Category Archives: Review

dB Magazine, Music, Review, Writing

Hedonizm – Mixed by Ellis Dee

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The third release in the “Izm” series, celebrating ten years of TCR, has Ellis Dee dishing up a delightful mix that involves your ears in a hedonistic orgy of groovy breakbeat for party animals. Ellis Dee comes from a background of rave, one of the most hedonistic scenes the world, and was one of THE biggest rave DJs in the early days of the scene and the man largely responsible for introducing breakbeat to the acid house generation. On this CD he showcases not only his mixing and production talents, but also expresses the rave influence on this emerging dance music.

Beginning of with Clubriders’ (aka Ellis Dee & Syrus) Set Free, remixed by Ellis Dee and Rennie Pilgrem, featuring samples from KC & the Sunshine Band’s That’s The Way I like It and MC Hammers’ U Can’t Touch This, we see the early house influence on Ellis Dee. It’s such an excellent use of samples and every time it’s played in a club it gets people moving, and starts the vibe of the CD nicely.

Following this is a very cruisy set, including McMillan & Tab’s Lost World, and the incredibly funky “Latina” remix of Vigi & Zero’s UltraFunk, with that awesome Latin drum sound making you want to shout “ARRRRRRIBA!!”. Ellis Dee knows how to tease, and he teases us by getting a little faster with London Funk Society’s Now We Found Dub and Boundarie Hunters’ Self Destruct, both of which cruise along at a steady pace, threatening to explode but not actually take you anywhere.

Not that this is a bad thing in and of itself, but with the approach of the “Rewired” mix of Koma + Bones’ Powercut, it’s like cruising along at 100 mph, then hitting the ‘Turbo’ button. This tune simply rocks with its gritty bassline and squeltchy synth noises screaming over a fat breakbeat, carrying the listener to a higher level of enjoyment. Following this is the Autobots with Chickers and Blogger, continuing the hard, energetic flow, featuring rave sounds galore, testament to the early influences playing through breakbeat at the moment. Uplink by Breakneck follows this, pursued by Ellis Dee & Syrus’ the Chase, both of which feature old rave samples reconstructed to sound new and exciting. Zero’s Emit/Collect and Chris Carter’s Random Factors keep up the pace until the end of the album.

Throughout the album Ellis Dee shows his mixing skills superbly, cutting and fading and cleverly bringing in a “LSD” sample throughout, but without showing off too much and detracting from the music. This is a funky and danceable mix, which is a good move from the average “tech / progressive” breakbeat mixes available. The only fault I can find is with it is that it’s only 55 minutes long and leaves you wanting more!

