Ooh! Mechwarrior 5: The Clans is Out

Yeah, what the topic says. The latest in the long-running Mechwarrior
series of video games --Mechwarrior V: The Clans-- was released
today.*

And I am of incredibly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand:
more rompy-stompy robots! I've been a fan of the Battletech franchise
for literal decades, and for the computer games almost as long (after
"Ultima VI", "Mechwarrior" was one of the primary motivators for my
switching to IBM PC/compatibles instead of continuing with Apple
computers). I had fun with "Mechwarrior II" (although I always felt it
was overrated for what it actually offered**), _adored_ Mechwarrior 3,
and played the rest too, even if I didn't find them as much fun.

So I ought to be all over this newest game. After all, I gave largely
favorable reviews to its predecessor ("Mechwarrior V: Mercenaries"),
and this one improves on the game by (reportedly) having a much
stronger single-player campaign.

Still, I hesitate to buy it.

In part, it's because the previous game suffered very much from
feeling a bit too arcadey. It never really realized on the promise of
driving around a 100-ton battle machine; the combat was too quick, the
AI too dumb. Unable to present an actual challenge, the game was
forced to resort to spawning dozens of enemies for me to mow down,
making the game feel more like an FPS than the simulator its earlier
iterations pretended to be.

But it's also the setting. Like many Battletech fogies, I just don't
like the titular Clans, a group of invading space-nomads who felt a
bit too Mary-Sue for the universe. They lacked the depth and realism
(as much as you can get in a SF universe) that the original universe
promised. It's no coincidence that a lot of later Battletech
merchandise shoved the clanners into the background and put the focus
back on the Inner Sphere; a lot of people disliked them. So seeing
them in the limelight again... it doesn't excite me.

Still... rompy-stompy robots; that's hard to resist. Even at the full
day-one price (and I'm saying this as somebody who never buys
day-one/full-price games anymore).

Anyone else a fan of these games?









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* available on Steam (maybe elsewhere too)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2000890/MechWarrior_5_Clans/
** I always thought "Terra Nova", a contemporary game released by
Looking Glass, offered a much better experience