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jp's Battletech (PC)
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| [January 7, 2024 03:06:46 PM]
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I'm sort of "cleaning up" my GameLogs as I write this - getting back to writing about games that I haven't played in a while but otherwise seem "active" on my list.
The truth is that I played a fair bit more of this, but not so much. I ended up stopping playing when I realized that the game felt more grindy that I enjoyed - it seemed like the campaign system where you have to, in a way that's fair and realistic, account for your losses/destruction from your last mission, was really too much of a "brake" on my play - and that I'd have to spend too much time doing too many missions simply to stay afloat. This isn't a knock on the game or it's experience - it's just that at the time, I was enjoying the mech combat more than the economics of running a scrappy mercenary outfit that is barely hanging on because there's never enough cash to improve...( sort of like Cowboy Bebop now that I think about it). Ha!
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| [June 23, 2020 05:01:00 PM]
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Battletech - the original miniatures strategy game is something that I never really got into. It seemed interesting - but quite fiddly. However, a close friend of mine was really into it but I don't think we ever played more than once or twice. And this was 20+ years ago? All of this to say that the Battletech universe has always been sort of on my periphery - I know a little bit, but I know more about it. I've read some novels, briefly played some of the videogames (Mechwarrior) and was always curious to try the TRPG despite not making any efforts to buy any of the books or to find a group to play with.
Cue a few weeks ago when a friends group of mine got all excited about the "latest" (it's not the latest, but it's pretty recent) Battletech game. I'd been pinging them for a while, but no one seemed interesting. This time, however, it was on sale on Steam and, apparently within a few minutes they were all excited and hooked. I was decidedly less warm about it, I don't need ANOTHER game on my steamlist. And it was definitely cheap but not "almost free" cheap. So, I passed.
Over the next few weeks my friends all started playing and sharing stories and pics via our shared whatsapp channel. And now the FOMO set in hard. Really hard. But, the game was no longer on sale. More days passed, more pics. More FOMO. But, I did find the game on sale on GOG (or was it Humble?). Anyways, I'm now IN.
The game really scratches an itch - it feels really cool, and deep, and there is so much going on. It's been fun to slowly learn how to play, and to start messing around. I haven't made much progress to be honest - but when I do play I'm pretty sucked in. It's everything I imagined played the miniature game should be - including bad die rolls/results, but with all the number-crunching fiddlyness ironed out. And then some - there's pilot progression and skills, there's interstellar travel, repairs, pilots getting wounded, and the threat of never having enough money to make ends meet. The campaign (so far) does deal with some of these - e.g. making the money grubbing less critical, but it's still pretty tight and scrappy. Which I've enjoyed.
Am I any good at the game? I don't know. I still feel like it's hard to figure out which mechs to field - other than bigger/tougher is better. I want the small, fast, light ones to be useful - but so far it's been a bad idea. Oh, while I'm not playing on any sort of super tough difficulty setting I have decided to NOT save scum. So, I'll save the game to continue later, but not to "try again" to get a better result. THis means that I've had setbacks - a killed pilot and trashed mechs that took forever to repair.
But, it's been worth it. Funny thing is I mentioned it to ANOTHER friend, and how he's sucked in bad.
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jp's Battletech (PC)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got frustrated
GameLog started on: Tuesday 12 May, 2020
GameLog closed on: Sunday 7 January, 2024 |
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