Rating: 
Summary: Sweet Game
Review: Mechwarrior 4 is an excellent game. The graphics are crisp and the sound is awesome. The smoke from missiles looks much better than in Mechwarrior 3. I also think the new weapons that are included in the game are great (for example MRM 40 missiles). The mechs even start on fire and get charred from taking hits.The mechlab is confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy to use. The biggest downside of the game is the large file size (maximum installation is 1045 megs). The instant action is great because you can use it to practice missions. Another big downside is the long video sequences before a lot of the levels that you can't skip. They're cool at first but after like 20 times its annoying. The controls are very similar to Mechwarrior 3 so that cuts down much of the learning time (though i still suggest you do the training mission). Firing different weapon groups is much easier because each group has a designated firing button so there is no toggeling betweeen groups any more. If you plan on buying Mechwarrior 4 I suggest you get a joystick if you don't already have one. So, in the end i think Mechwarrior 4 is a great game and worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Steiner mechs on the North Ridge - (4½ Stars)
Review: Once again the Mechwarrior torch has been passed on, once in the hands of Activision for three games-Mechwarrior 2, then Ghost Bear Legacy and finally Mercenaries, it was handed off to Microprose who bumbled Mechwarrior 3 on a rather grand scale. Now that Fasa has swallowed by Microsoft as yet another franchise under their banner. That said, "Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance" is a worthy successor to Mechwarrior 2, and pigeon holes into the overall Battletech story line perfectly. Though that story line is degenerating thanks to bad writing in the form of Battletech novels and RPG source material in the Federated Commonwealth of House Steiner and House Davion has been shattered, pretty much guaranteeing that everything will return to the same old boring status quo of five Successor Houses squabbling over territory. While Mechwarrior 4 uses the basis of the split of the Federated Commonwealth, the ignore the lunacy of lost technology and the inability to build new mechs. Instead, Melissa Steiner has ordered the execution of Duke Dressari of Kentares IV, and in a stunning opening cinematic which uses real actors and not CGI graphics, we see the 5th Donegal Regiment lay waste to the defending forces. The only survivor, of course, is your character, young Ian Dressari who was off world at the time who comes home to reclaim his birthright and to force Steiner's puppet dictator off the planet. Ian is joined by a motley crew of freedom fighters-from engineers to mechwarriors who aid him in his quest. The single planet campaign is handled far better in Vengeance than Mechwarrior 3, because it really gives a sense of advancement as your loyalist forces move across the planet from region to region liberating key areas and securing resources. As time progresses you gain additional pilots with which to form a decent lance, weapons, and more battlemechs. Mech design is also superior over Mechwarrior 3, the 3D artists obviously taking their time to provide the best designs Battletech has to offer, (let's face it, many of the mechs in the Technical Readout volumes have been less than inspired.) Units themselves run the gamut from light recon all the way up 100-ton heavy and assault mechs, including some of my favorites like the Mad Cat (Timber Wolf), Nova Cat, and the Daishi. Once I got the Mad Cat, I pretty much stayed with it for the duration of the campaign. Missions are fun and varied, ranging from straight out mech melees, capturing supply caravans, even defending a coastal village from an sea strike from naval vessels. Even grudge matches from villains that you meet via intercepted communications, including your evil cousin who you must face in the last mission in a fight to death. And by the end of the campaign you have over 20 mechs to play with and hundreds of weapons, including some weird creations that I have never heard of before, like 40-racks of medium range missiles, light gauss cannons and something called a bombast laser. Where I think it falls apart slightly is when you outfit your mechs. In standard Battletech, any critical location big enough to hold a weapon can hold any weapon, not so in Vengeance. Instead, locations are assigned color codes and spaces. Red for Energy weapons, Green for Missiles, and Yellow for Ballistic weapons like machine guns and auto-cannons. Plus Grey for Clan Omni-mechs, which can hold any type of armament. Additionally, their method for grouping weapons is a little arbitrary, and unless you have an advance joystick means you'll be fingering repeatedly for the keyboard to fire other than your primary weapons groups. Also, recycle times on weapons is perhaps a little too long 5 seconds before you can re-fire a PPC, up to 6 or 7 seconds for auto-cannons, which plays up the importance of adding secondary and tertiary fire capabilities to your mech. I completed the game with a 90 ton Daishi with twin Clan LBX-AC20s and a triple punch of Clan LRM-15s. This 1-2 punch combination meant I was smoking heavies and assaults in 2-4 shots. And because they're very heat efficient weapons, I could drop the number of heat sinks to increase armor and engine power. 3D graphics are a mix bag. A lot of terrain bit maps are quite good, but trees look like cardboard cut outs, seams can be seen where they laid down their textures for the ground, and lighting effects are so-so. The mechs themselves are beautiful, have gorgeous movement that convey an awesome sense of power and weight. Shadow effects of your mech seemed to be an afterthought-looking more like a dark "T" on the ground. Your mech's search lights are next to useless, shining 'under' water terrain, but not across it, not that they help you see any better in night missions. The light amplification function also seems like an afterthought, turning your field of vision into an eye-splitting green, so save yourself a ton of equipment and avoid it. Mech explosions, missile con trails and weapons fire are first-rate. But don't get into the trap I fell into-stay away from exploding mechs, the backwash is a pain. All in all a solid effort from the folks at Microsoft and Fasa Corp. The solid game play backed up by a good story, firt rate cut scenes all combine into a wonderful Battletech experience. The full motion video cut scenes and briefings, plus interplay between you and your lance-mates only add to its success as a video game. If you like Battletech and have at least enjoyed Mechwarrior 2, then give this a try, you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: They Will Be Hard Pressed To Top This Title
