BattleTech

Some of my favorite and earliest gaming experiences came from a turn-based pencil and paper game called Battletech. The original tabletop game came out in 1981 and with it a whole universe based on what happens when we leave the solar system. In 1988...

It's like a Katy Perry song, this one. You think you're immune from its charms and then all of a sudden you're humming it in the shower and singing while you drive. Battletech is so unforgiving and challenging that it really tickles the part of my brain...

A SIMPLER TIME I still remember January 2003 like it was yesterday. Though I’d owned the original Xbox for a few months, my parents had just bought me and my brother a subscription to Xbox Live, and I couldn’t get enough. Playing on the 20-inch tube TV...

The tactical combat in BattleTech is excellent. Building a roster of gigantic killing machines and managing sundries offers a long-lasting gameplay loop. With a sharper narrative and more polish around the edges, the turn-based 'Mech-killing experience...

BattleTech is a game that requires patience: it takes time to get to grips with the mechanics, it takes time to complete battles, and it takes time to simply load a battle. The performance issues which afflict this game are fairly significant, but not...

For Battletech fans, or fans of turn-based strategy games, this game is top-notch and deserves the highest of...

Despite some gameplay quibbles, the core loop of BattleTech – mech acquisition, customization, and combat – does a great job of adhering to the source material and providing engaging ballistic battles. Crunching an enemy core under your metal boot or scoping out a target for an enormous missile barrage are satisfying as hell, even if the frame of the title could stand for a little extra armor.

Enjoying Battletech takes time and patience. Born from the decades-old tabletop game of the same name (which also gave birth to the Mechwarrior series of games), the Harebrained Schemes version of Battletech places the universe into the genre most...

BattleTech's actual content is superb, but it's impossible to ignore the fact that trying to make it play well on my high-end PC was an absolute chore. If the game was more polished, I would give BattleTech a full point higher in my score. You may want...

BattleTech provides exciting strategic decisions and a compelling story, plus the slow-paced and meticulous fun of building up and customizing a mercenary company but suffers from the frustrating unpredictability of its weapons and procedural missions,...

Perhaps BattleTech's worst crime is that, while it borrows many ideas from XCOM and augments them within its own deftly-weaved backstory, at the fundamental level - on the field of battle - it can't quite match XCOM's arms race-driven unit diversity or mission variety.

Impressive effort with a few noticeable problems holding it back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.How we score:  The destructoid reviews...