The gameplay in MechCommander was not exactly new to the BattleTech franchise, e.g. gameplay that involves the controlling of a group of Mechs. In fact, the table-top variant of BattleTech games had players commanding more than one more Mech. However, the first MechCommander was not a faithful digitization of the table-top games; it eschewed many gameplay elements that other BattleTech games were known to have, such as heat management.
MechCommander 2 attempts to address the issues in the first game, but not with solutions that all players of the first game would like.
As expected of a game set in the BattleTech universe, MechCommander 2 has a premise of conflict and war. Specifically, this game is set in the era of the Federated Commonwealth civil war, where two factions which were once joined through marriage of their ruling families have split from each other due to the machinations of selfish, power-hungry individuals.
The single-player campaign is set on a planet that has been afflicted by this civil war: Carver V. The player character is the commander of a mercenary force that has been employed by Federated Commonwealth forces as a "neutral" party of sorts that is tasked with the elimination of a peculiarly well-armed and -organized bandit throng.
Further complicating the story is the involvement of vassals from House Liao, which is another faction that historically has bad blood with the other two. Later, the story campaign would have the player dealing with groups interested in the complete independence of Carver V.
Regardless of how the story plays out, it is only there to give an excuse to send the player on missions with scripted events, albeit rather thrilling ones. The campaign advances linearly, with the same, one outcome that a player should expect. There are some points in the campaign where the player is given semblances of choice, but these choices only control the order in which missions that appear optional are played out.
Cutscenes and mission briefings that contain barely decent live-acting further reinforce the impression of the plot being quite dispensable.
On the other hand, the story campaign, with its plot twists and turns, is more than decent in portraying the themes of divided loyalties and treachery of the Commmonwealth Civil War.
The bigger draw of the game is its gameplay designs and, as mentioned earlier, how FASA Interactive may have improved on those of the first game.
The first improvement is that campaign missions in progress can be saved now - somewhat. The player can make one quick-save - but only one - that can be loaded while the game is still running. Exiting the game causes the quick-saved game to be dumped.
This is not a wholesome solution to saving missions in progress.
The next, more well-done improvement is the inclusion of in-game documentation of Mechs, their equipment and support vehicles, among other things. The documentation is quite comprehensive and would be a joy to read for those looking to know more about BattleTech.
Starting the campaign proper will show gameplay designs that the player will find to be much more intuitive and convenient.
Like in MechCommander, the player commands a warband with its own combatants, methods of supply and war materiel. However, unlike the campaign in the first game in which wargear is in very limited quantity, MechCommander 2 takes a few liberties in simplifying the sourcing of said wargear.
When the player has unlocked the option for mounting certain wargear on Mechs by completing the relevant missions, the player can mount as many units of said wargear on a Mech as long as there is space left on the Mech to mount them and the player has enough money to fund the load-out. For example, once the player has unlocked Clan-level technology, it is available for mounting on all Mechs regardless of the canonical rarity of said technology outside of Clan territories.
This convenience also extends to Mechs. The player can purchase as many Mechs as he/she wants, with the Mech market always supplying an endless number of robots. Furthermore, a player can trick out a Mech such that its load-out is different from its default one, give a unique name to this load-out and then purchase a Mech with this configuration straight from the market without the need to retool said Mech again. This is a very, very handy game design, though it does not adhere much to the canonical rarity of Mech suppliers who sell custom-ordered Mechs.
Speaking of tricking out a Mech, the grouping of Mech wargear according to categories of equipment on their loadout display is gone. The difficult-to-gauge payload meter is also gone. In place of what has been removed is a rectangle-based grid that shows how much space is left on the Mech to be filled with wargear. Wargear in turn comprises of items that have varying sizes, taking up different amounts of space in terms of said rectangular slots.
However, like the first MechCommander game, the sequel does not show much adherence to BattleTech canon, specifically with respect to the prevalent configurations of well-known BattleMechs. For example, despite the Catapult being canonically a missile-based fire-support Mech, it can still be loaded with weapons that it is not known to use.
On the other hand, the game designers have made use of the different sizes of weapons and the shape of the grids on every Mech to implement some canonical limitations. Returning to the example of the Catapult Mech, its loadout grid has slots distributed in such a manner that weapons like PPCs cannot be mounted on the Mech, much like the canonical Catapult configurations.
The use of rectangular slots also allows the mounting of miscellaneous equipment, namely Heat Sinks and Armor.
The inclusion of Heat Sinks is FASA Interactive's attempt to introduce some semblance of heat management into the MechCommander franchise. In addition to space in their loadout grids, their heat capacities limit the amount of weapons that can be mounted on them. Unfortunately, this is the furthest extent of this game mechanic.