Review: Having played all the Mechwarrior titles and am a loyal follower of the Battletech universe, Mechwarrior 4 is a welcome addition. This title draws you in and gives you the feel of actually driving one of these awsome Mechs. Finally using jump jets is not as simple as pressing a key on your keyboard, and you now have to watch were you step or risk falling. All these new elements add welcome traits to the game. New Mechs, great graphics, and a well devloped story line makes this my favorite title yet. This is a must have for all Mechwarrior fans, both green and elite fans of the Mechwarrior games walk away happy. Pluse the mulit-player action is great. See you on the battlefield.
Rating:
Summary: Actually worth 4.5
Review: I've always been a fan of the 'big robot' games and the Mechwarrior series (including Mechcommander) have been the best of that genre. This continues with MechWarrior IV. The special effects are better, the missions are better, the PLOT (yep--there is one this time!), the AI, the cutscenes, the combat, etc. etc. Only two things kept me from giving this 5 stars: first, this game handles almost as if it was designed for Playstation rather than a PC. Maybe I'm uncoordinated (this is entirely possible), but the default keyboard configuration was extremely hard to manage. After a few hours of randomly blazing away at trees, rocks and the occasional unfortunate building (and not the Steiner Mech who was reducing my Daishi to scrap metal) I reconfigured the torso controls to automatically track with my mouse. You'll probably want to do this as well and save yourself some frustration. Secondly, although the mechlab is now much easier to use, you do lose some of the customability that you had with the older mech games. Call me crazy, but one of my favorite mech configurations was loading down an Atlas with small, extra-range pulse lasers and reducing enemy knee-joints to slag. Now each slot is limited to either ballistic, energy or missile weapons which, although it is easier, does limit you. I can see why they did this--I just wish Microsoft had included an option to use the older mechlab controls. Other than those two niggling details, this is an incredible game. If you want experience the feel of piloting a 100 ton robot, the satisfaction of unloading two gauss rifles into the back of a gargantuan enemy mech a point-blank range (without the blood-n-guts you'd get from a Doom-type game) and have the machine to handle intense 3-D graphics, this is definitely the game for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Gerbil42
Review: OK, to everyone that has praised the removal of weapons like the Ultra AC 20 stating that it is a too powerful weapon, the ONLY reason that it is too powerful is that ever since mechwarrior 2 the weapon systems have not been properly modeled at all. The rate of fire given to the ACs has been incredibly too high. ALL weapons are supposed to have a refire rate of 10 seconds in the battle tech universe. Now some people might say that is just a throw back to the board game. But think about it, why does the delay have to be dictated by the weapon. Why not have a fire control computer dictate that to manage heat. I mean in Mechwarrior 3 firing an UAC 20 sustained for more than 10 seconds would shut down my dire wolf and I had 26 double heat sinks on it. Another BIG disadvantage to weapons like the UAC 20 is that they are HEAVY. The Ultra AC 20 weighs 12 tons and that doesn't count ammo. Mt Dire Wolf carried an AC 20 and 6 tons of ammo, which should have (following battletech rules) allowed me 150 seconds of sustained fire. But I would burn through all 6 tons in maybe 30. THAT is why the Ultra AC 20 is not balanced. Another disadvantage of the ultra ACs that has never been included is the fact that they can JAM. I mean any weapon that can be made to fire at DOUBLE the normal rate is bound to jam. Now if they had implemented this you would have seen less people risking using an ultra AC. And finally another disadvantage of the Ultra AC 20 is that it is a VERY close range weapon, with a MAX range of 360 meters. Now, getting that close isn't much problem for the lighter mechs but then very few light mechs can carry a UAC 20 or the ammo to support it and if they do they don't carry the armor to let them live long. And the heavier mechs like my dire wolf must use strategy to to get down to the close range to use their ultra ACs. And seriously, I mean when we are talking about a Dire Wolf it's SUPPOSED to carry firepower capable of slagging a lighter mech in a single volley. That's the POINT of assualt mechs and any light or medium mech pilot that closes to close range with an assault mech deserves teh beating they will recieve. Now, these are just some of the problems with teh weapon design since mechwarrior 2 (and I only listed the ones concerning the UAC 20 since that seems to be the major source of debate) and these problems could have been easily fixed but of course rather than actually FIXING the problem, the game developrs took the easy way out and just removed a truely wonderful weapon from the game. A weapon that requires strategy to use also, provided that the weapon systems have been properly designed!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I am a huge fan of Mechwarrior 3, but I am disappointed with Mechwarrior 4. The Mech lab seems more restricting, the mechs are harder to control, and it's difficult to tell how or what you're doing. I keep finding myself going back to Mech3 and leaving Mech4 on the shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but disappointed.