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Mortal Kombat

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Ahhh, Mortal Kombat. Memories of collecting 20 cent coins and going to the arcade, whacking buttons and wiggling joysticks whist people stood around yelling stuff like “down – forward – two back – HIGH KICK” in order to perform the ever so gruesome Fatality. A decade on, after three sequels and two movies, we come to Mortal Kombat : Deadly Alliance on Xbox, proving that we’re not sick of the game and gore just yet.
The story this time – the sorcerers Shang Tsung and Quan Chi have allied and are preparing to raise the lost army of the Dragon King, and if they succeed they will be able to wipe out both Outworld and Earthrealm. The heroes must once again journey to Outworld and defeat the Deadly Alliance. But who really gives a toss when you’ve got up to 20 old and new characters to kick butt with.
It’s tempting to dive straight into Arcade mode, but it’s best to start in Konquest Mode, where you truly get a feel for each character and the game. Before doing that, it is wise to create a Player Profile to make the most of the game. Using a memory card or your Xbox’s hard drive, you create a profile to which your progress and Koins are saved. A Kode, a combination of controller buttons, keeps your player separate and locks this profile. To load it, you simply press the Left Trigger on the main menu, and input your kode.
On to Konqest mode. After 8 rounds of basic training with any character, you have the ability to choose each character and move through 10 levels of training, learning the special moves and combos of the characters. They each have three fighting styles, two unarmed and one with a weapon, and you learn how to use all three fighting styles together to defeat your enemies. Not only is this extremely helpful in learning how to fight with each character, after every successful training mission, you receive koins, which unlock Koffins in the Krypt.
Once you’ve created your profile, you also gain koins in Arcade Mode after winning a match. When playing against a person, you can wage koins, which are added or subtracted from your profile, and this is a quick way of building your funds. You also get koins by winning the fun mini games of “Test your sight” (follow the pea on screen) and “Test your Might” (mash the buttons then hit the trigger to break the object). The Krypt is where you use koins to unlock, amongst other things, concept art, alternative costumes, new arenas and new characters. With 676 koffins of some amounts over 3000 koins, it takes some time to unlock them all and gives the game a little bit of life beyond the standard fighting fair.
The gameplay itself is the fast and furious type we’ve come to expect from Mortal Kombat, but only takes small advantage of the power of the Xbox. The graphics are gorgeously gruesome but lack the definition of games like Dead Or Alive 3. The sounds are authentic to the series and add to the excitement of the game. The arenas look superb but are not multi-level and as interactive as in DOA 3, yet they suit the style of the game and are fun to play. Some people may be disappointed that some characters aren’t available, but the new characters more than make up for those that are missing. My only complaint would be the AI doesn’t seem consistent – the level of difficulty between 40% and 50% doesn’t seem in the same proportion as between 30% and 40%, giving you the impression the game is cheating. And the character Moloch seems to be able to get past your every move for a slam, even though you do your best to avoid him.
MK:DA is an excellent fighting game that looks lush and contains lots of goodies for fans of the series to play and unlock. Whilst not taking advantage of the full power of the Xbox as a game like DOA3, it’s a wonderful addition to the Mortal Kombat family, and the unlockable koffins and extras like music video and “making of” video give it longer playability than other fighting games. And, of course, no other fighting game has the Fatalities which are so much fun!

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Starfleet Command III

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Starfleet Command III (activision) PC
I would call myself a bit of trekkie – I have seen most of the movies, watched a lot the “Next Generation” episodes whilst stoned in my youth, and I know what a Klingon is. I quite like the StarTrek universe, but I’m not a full on Spock Ears wearing geek who has a crush on “7 of 9”, and I think this game is designed to appeal to the latter. Starfleet Command III is based on the 1979 tabletop strategy game called “Star Fleet Battles” and while diehard gamers or trekkies may find it fun and challenging, I found it too tedious and too repetitive to keep my interest for very long.
The game opens with an excellent intro, with starships whooshing around the screen, as Captain Picard explains the background of the game. It’s all very nice, and got me quite excited, until I started the tutorial. The tutorials adequately explain the control systems, but I found them to be so dull I ended up quitting them. The controls are pretty simple – to go left, you click left of your ship, to go right you click right of your ship. To speed up or slow down, you use a slider bar on screen and / or the number pad keys. To fire you click on the onscreen button that says “fire”. There’s a host of other things you can do, micromanage your energy, transport goods and troops, but I couldn’t really get into that, as the game was boring enough as it was.
In my mind if you’re going to port a tabletop game to PC, then utilise the power a PC has in an appropriate manner. Utilise the fact that it can represent a 3 dimensional space. The physics of space in this game are disappointingly two-dimensional… you fly flat; you can’t attack from above or below. In fact, most of the game is just flying circles around another ship, firing your weapons when your opponent is within your weapons’ firing arcs, or in other words when the “fire weapons” button on your display glows green. However, even when weapons are within range, it doesn’t mean you’ll actually hit, as hitting is dependent on the skill of your helmsman, distance, angle, and a host of other factors, as per the original table-top version of the game. So much so, you can almost hear the dice rolling as you fire your weapons. So you fire, click left to avoid their weapons, whilst your weapons charge up, fire again, click right, and so on. Battles take so long in this game you’ll end up older than Spock before you finish the first campaign.
The addition of being able to transport teams of troopers onto the ship to disable shields, engines, phasers, etc, once the shields are down, which is apparently a new feature in this 3rd edition of the game, is rather dull too. First of all, you have to have more teams of troopers then the other ship – which at first is near impossible as you have no money and no space on your ship. When you do attack you just hear the twinkle of the teleporter, and that’s about it. No visible signs of sabotage occur, no mysterious explosions or anything. A voice tells you if they were successful or not tells you, but that’s all.
The more missions you complete, the higher your Honour goes, and this acts as currency so you can upgrade your ships shields and weapons, crew and eventually buy bigger and powerful ships. Missions are gained by moving through the hexagonal mission map, another throwback to the original board game. Each time you move, there’s a chance you’ll receive a mission, plus you have to get to certain hexes before a certain time to keep the overall campaign moving. Missions range from fighting, to launching a probe, to, err, fighting. Unfortunately I didn’t get too far in a campaign, as spending two hours in one mission that’s not even important to the overall game is NOT my idea of fun. It has multiplayer, but I simply do not have days to waste battling someone else in a monotonous battle of mouse clicking. If there’s a strategy involved, it’s probably being able to stay awake to keep pressing fire.
I may be being overly harsh, as the graphics are on the good side, the music and sound authentic to the StarTrek universe, and the voice acting is quite good. The parts of the story I became involved in were quite engaging, but the fact the missions just take so long means you’ll end up ignoring the story altogether and go and play another game. This game is simply one for fans of tabletop wargaming and StarTrek, and is probably too slow and boring for regular gamers like me.

