Rating: 
Summary: Long, Hard, Enticing Gameplay
Review: This game is BEUTIFUL! Great graphics, a long-lasting story that gets as hard as it goes. Then, you can continue the fun online with MSN Zone. Don't pass up this opportunity.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story, Excellent Graphics, So-So Interface
Review: The graphics in this game are the reason I own a computer. This game is excellent. There are times I forget that it's just data, streaming from my monitor, and not actually big robots and cars and trucks and planes....The storyline in this game was great. With real actors playing the characters, having little video clips play on your video console during the game, really gives it a 'real' feeling. You have friends, family members, and even a few bad guys sending you messages you can view. This really keeps the story interesting. Speaking of the story....You are Prince Ian. Your family rules a planet, or ruled a planet that has been taken by another ruling family. Your family is dead, and you've come back to set things right, and to free your people. The interface was the one thing I had a problem with on this game. The targetting system is closer to that used in Mechwarrior 2 than the one (which was excellent) in Mechwarrior 3. This made combat without a joystick very difficult, but then, as Microsoft came out with this one, maybe that was the point. They want me to buy a Sidewinder. Anyway, it was difficult, and affected the gameplay. If they combined the targetting system of MW3 with the rest of the features from MW4, I'd be in hog-heaven. Overall, this game is excellent. So climb inside your mech for a bit of mechwarrior style vengeance! You'll feel better after you've crushed the invaders!
Rating:
Summary: Great Game!!! Buy It!!!
Review: Over the years many games about the battletech universe has appeared,the computer games especially. The games are usually very fun,you drive mechs, giant robots, into the battle field and encounter a diverse set of opponents. The best part of the game is the ability to customize your mech with different weapons, second also there is a good amount of mechs you can choose.The graphics are phenominal, the lasers illnminate the screen, the explosions are nice, the computer opponents are good (not dummys that stand and fire aimlessly), and the missions are challenging. Everything in the game is interactive, stand near a exploding mech you get damaged, destroy a fuel tank while you are near it you get damaged, ram a vhecile you destroy it, damaging a helicopter it falls and crashes (if you're under it while it falls, Uh- oh). Over all the game is nice and worth a while, it's also a great buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Letdown
Review: I bought this because my computer was too new to run Mechwarrior 3, which in my opinion was a great game. Well, this one surprised me many times over. The graphics were the first surpise. They were on par with games I have from 1995, and were much worse than Mechwarrior 3. The weapons-loudout screen is better in ways...but all mechs can only carry around 1/3 of what they used to be able to. And now hardpoints can only carry certain items (ballistic, missile, beam, and Omni). While I agree to some extent to this (missile racks shouldn't be able to carry Gauss rifles), they brought it to such an extreme that any good loudout is virtually impossible. Many points that should have had the capability of carrying anything (Omni hardpoint), were often limited to ballistic weapons (guns and autocannons), or something like that.
_The aiming system has switched from the direct mouse cursor control that was in MW3, and gone back to the "center your mech on your target". This makes targeting a pain in the neck, because it isn't as smooth as it was in previous games. It's rather jerky and hard to do anything effective. Using the mouse helps greatly, though.
_An interesting quirk is that it's impossible to tell which weapon group you have selected. Why? Because they set up the controls so you can fire any weapon group at any time. So why would you need to know anyway? Becuase in the middle of combat, it's combersome to reach a hand up and hit a certain key when you're trying to do something...but they have a key where you can just fire the currently selcected weapon group (GREAT help if you're using mouse targeting). But to figure out what you have selected, you have to fire them. _Overall: if you haven't played a previous Mechwarrior game, get it. You'll have nothing to be dissapointed in. If you really liked Mechwarrior 3 AND it works on your system, save your money. The only thing this game has going for it is one or two new weapon systems.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit of a mixed blessing...
Review: First, to Mr. Scott Hoffmeyer (read down for his review) The Mechs are based on actual Mechs in the FASA Board/Paper games... the "Timberwolf" is and always was the "Mad Cat" and the Atlas is suposed to have a cockpit that looks like a smirking skull :D At any rate.. the graphics certainly are a step up from MW3, and look quite good, though the mechs do seem "smaller" than they did in MW3. However, that seems to suit the generally 'scaled down' feel of the game as a whole. A blast from a Gauss rifle might send your mech flailing, but it doesn't seem to pack the same punch as they did in MW3. As has been said, the gameplay seems to be working away from its strategic roots into more of an "arcade" style. This might be nice for some, but for longtime fans of Battletech and strategy in general, its a bit of a letdown. Multiplayer can be fun, but unfortunately, even with the new "customizing" interface, people still find ways to "hotrod" mechs, allowing them to deal crippling damage in just a few shots. MP would be much more enjoyable if players were limited to preset "variants" of mechs, thus allowing you to still pick one to suit you, but disallowing people from loading up with the most destructive weaponry available. Decent game... the simplicity is a definite turnoff however, battles tend to be drawn-out slugfests rather than a test of piloting and well-aimed shots.
Rating:
Summary: Lacking in many respects
Review: I must admit, I had been a little out of the mechwarrior loop for a while, and then decided to get back into it with MW4. I never played MW3, but I was a fan of 2, so if I blame a change on this game that occurred in 3, I apologize.
