Just one of the warriors you will come across during MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries.

How to win

The Gamesman has copies of MechWarriors 4 Mercenaries, Battlefield 1942: Road to Rome and Whacked for XBox up for grabs. Entries should be e-mailed to ADFgamesmen@telstra.com with the name of the game you would like to win in the subject line. Only one entry per person as subsequent entries will be discarded. Include your full name and mailing address in the e-mail or your entry won’t be accepted. Congratulations to our recent winners: J Cotts, Adelaide, Platoon; H Freer, Canberra, Soldiers of Anarchy and Y Evans, Brisbane, NBA Inside Drive 2003.

Last edition, The Gamesman looked at Microsoft’s XBox release Mech Assault. In this we will take a look into the studio’s PC version of the FASA franchise, the traditional home for electronic Mech combat games.

With a couple of the sim-style games and one RTS set in the same gaming world under their belt, Microsoft has been able to refine the product with each release. MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries is no exception to this rule and it is an outstanding delivery of a highly scrutinised genre.

Unfortunately, fans and long-time players of the FASA-licensed games might overlook MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries’ individual excellence and come away thinking it is just more of the same.

In fact, some Internet gaming ’zines are reporting Microsoft also believes it has exhausted the licence and recently halted development of MechWarrior 5.

While the layout, look and feel of the game are almost identical to MechWarrior 4, Mercenaries does add more gameplay options with its non-linear campaign and the option to head towards a planetary stadium and battle for cash and glory, gladiator-style. This aspect is most refreshing and makes for great multi-play action.

New Mech gladiators start at the bottom of the rung with the light, fast and relatively ineffective Mech classes and must battle the hordes to progress to higher levels and bigger, stronger and more effective Mechs.

Players who own the other MechWarrior 4 games can also import several of the Mechs specific to the preceding game’s clans into Mercenaries for use in the Solaris 4 arena battles. If you don’t have the expansion packs, there are still plenty of varieties of Mech available in this version. Microsoft has also released a patch that fixes many possible online cheats and some other issues.

All up MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries is a great game, particularly if you are a relatively new player to the series. It requires a Win98+ OS, 700MHz processor, 1GB HDD space and a 16MB 3D video card to playBattlefield 1942: Road to Rome.

Battlefield 1942: Road to Rome
http://www.eagames.com/official/battlefield1942/rome_features.jsp?state=1111
Publisher: EA Games http://www.eagames.com.au

With game of the year accolades drowning box art and magazine advertising, EA knows it is on to a good thing with Battlefield 1942. While it can’t shake Counter Strike from the lead online game (for some reason that is beyond me), Battlefield 1942 is proving an amazingly popular multi-player game with hundreds of clans fighting for supremacy.

EA has sponsored this growth with continued support through several patches and the release of a couple of new game maps free to owners of the original.

Road to Rome is the next logical step – an expansion pack. It includes six new maps, eight new vehicles, including the impressive Mosquito and BF110 fighter-bombers, the choice to fight for the Free French and Italian forces in addition to the Germans and US and a range of new personal weapons to fit the new forces.

The new maps are great with the battle for Monte Cassino and Anzio dominating online play, but why people choose to play for the two armies renowned for their ability to charge away from the battle leaves me a little mystified.

Gameplay has been refined with the recent patches of the original. Online games of up to 64 people are possible on a high-end server or broadband connection. Once again the single-player aspect of the game replicates the multi-play experience with no scripted missions – players must just win on each map before progressing to the next one.

The only downside is the cost. For your $50 you are not getting all that much considering two new maps were released for free. The new units and equipment do not dramatically alter gameplay so the experience is essentially the same, just a different environment.

If you have the money grab it, if not check out the Desert Combat mod available for download to alter your Battlefield 1942 experience.

Battlefield 1942: Road to Rome requires the original game to play.