Event, inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Cut Le Rock @ Minke

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Getting to Minke at our usual time of “last bus into town”, I was disappointed to see a small turn out of maybe a hundred people spread between the two levels. Then again, with Dave Seaman playing Traffic on the same night, and Clash of the Titans on Saturday, I wasn’t surprised. Breaks is, after all, an emerging scene here, and the vibe of the place reminded me a lot of the early dnb shows – most of the people there at that early stage in the evening were either industry, or friend of the DJs. However, like the early dnb shows, the DJs played as if to 5000 people, as Skywalker and Jayar kept those few that were dancing on the floor for the majority of their sets, playing a mixed bag of funky and tech breaks, building up the party vibe as a few more people wandered in.

Journeying downstairs, the mood was more relaxed, as Denorthwode played popular hiphop to a chilled crowd. Whist it was nice, I was up for more up tempo music, so we travelled upstairs again, to be greeted the splendid sounds of Stephen King, who decided to entertain us all with a set of old school breaks. Playing such gems as Herbie Handcocks’ Rockit and Coldcut’s wonderful remix of Paid in Full, he enticed the growing crowd out onto the floor. Wanting to stay for a while as his tune selection was wonderful, and his mixing superb, he had to compete with the Beat Smugglers downstairs, which was unfortunate, as they won my interest, and we headed down again.

The Beat Smugglers, if you haven’t seen them, are simply amazing. A funk band with a dance mentality, these guys know how to put on a show. Even with one man down for half their act, they still managed to get the now packed place jumping, rocking with their not-so-unique but ever-so-funky blend of funk and hiphop music. When Kim Dezen arrived after his Wozone appearance, he took the band up another level, scratching superbly over their infectious beats, and not a head in the place was still. Thinking Cut Le Rock was on at 2:30, we trudged upstairs again. To our surprise, he hadn’t started, and he didn’t start until 3, which kinda annoyed me as I would have liked to see more of the Beat Smugglers. I dashed downstairs, and missed their last tune, started chatting to a few people, then dashed back upstairs.

By this time the place was nicely filled with about 400 people (but I’m bad at judging crowds), reminding me further of the early dnb scene, as no one would go out until the main act would come on, then there’d be millions of people. As Cut Le Rock had already started I manoeuvred my way to the front to get a close look. Cut Le Rock has been on my “must see” list for about 5 years now, and it was well worth the wait, as he put on a show that simply blew the place up, quite literally. His scratching was simply amazing. He was responsible for guiding the Scratch Perverts away from technical showmanship to be more dancefloor orientated, and, as with them, it shows true turntable skillmanship to be able to mix so well, and keep the dancefloor moving. His track selection was quite a surprise, being all mainly bigbeat, playing such artists as Fat Boy Slim, FreeStylers, and of course dropping a few of his own tracks to boot! Whoever said Bigbeat was dead has not seen Cut Le Rock.

More surprising was the fact that the crowd appeared to lap it up. People were jumping about and cheering as he dropped track after track of happy, funky party music. I’m sure that both he and the crowd could have kept going all night, but unfortunately the wonderful BOSE sound system there has a fatal flaw in that if the computer overheats, the sound dies, as it appeared to do around about 4:15. They played around with it for a while, but to me it looked like they wouldn’t have it fixed quickly, which was a real pity, because everyone was enjoying it immensely up until that point. Why they didn’t move Cut Le Rock immediately downstairs is a mystery, as I’m sure a lot of people, like us, took their cue to leave at that time.

