By: Lee C. Howley
Introduction
If you have been a PC gamer for as long as we have, chances are you have played at least one Mech Warrior game. While the games later in the series took a turn for the worse, many of the earlier games are among some of our favorites. Mech Warrior Living Legends is a mod for Crysis that reflects on many of the things we loved.
Now in Open Beta
You may recall MWLL from one of our earlier articles where we highlighted promising upcoming mods. Well now is finally your chance to give it a try. MWLL has entered open beta and already received its first patch.
This is by no means a game for the casual player, as the game takes the genre seriously. You would be wise to read up on the controls, strategies and insanely large list of acronyms before jumping in. The game seems to work very similarly to the Crysis power struggle, where you receive points and promotions for the amount of assistance you provide your team. Once you receive a promotion, you will always start with a guaranteed amount of credits that you can use to purchase vehicles, weapons and ammo.
Mech Choices
As of now all of the Mech and vehicles are preset and while you are still currently unable to full customize your Mech, the feature has been promised for future versions. This aside, there are plenty of choices to keep fans happy with nearly four variants of every type of Mech offered in the game. Even the various vehicles come preset with different load outs.
Controls
Most will find combat no easy task, as the Mechs can be hard to control. Well placed shots from your enemy can easily disable weapons or your Mech all together. Working as team ganging up on loaners is by far the best way to proceed. The smaller more maneuverable vehicles, while weak armor wise, can be just as effective. Despite their size they too have potent weapons that can be fired from a distance.
The graphics for the most part are impressive considering that this is a publicly developed mod. While most will be quick to point out it uses the Crytek engine, it’s still no small feat to generate such a complete overall of a game.
Open Beta Download
If you’re interested, check out their site at http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/ and download the beta for yourself.