I found this game falling short of many of the expectations I had for it. The graphics were better than 2, but not nearly to where I would have liked to see them. The enemy mechs tended to look two-dimentional, not to mention their drivers were particularly stupid as far as tactics. For example, if you don't shoot at them for a while, they tend to forget that you're even there, and they walk away. Weapons look ok, although I was partial to the PPC looking like a sphere (as in MW2) and not a bolt of lightning.
Weapons in this game fall into groups; no two ways about it, you have to group your weapons. If you want them to chain fire (as I like to), it's lot more work than it's actually worth. I've learned just to live with it.
I would also like to know whose bright idea it was to change the name of the "Timberwolf" to "Mad Cat." That's more of personal qualm, since my favorite was the timberwolf. It's hard to bring myself to pilot a mad cat. I also do not believe that Mechs should have faces (see "Atlas" for example). They don't look intimidating; they just look stupid.
The movies are nothing special; and the acting is absolutly terrible.
Also, some of the features seemed a little unbuyable, such as the anti-ballistic armor. What is that, foam rubber covered in bubble wrap?
This game is also far to easy. Even on the hardest setting, it's too easy to blow away your enemies.
However, the multiplayer is very cool; I just wish there were better people out there to play against. It still plays like a classic mechwarrior, and it's still fun to blow the you-know-what out of everything. Even Microsoft can't screw that up.
I'd recommend finding the game somewhere for cheap, just to get a mechwarrior fix. MW2 is, in my mind, much better, but it doesn't work with Windows NT/XP/2000, which is really a shame.
Rating: 
Summary: Fails to Run on Non-Administrator Accounts
Review: Warning: This program, like many other recent games (form Microsoft and others), will ONLY run on an account that has administrator privileges on Windows XP or 2000. That means that in most common home settings, school settings, or in public facilities with shared computers most users will not be able to play this game. If you have configured your home PC, for example, so that only you can perform potentially damaging administrative operations and have protected it from accidental damage by your kids by giving them "limited" accounts (a recommended "best practice" you should certainly be following), your kids will not be able to play this game. Similarly, if you have configured computers in a school in the obvious way, with only certain staff given administrative access and all others limited to "user-level" access, then only the administrators will be able to play the game. Note that although I agree with the general consensus that Mech Warrior 4 is a fun game, my feeling is that it this limitation is a fatal one that should have been noted on the box (it is not) and thus I cannot give this product more than a single star, because it simply does not work in scenarios that it should be expected to work, and there are no warnings to this effect anywhere on the box or in the documentation. ...
Rating:
Summary: the good and the bad
Review: i have owned ever version since mechwarrior 2, and owned the RPG for the last 15 years. and this one is by far the worst overall. that's not to say that it isn't a little fun to play, but it's not as engrossing as that 2 & 3 were. for every thing they fixed from the last version, they broke something. if you like the complexity of the previous versions, this is not the game for you. AMS doesn't work, you can't shoot legs off, and mech modification is totally unrealistic.
but if you are a novice and just want a little bit of sim action, this is the game for you. simple, easy to understand, you'll like that fact that you don't have to work. i wish they woul have just fixed the problems with the 3rd version. it was much cooler.
Rating:
Summary: Revision on previous reveiw
Review: This is a slight revision of my past review on this game. Since then I have upgraded my machine by adding 512k of PC2100 memory and boosted my video card to a GeForce4 MX 4200 with 64mb of ram. Unfortunately this did resolve one of my largest grievances with the game, its graphics. With my lower memory and video card (despite my amd xp 2200 and 266 fsb) the graphics were horrible. The upgrade made the graphics probably a 4 star, a little better than ok. But my other beef with microsoft still hasn't been resolved, the gameplay. It is still horrible compared to Mech2 merc. Some reviews mentioned that in mech2 you could kill a large mech with much fewer shots than in mech4 stating, that this was unrealistic. In reality mech 2 was more realistic by incorporating this feature. How will someone die faster? a shot to the head (cockpit) or a shot to the hand? If u took out the cockpit of a mech in mech2 it was dead, mech4 doesn't seem to simulate this effect, ie it doesn't really matter where u hit the mech, just keep on hammerin away. My recommendation, go out and get mech2, its dirt cheap now, it runs on win98 and winXP (XP not officially but I have it working). The gameplay in my humble opinion is far superior (ie much more sophisticated and challenging) and the graphics quality is actually the same. This has been on ongoing issue with microsoft sequels not living up to the previous versions.
Rating:
Summary: The best yet! (exsept Black Night)
Review: It's the best mech game yet with lots of expanions! 21 different mechs,3 light,5 medium,8 heavy,5 assult. there's a mechlab to costomize your mech(it dosn't change the mechs look),change it's armor, electroinc, jumpjets, weapons, paint and other stuff.Then it's time to battle you can do misson play, wave and others, misson play is many different missons, wave is you get to choose 4 diffrent mechs to battle. then change the map, day or night, your mech, and lacemates and their mechs.
Also choose heat or off, invicability on or off, unlimitid ammo on or off, and slash dammage on or off in the options section.
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