This night reinforced my view that breaks is a growing scene that needs more class acts like Cut Le Rock to come and absolutely rock Adelaide to its foundations at ALL types of shows, not just clubs. The skillmanship and professionalism in the face of a technical breakdown was a joy to behold, unlike other DJ’s who have hissy fits and swear never to come back. He took it firmly in his stride, assisted where he could, and chatted to fans and let people take photos with a laugh and a smile that is refreshing to see from an international DJ. I for one can’t wait to see him again, and suggest that you do too.

inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Groove Armada

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Groove Armada @ Thebarton Theatre 26/03/2003
It’s funny how the scene in Adelaide works. Drum ‘n’ Bass and Hard House are nearly all we get to hear. Every rave we have has two main rooms devoted to these two styles, and house, breaks and techno gets shoved together in the back room, if we’re lucky. Anything that’s near downtempo or triphop is left out all together, as if it wasn’t a part of the dance music scene at all. If this is the case, then how come an act like Groove Armada is so popular and can sell-out Thebby Theatre? Is it simply because Groove Armada are [i]that [/i]good that they transcend the normal notions of dance music, and provide entertainment for a larger cross section of the community? These are the questions that flooded my brain as I entered the gracious old Thebby Theatre.
DJ Jason Bye, from the UK, or so the hand written line-up signs said, was playing a nice mix of old and new triphop stuff, but I missed most of his set as I fought to get to and from the incredibly packed bar. It seems Adelaide likes to drink on a Wednesday night. Expertly guiding our selves to the front of the stage (I love having short, cute, female friends), we were in a prime position to see Groove Armada strut their stuff. Starting with my favourite “Chicago” from Vertigo, they proceeded to play a blend of their old stuff interspersed with their new stuff. Their new album appears to be a lot more ‘rockier’, and this is reflected in the way the guys jumped up and down on stage, rocking their axes like they were Oasis, on more than a few occasions.
I liked the way that their older tunes were remixed to suit the live performance. The guitar and bass were emphasised, and live drums and percussion replaced the digitally sampled drums on most tunes, displaying the fact that live electronic music has come of age quite quickly. I recall seeing similar acts in the past having a whole heap of trouble keeping up with synths and so on, but Groove Armada were very tight, very crisp, and performed incredibly well. The visuals behind the band were very eye catching and perfectly in synch, much like the band. They performed quite a few of their favourites, such as “At The River” and “My Friend”, but “I see you Baby” was played as a sample on the end of one of their new tunes. The finale of “Super Stylin” was much appreciated by the crowd, even getting a “live” rewind, as the MC took it back to the top.
It was a little disappointing that they only played an hour and a half. I would have liked to see them play a longer set, and a do a little more with their act. They were good, well polished, but perhaps a little too polished as they were much the same as I saw them at Vibes on A Summers Day a year ago. Although they included the newer songs off their latest album, they were pretty much the same as then, which for me was a little disapointing. Still, they are a class act, and the Adelaide crowd really seemed to enjoy it, and that’s what it’s all about. And perhaps the sell out crowd shows that Adelaide isn’t all about the dichotic relationship of dnb and hard house after all.

dB Magazine, Music, Review, Writing

Sub-Urb-An Files Volume 1 – Various Artists

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Sometimes you’ll hear an album that is so good that there simply are not enough adjectives to describe it suitably. ‘Sub-Urb-An Files Vol. 1′ is such an album. This is a collection of tunes from Hydrofunk records; the record label set up and run by Resin Dogs’ DJ Katch and Dave Atkins. It’s a showcase of the best in Aussie Hiphop, with a splattering of the finest in UK breaks, dishing up an enormously phat serving of funk that’s so enjoyable that you’ll want to go out and buy the whole back catalogue.