There is no heat management in actual battles, unlike the MechWarrior games. This also means that the known canonical effects of certain weapons, like Flamers and PPCs, would not be applied in this game, which can be a disappointment to BattleTech fans who had been hoping for a more faithful rendition of BattleTech game mechanics.
On the other hand, the inclusion of the game mechanic of armor would appease some fans. In the first game, this mechanic was simplified down to the utilization of Mech variants that happen to have more armor than the others. In MechCommander 2, players can mount additional armor in any unfilled slot, thus increasing the armor rating of the Mech.
However, this BattleTech game mechanic has only been implemented halfway. The player may not apply different amounts of armor to different parts of the Mech. There are no multiple armor types either.
Fortunately, the most important elements of BattleTech games, which are the Mechs and their wargear, have their sophistication mostly intact.
Weapons are still loosely categorized under Ballistic, Energy and Missile weapons. The roles of Mechs in turn are still governed by the weapons that they wield.
For Ballistic weapons, the main-stays like Machineguns and Autocannons return from the first MechCommander and still function as intended. This can be a bit disappointing to players who had expected more, such as the differentiation between regular Autocannons and the shotgun-like LBX versions. However, the most that the player would get are standard and Ultra variants for Autocannons.
The Gauss Rifles return as big, ungainly weapons that are slow to fire, like their canonical versions, but compensate by having near-instantaneous arrival of their projectiles and tremendous stopping power, perhaps more so than in the first game (thus giving it some more tactical value).
A new addition to Ballistic weapons in this game is the Long Tom artillery cannon. It delivers a powerful shell that can devastate the target and anything around it. Yet, it is a huge, especially clumsy weapon that is expensive, takes up a lot of heat capacity and cannot be used effectively at close ranges. These drawbacks may be too severe for a player to consider mounting one on a Mech, especially considering that there is a non-Mech vehicle in the game that the player can call in for Long Tom artillery strikes.
For Energy Weapons, there are the usual Lasers, Flamers and PPCs. Lasers are still categorized into Small, Medium and Large variants, with the usual trade-offs among range, damage, firing rate and heat characteristics. Then, there are the Extended-Range (ER) and Pulse variants, which have been long established in digital games based on the BattleTech IP.
The Flamers return while retaining their function as very short-ranged but fast-firing energy weapons, but offer nothing new. Both the standard and ER variants of PPCs still look and feel like lightning cannons (though they have benefited from the 3D game engine).
A new addition to Energy Weapons is the Heavy variant of Lasers. Canonically, this was an invention of the Nova Cat Clan and was intended to be a competitor to heavy Ballistic weapons and PPCs, which happen to inflict catastrophic damage to Mech armor. On the other hand, the invention was criticized for having very inefficient heat-to-damage ratio, and this shows in MechCommander. However, it offers an interesting compromise in the form of much greater damage than that for an equivalent-sized Laser and at the same firing rate.
For Missile Weapons, there are the usual suspects such as SRMs and LRMs, as well as the more powerful Streak variants of SRMs.
New additions to Missiles are Swarm LRMs, which are a variant of LRMs that are more suitable for purposes of area-saturation. Swarm LRMs break into bomblets over their targets, causing area-effect damage. Curiously enough, the effective damage that salvoes of Swarm LRMs can do to a single target is still equivalent to that for salvoes of regular LRMs. This would seem to make Swarm LRMs a straight upgrade, except that they are considerably more expensive.
The Thunderbolt missile is another new Missile weapon. Canonically known also as the Arrow IV missile, the Thunderbolt is intended as a long-ranged, missile-based solution to heavily armored targets, such as most Assault Mechs. However, in this game, it has been reduced to a medium-ranged weapon, likely in an attempt to balance this weapon against others. Fortunately, it is still a high-damage missile as portrayed in BattleTech canon, and considering that Mechs do not have anti-missile support systems in this game, it is more than likely to hit its target.
Most of the weapons in this game have Clan variants that are straight-upgrades over their regular, Inner Sphere cousins. This is in turn balanced by their much higher costs of mounting and sometimes higher heat output. In multiplayer matches (which are governed by limits on the funds that the player has for customizing), this gameplay balance is in effect. However, in the single-player campaign, there will not be any good reason for the player to opt for regular wargear over Clan ones once he/she has enough funds to cover the higher costs.
Other wargear for Mechs includes Jump-Jets and Sensors. Unlike the previous game which restricted Jump-Jets to variants of Mechs that have Jump-Jets and even gave them to Mechs that canonically do not have them, MechCommander 2 treats them like optional items that Mechs may mount. Using the example of the Catapult Mech again, it comes with Jump-Jets by default when purchased; the player may opt to remove them to clear up some heat capacity.
