From jadam@tcmail.frco.com Tue Oct  1 15:50:46 EDT 1996
Article: 185445 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Path: prism!gatech!csulb.edu!news.sgi.com!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!zilker.net!frco.com!usenet
From: jadam@tcmail.frco.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: MW2: Mercenaries - Half-Hearted Release
Date: 30 Sep 1996 18:49:01 GMT
Organization: Fisher Rosemount Systems
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Status: RO

Y'all,

Even when the bugs are fixed, MW2: Mercs will
represent a half-baked release from Activision.
The game feels like it was tossed off, with
little attempt to make it anything other than
"okay."

The original MW #1 was superior to this MW2 in a 
number of aspects (and even it was criticized at the 
time for having lack of story depth):

(a)  You could bargain to try and get a better contract 
price.

(b)  Travel, and travel expense, were an issue.  You
could move from planet to planet.  Some planets didn't
have repair facilities; some didn't have contracting
offices.  You could get better deals on mechs on some
planets, and better prices selling mechs on other 
planets.  --This added to the "atmosphere," and
helped give the game more depth.

(c)  If you said "Repair All" and some parts weren't
available, it would tell you as much.  (This one
might be better listed as yet another bug in MW2.)

MW2: Mercs does have some interesting things added, like
new technologies gradually becoming available.  And,
according to the newsfeeds, prices on some weapons and
ammo will supposedly rise/fall in response to market
conditions. (I haven't seen that happening
myself:  the prices stay the same, no matter what
the news feed says.  Anyone seen differently?)

The customize interface on Mercs is a bit clunky.
(The whole starbase interface is a bit clunky, but
that's another issue.)  E.g., if you accidentally
click on the "next mech" button when you're in the
middle of a customize operation, you get a choice of
accepting the customize or canceling all the changes,
but not of canceling the move to next mech.  --So you
either pay the modification cost for a partial mod, or
you lose the work you've put into the mod to that
point.  (I know:  "Don't push that button!")

This problem is also apparent in the repair screen.
Basically, it'd be nice to have a "Do the repairs
now" button, rather than having to say "Next Mech" or
"Exit" in order for the repairs/mods to be applied.

I also find customizing the armor allocation to be
pretty non-intuitive.  A bit of documentation on
how that's supposed to work would have been nice.
And an intuitive UI would have been really nice.

Another improvement would be having the extra
information that's available in the "Mech Factory" 
also be available in the repair and mod screens.  
I.e., it'd be nice to see how many weapons of a 
particular kind a mech has when you're doing a repair 
or thinking about a mod.  --When you've said "repair
all" on your Jenner, and it's still listed as
having only 1 medium laser, that's a hint something
is amiss, even if the repair guy didn't mention
anything about not being able to finish the job.

Basically, I'd trade away the dumb 3D rotating images
(which provide no info and add very little to the 
atmosphere) in favor of an extra screen with
additional information on a mech.

(Why we need different screens for repair and modify
I'm not sure.  Couldn't repair and customize both be on 
the same screen, at least?)  

JDA