Soul runs rich and deep through this compilation. Mostyn’s Rattle On starts the program, beginning with a cool little electro sound followed by a nice, deep bass, followed by a soulful jazz voice, then joined with some nice, laid back hiphop beats. The soulful beats continue with pure, a 2dogs beat-fest underneath Kowhai’s beautiful aussie hiphop vocals, given a remix by Canadian Tor. An enjoyable surprise for me was the R&B style of Mad Dr X’s Show Me, remixed by 2dogs. Typical of this album, it’s an example of R&B in it’s traditional (and best) form, more reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield and Miles Davis than of the wanna be gangsta crap that’s coming out of the US at the moment. Other highlights are the Timmy P and Isobel gem 3Planets, and Spikey-Tee’s Stand Firm. Usually I would skip these types of tunes, as they’re essentially R&B, but these, like Show Me, are simply so wonderfully composed and arranged that it’s impossible not to enjoy them.

It’s not all soul, as some tunes are so damn right funky that you’ll want to jump up and dance. DJ Foel’s Hey Hey Hey, Double Bassic’s Blunted Stylus, Double ‘R’s Do the Do (2002) are excellent sample filled scratchings of funk, hiphop, and pop culture. The addition of Katalyst’s Another Game seems almost a given considering the amount of talent this guy has, and the overall quality of the whole album. Backed up by the Resin Dogs, another Mad Dr X track, and Funkwig & Denorthwode, and you have one of the funkiest and soulful collection of tunes this side of the 70’s. When Australian produced material is this good, it makes you laugh at the pathetic excuse for music that calls itself R&B and Hiphop that’s coming out of the US at the moment.

dB Magazine, Music, Review, Writing

Perfecto Breaks – Mixed by Lee Coombs

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Lee Coombs needs no introduction to the breaks fans out there. This man has, along with Adam Freeland, DJ Hyper and Tayo, taken the remains of the broken bigbeat sound and moulded them into the newest, sexiest sound to come out of England. This Perfecto mix showcases Coombs incredible mixing ability, taking tunes and re-editing and remixing them to form his own defining style of “tribal beats” through his various remixes and tunes, scattered amongst some excellent tune by dance music’s greatest producers.

The beats starts stomping right from the beginning with Coombs’ remix of Lamb, which integrates seamlessly with 2 Men On A Trip, a collaboration between Coombs and Meat Katie, an awesome acidic tribal beat fest. Then the rather New Order / Electronic sounding tune No Ticket No Run by Santos surprises the listener by throwing guitars into the mix. Coombs then throws his weight behind Danny Sullivan and Kemist’s Snake Charmer, with an eerily familiar sample I can’t quite place running through it.

The mix takes a marked change into the techno sound, with record label mates Soul of Man’s Dirty Waltzer, along with Coombs’ own tune Tekno Meltdown. The addition of Joey Beltram’s rave classic Energy Flash reworked with samples and beats synonymous to Coombs produces a wonderful aural explanation of the term “future retro”, so commonly associated with Coombs’ style of breaks. But it doesn’t stop there; as Rollin, another of Coombs’ tunes, is brilliantly combined with Moby’s classic rave hit I Feel It. The fantastic tribal beats pound perfectly over the lyrical reminders of the golden age of rave music, when Moby produced music that wasn’t derivative tripe.

Yet another classic tune, Jam the Mace by House Syndicate, follows in the Coombs style, brilliantly overlaid with the “ecstasy” sample of Energy Flash. “Look ahead while the crowd is pumping” the lyric waxes, while the beats wane into the housier sounds of Joe Smooth and Djum Djum that finish off the mix superbly. This is one of those CD’s that truly cross the boundaries of contemporary dance music, and leave you comfortable in the knowledge that there’s still DJ’s out there who want to push the envelope further.

dB Magazine, Music, Review, Writing

Vibes on a Summers Day’s Tenth Anniversary Double CD – Various Artists

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A celebration of the event that sadly has missed Adelaide since a catastrophic rainstorm destroyed thousands of dollars worth of equipment in 1998, the ‘Vibes on a Summers Day’s Tenth Anniversary’ double CD features many of the acts that have been featured at the festival over the last ten years, plus many of their favourite tunes. It’s light, varied, fun, and groovy, without being pretentious, capturing the essence of the event and the vibe of the Australian summer.