Unfortunately, the configuration options for Sensors have been taken a step backward. In fact, they have been taken off the game completely. The three variants of sensors are unique to only certain Mechs, and these Mechs may not dismount them at all. This is a significant disappointment. Another consequence of this design decision is that the player may have to include a Mech (such as the Raven or Men-Shen) which have designs that are dedicated to reconnaissance but have little decent capability at performing anything else, especially combat.
Luckily, the game designers had the sense to build on the other popular element of BattleTech games, which is the plethora of Mechs that are available for the player's use.
The selection of Mechs in this game is more impressive than the one in its predecessor. The ones with origins in the Inner Sphere will be described first, because these were canonically conceived from simply understood practical considerations.
Some old, under-used Light Mechs like the Commando and its cousin, the Firestarter, have been removed; new ones like the Anubis, Fire Ant and Razorbacks replace them, though technically they played the same roles as the removed Mechs and thus are not really remarkable.
The Medium and Heavy Mech categories get the most impressive new additions. (Relatively) Tough Mechs like the Enfield, Bushwhacker and Starslayer fulfill a need for heavy-duty units in the selection of Medium Mechs, which was a glaring gap in the first MechCommander.
New Mechs like the Shootist and Lao Hu give the Heavy category solutions for brutal close-ranged combat. For new Assault Mechs, there are the Zeus (which is not really new; it is canonically a Mech with ancient designs that had been proven reliable many times) and the Highlander (which is also a Mech with ancient designs, with its most peculiar one being its powerful Jump-Jets).
Mechs like the Men Shen and Cyclops satisfy the demand for reconnaissance Mechs that are greater in weight and durability than the usual recon Mechs like the Raven.
The rest of the ensemble of Inner Sphere Mechs consists of the iconic ones that had been in just about any BattleTech video game, such as the aforementioned Catapult, the ever-impressive Atlas and the plucky Hunchback.
Clan Mechs are typically tougher and faster than Mechs of the same weight designation, with the usual caveat of being more expensive to field. However, like in the first MechCommander, they still lack a canonical trait that made them especially different from Inner Sphere Mechs: Omni-Modules. The grid-based loudout game mechanic practically gave every Mech these, regardless of their origins.
Nevertheless, the Clan Mechs in this game still have one of the defining traits that they have in BattleTech canon: their more refined looks.
Most of the Clan Mechs are returning iconic ones, like the Vulture, Thor and Mad Cat.
The new ones appear to be no more than novel additions, though with a few exceptions; Light Clan Mechs are exceptionally more potent (and costlier) than Inner Sphere Mechs, making the former a serious threat to the latter and may even be imbalanced gameplay-wise.
The Blood Asp is perhaps the most distinct addition, considering that it is featured on the front cover of certain regional versions of MechCommander 2. This is a Mech with a massive loadout grid, potentially making it the most heavily armed Mech.
(It has to be noted here that the Cougar Light Mech is missing from the single-player campaign, which is a puzzling disappointment.)
Mechs are the only units that the player may plan to bring into battle. Like in the previous MechCommander, there is a limit to how many Mechs that the player may commit to a mission/match. However, there is only one, which is tonnage, as compared to the multiple limits in the predecessor, such as the frustrating hard cap on the number of Mechs. With only tonnage to worry about, the player can field any combination of Mechs.
(However, the player no longer has any incentive to bring in Mechs totaling at weights under the maximum tonnage for a single-player campaign mission.)
Yet, Mechs are not the only units that the player may control in battle. Non-Mech units can be summoned by spending Resource Points, which are the currency that the player has in battle (instead of C-bills that are used to purchase and outfit Mechs with). In addition to the Resource Points that the player gains from the start of a mission/match, more can be gained through capturing certain buildings in the map, namely Resource Silos.
Not all of these units are units per se; for example, the Shilone aircraft is just the model that is used for the animation of sending in an airstrike on the spot that the player wants bombed. The Sensor Probe places a beacon onto the map that will denote the center of a wide-range scan that will eventually reduce in diameter. The Salvage Craft is also another model that gets called in for the animation of a fallen Mech's revival.
Actual units that can be called in via Resource Points are the Scout Copter, Repair Truck, Minelayer and Fixed Artillery, all of which serve very specific and practical purposes.