Review: I was hoping for a Mechwarrior game with all the bells and whistles. I thought it was going to be a major step forward. And from all the pictures I saw this even fed my hunger more. But now that I have it, my first thoughts were, this is it. The graphics have been improved a bit, and the motion is a little clearer. But this is not a much of an improvement over Mechwarrior 3. Its basically just a revision, you could even call it version 3.5 :) For anyone who hasn't played a previous Mechwarrior game, I'm sure they'll love it. I was just hoping for so much more, and I just think that this game was rushed to get released before Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: A solid game
Review: I have been a long time Mechwarrior fan and before that a Battletech nut. Much of Mechwarrior 4 has been reinvented to be a better experience for gamers in general. The Mechs are extremely detailed and sharp and move more like they should. The weapon effects are good and the weapons are much more balanced. The campaign, while longer, seemed to easy even up in to the hardest settings. While the missions are well designed most are forgettable search and destroy types. I really like just wandering around the map, the environment is much more populated than in MW3 adding to the feel of being in something huge. To be totally honest and fair there were a few things that I wanted to see and did not. I liked the story but I felt uninvolved, if I am the main character I would like to see more of what is going on beyond the mission briefing screen. The game is told to you in a little window in the corner, I would have liked big between mission cut scenes like in Starsiege. The inside of the cockpit lacks much detail, a step backwards from MW3. The new Mechlab is much better, but they have limited what I can and can not do to my Mech. Yes, this is better balanced and easier to use, but very simply I want to decide to use and I did not like it that the option wasn't there for me. Still, none of this detracts to much from a great game.
Rating:
Summary: Mech Warrior IV: Heat Getting Critical
Review: Imagine sitting in the cockpit of a 100 ton 40 foot tall-mechanized monstrosity. Armed with pulse lasers, long range missiles, autocannons and the burning desire for redemption pumping in your veins. In Mech Warrior 4: Vengeance, your imagination will be a weapon of destruction and sitting behind the controls of one of these armored goliaths is the reality. The fourth edition in the Mech Warrior series, it continues to spearhead the Mech simulator genre. Taking place in the Battle Tech Universe, the game delivers a setting, a storyline, and the action that Battle Tech demands. With the 25 single player missions in campaign mode, training, instant action mode, and even multi-player capabilities, will give you hours of mechanized destructive fun. Also with the choice of over 21 different Mechs, command of 3 other lance mates and a huge plethora of armament gives this game the tactical flexibility any would be Mech Warrior would drool for. Coming with a built in multiplayer game browser, finding a game is a snap. If you would prefer, you can host one as well. Mech Warrior IV is sure to take claim of its birth right as the leader in this genre. If you haven't already go get a copy now, so I can blow a hole through your chassis and see you reactor blow like a super nova.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic - Awesome Tactical Depth!
Review: Gone are the days when players stock up on one weapon type, and lay the smackdown on others by simply shooting a few times. Now, you actually have to THINK. Use superior tactics to win a battle, not necessarily superior weapons. An extremely intuitive Mech Lab allows you to customize your 40-foot 'Mech with almost any combonation of Ballistic, laser, missle, and other weapon types. Couple that with beautiful, smooth, realistic graphics and extraordinarily accurate physics, and what do you get? Ladies and gentlemen- I give you *du du daaaah* MechWarrior 4: Vengeance. This game really deserves the 5-star rating I've given it. Kudos to Microsoft for making such a deep and engrosing tactical simulation. Ryoken.
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