The first disc starts with Ian Pooley’s Bay of Plenty. This spicy house track sets the mood perfectly, with it’s soulful sax riff and salsa driven beats, followed by Xpress 2’s Lazy, featuring David Byrne from Talking Heads. This is getting a lot of airplay on Triple J and Fresh FM, and it’s very infectious. A few track later take a detour from the smooth funk, in the form of Propellerheads Take California, and this is neatly followed by a head bobbing, foot tapping set of breakbeat fun, rounded off by the classic Groove is in the Heart. Returning to the funk, we find the likes of Moloko, Jamiroquai and Jestofunk finishing off the first CD.

Unlike the first CD, the second doesn’t flow as well musically. It seems a little more disjointed. The first CD could almost be mixed, rolling along from one tune to the next, while the second definitely sounds like tunes simply thrown together. While personally I would have liked the second CD to feature some of the more heavier breakbeat sounds the festival has featured, such as Bentley Rhythms Ace, Adam Freeland, or the hiphop styling of The Herbaliser and Roots Manuva, the second CD continues much in the same way as the first – mellow but funky and groovy.

Mo’Horizons start the CD off with a simple but cool little tune Yes Baby. The Freestyler’s with their biggest hit Told You So, featuring the wonderful voice of Petra Jean Phillipson, follow this. After that is Stereo MC’s connected, which, while an excellent tune, seems out of place between the soul funk 60’s throwback of Told You So and the 70’s sounding funk of Wicked Beat Sound System’s Brand New Day. Without meaning to sound dismissive, the rest of the CD sounds like an Ibiza “chill out” album. It has a much better tune selection than the aforementioned CD formats – Tio Electrico and MJ Cole’s tracks are good, but seem out of place amongst the more housier elements of EON or even Rae & Christians All I Ask.

The variety is pretty indicative of the overall feel of Vibes on a Summers Day – an assortment of different, groovy, funky, danceable music, but leaving the heavier hiphop and breaks off means an essential element of Vibes is missing, leaving this huge fan of these events just a little disappointed. I can get beyond that to say this is a great double album that takes me back to the great times I had at Vibes and if you’ve never been to Vibes, it is a great double CD of excellent summer chill tunes that is better value musically than the flock of “chill” albums available at the moment.

inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

break in traffic

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Pushing the envelope once again, Traffic proves its willingness to present something above and beyond the normal clubbing experience managing to lure Adelaide out of its sleepy shell to witness of the best nights I’ve had clubbing in a long time! Again the people who claim hiphop and breaks do not have a strong following in Adelaide are proven beyond a doubt that they are wrong, which can only be good news for all lovers of fine music in this fine city.
When I arrived I found that there was a line up, which rather surprised me. After the lacklustre turnout for the opening of traffic, I thought that maybe Adelaide *was* too small to support hiphop and breaks. But, thankfully I am wrong. I entered and was greeted by the sounds of DJ Riddla, one of the most under rated DJ’s in Adelaide. This guy is GOOD, and it’s just a shame he doesn’t get heard more often. He was playing a blend of older, funkier breakbeat tunes, which was refreshing to hear and mixed expertly well. Next to step up were Stephen King and Reflux, warming up the crowd by showing a few tricks of their own. My only gripe about the whole evening was that during a good portion of their set I was outside trying to get to the teller machine, and then was stuck at the bar.
However, it was obvious who the crowd were waiting for, The Scratch Perverts. On the attack from the beginning, they simply didn’t let up with the amazing tricks they can pull. Starting with “Party” hiphop, they rocked the crowd, simply dazzling us with the speed of their cutting and scratching. And they didn’t just stick to playing well-known hiphop, they played a couple of DJ Shadow tracks (to which the crowd went mental) and a few classic Ninja Tune tracks including a great bit of mixing between Mr Scruff and Roots Manuva. Then they had to go and ruin it by playing drum and bass… only joking 🙂 The D&B they played was pumping and energetic, and fitted in with the mood of the crowd. They returned to playing hiphop, and as a wind down played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, which almost turned the floor into a moshpit and was incredibly cheeky of the boys. From the vantage point of the second floor it was impossible to be anything but impressed with the way they mixed and scratched, and it’s no wonder they’ve won so many hiphop battles both individually and as a team.
Following them must have been a monumental task, but luckily Krafty Kuts was up to it, and he managed to hold the dance floor