One of the criticisms of the first game was how worthless certain vehicles, such as the Pegasus tank, can be in their supposed roles. The example that is the Pegasus was supposed to be a fast reconnaissance vehicle, but due to how MechCommander processed attacks of one vehicle to another, the Pegasus was often destroyed before it could do any worthwhile scouting. The Scout Copter addresses this flaw by being a fast airborne unit with a sight radius that is unfettered by any obstacle.
The Repair Truck returns, being virtually unchanged from its incarnation in the previous game. The Minelayer also comes back, also very much unchanged. Both enter the battlefield with supplies for what they can do, and will eventually be abandoned when these run out. They are one-off units that are called in for purposes of convenience, and are satisfactorily so.
The Fixed Artillery is perhaps the red herring of the lot. Being, well, "Fixed" means that its powerful Long Tom cannon is stuck at a location where it may not be longer needed once the player has bombarded whatever that needed bombarding and has moved on.
The single-player campaign contains most of the enemies that the player will face in this game. Enemies can be categorized into two informal kinds: those that merely serve to show how devastatingly powerful the player's BattleMechs are, and those that actually offer a challenge.
Enemies of the former kind include vehicles like hovercraft and tanks that are predominantly only armed with a single weapon. The player won't find them too much to handle, considering that the player's BattleMechs will often be able to overwhelm them most of the time.
That is not saying that the former kind of enemies is a disappointing push-over. Canonically, BattleMechs are each worth a battalion of conventional war machines. In other words, for these push-overs to be effective, they have to be committed in numbers that are more than just a handful.
The game designers appear to attempt to implement this in-game by having a strikeforce-like scripting for AI-controlled vehicles. These strikeforces are often made up of vehicles with different weapons and which move in tandem with each other to avoid over-extending themselves. They can be difficult to deal with if the player breaks up his/her forces piecemeal; this fact is mentioned in the documentation of the game. This game design consequently encourages the player (usually in a painful way) to keep his/her forces together, which is a good thing.
The latter kind of enemy forces, unsurprisingly, mainly consists of other Mechs, which also have the group AI like the former sort of enemies. However, there are a few types of non-Mech vehicles that will present a stiff challenge to even Mechs. These are featured in a dramatic manner in the single-player campaign.
In addition to mobile enemy forces, the player will have to contend with static defenses like turrets, artillery emplacements and mines. Most of these can be avoided or captured by capturing their control stations, not unlike how they were in the first game.
There are also red-herring enemies, such as groups of infantry, which are typically helpless against Mechs and only serve to draw fire. (Canonically, infantry can attempt to swarm all over a Mech and dismantle it using bombs, but this is unfortunately not implemented in-game.)
The missions in the single-player campaign have the player character sending Mechs to complete missions which include the usual trope of search-and-destroy, escort, defense and assault missions. To make missions more interesting, the game designers have included event triggers that would change the battlefield situation, such as enemy reinforcements coming into the map for a counter-attack.
In-mission cutscenes also play in a small section of the screen to punctuate these moments, though some players may not welcome the hammy acting.
MechCommander 2 uses a full 3D graphics engine, unlike its predecessor that depended on sprites and hand-drawn maps. Therefore, the player can rotate the camera to get a better view of the battlefield, which is handy as there can be quite a lot of large objects in certain missions that can hide even Assault Mechs.
Yet, the graphical designs are not really stellar enough to challenge other strategy titles at the time. Textures are clean in a cartoonish manner, animations are sparse for any model other than those for Mechs (which fortunately look impressive when they are on the move) and the models for non-Mechs and buildings are disappointingly very simple.
If there is something that the graphics have that is more than decent, it is the lighting and shadow generation. At the highest setting, especially with "soft" shadows turned on, shadows and light sources can be quite impressive to look at.
Sound effects in this game appear to be generally recycled, remixed and improved versions of the ones in the first game. Sound effects for weapons-fire and hits are especially beefy and satisfying, especially when Mechs have their parts blown off.
The soundtracks in this game appear to be weakest link of the sound designs in this game. Most of them appear to invoke feelings of suspense, followed by forlorn hope and then suspense again. Even during battle, the soundtracks do not appear to elicit excitement more than it does a sense of doom, which is not exactly appropriate at all times.
Multiplayer mode consists of matches that are governed by C-bill limits, which will restrict the power of the player's team; the player can opt for small, powerful teams or large ones made of weak Mechs, if strategies involving numbers are the preference. That the player can save Mech load-outs into the game directories will be very handy in preparing for matches.
In conclusion, MechCommander 2 is an enhanced version of the first game, featuring more convenient game mechanics. Yet, the improvements would neither satisfy players who had been expecting levels of expedience that can be found in other competently designed strategy titles at the time, nor ardent fans of BattleTech either.