came out with newer versions in the 21st Century but I haven't played those either.  It was kind of disappointing that just when the books were getting good they did this whole sorta reboot thing.

Like Robotech, there have long been rumors of a live action movie--often with some recognizable name involved--but they never come to fruition.  At this point the closest we have is Pacific Rim and Robot Jox.