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries

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Having not played a Mech game since Mechwarrior 2 (which came out in 1996!), I was a little apprehensive when I received this game. How can I compare it to the latest Mechwarrior games? I don’t have a joystick, so how can I play it properly? I didn’t even have the instruction booklet due to a mix up in the office. Luckily, MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries has a brilliant tutorial and hasn’t changed too much from the earlier games in its controls, so I was up and blasting other huge walking tanks in a matter of no time. While it looks a little dated, it’s still an exciting game where massive walking tanks slog it out in a variety of different planetary terrains for fame and fortune.
From what I remember of MW2, you went from planet to planet fighting for your Clan trying to reclaim your right to land / planets / whatever. In MechWarrior 4: the year is now 3063, and you’re hotshot pilot who was involved in the FedCom Civil War. You’ve paid your dues and now are ready to make some cash by joining one of the four Mercenary groups -The Kell Hounds, Wolf’s Dragoons, The Northwind Highlanders, or the Grey Death Legion. Joining a group means you get different mechs and weapons and supposedly different missions, but I played two different groups, albeit not the whole way through, and didn’t notice any difference in the missions. As you progress through the different missions, you’ll find yourself drawn into the story, as every mission you do gives you points with the major players in the universe, and eventually siding with one of the warring factions, Steiner or Davion, which leads to one of two final outcomes.
You start off with a lance of 3 people of varying skills plus yourself, plus 4 light Mechs. As you progress through the missions you gain more money, and more salvage, which includes weapons and Mech chassis. Between missions, you can add or remove people from your pilot roster, replacing any pilots that may have died or hire new ones to form a second lance, as well as buy and sell chassis and weapons on the “Free Market”. You can add different weapons to your chassis in the Mechlab, but you’ve got to manage the heat production and armour as well as electronic anti-combat measures, otherwise you’ll have a huge chunk of metal that keeps shutting down every time you fire. You’ve got to be careful with your money as well, as travelling from star system to star system costs money, as does landing on a planet, and you have to pay your pilots and maintenance costs. I found it relatively easy to keep track of my money though, and a quick sale of a heavy or assault Mech usually gets you enough C-bills to last another mission.
The missions are pretty fast and furious. None of this walking around trying to find checkpoints, you’re pretty much thrown straight into the thick of things. The gameplay is exciting, as you can be battling many other Mechs at a time. Success is achieved through good piloting and aim, as well as tactical use of your Lancemates. Often the success or failure of a mission comes down to the choice of Mechs with appropriate weapons and the level of skill your pilots have achieved. The AI is pretty good, with Lancemates generally staying out of your way, and using long range weapons when they are meant to, and the Opponent AI is also quite clever, although their aim didn’t seem to be as good, and they tend to get confused if they’re outnumbered firing randomly at each target rather than concentrating on just one opponent.
Missions tend to fall into 2 categories – Search / Destroy and Protect / Escort. You can take a breather from the missions to battle gladiator style on Solaris VII, which earns you fame and money, and trains you for online battle. Online battle is a lot of fun, but I STRONGLY suggest you get a joystick… the campaign mode can be won with out one, but you will be WAY too slow for online battle. I had some troubles connecting through the game’s online interface, but no problems connecting through msn.zone.com, the “official” place to play, and I never had trouble finding people to play against.
This games sound is good, the blasts and rat-a-tat-tat of your Mechs AutoCannons sounding pretty realistic, but the in-game music is pretty average techno-rock. Even more of a let down is the graphic engine, being a few years old it really doesn’t stand up to today’s standards. Trees simply disintegrate when you walk into them, and the Mechs themselves just get a little blacker when you pound them with your numerous weapons – no bullet riddled hunks of metal here. It doesn’t take away too much from the game, it just makes it seem like you’re playing a game that came out two years ago.
All in all, MechWarrior 4 – Mercenaries is an excellent game. although its graphic engine is a real let down compared to other games that have come out recently. If you’re a fan of the genre you won’t be too let down, and if you’ve never played a previous incarnation of the game you wouldn’t know any different. The micromanagement of your lances and resources and finances certainly makes the game a lot more interesting and involving, and of course, you’re walking around in huge, heavily armed robot tanks blowing the bejesus out of other huge robots, and what could be more fun than that?
7.5/10
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