About three months ago this blog lost momentum. I wrote down some notes after building my first "real" web app with Budibase, and I neglected to write down what I've been doing since. I should try to get back to it, and I'll start with what I've spent much of my free time on: the game MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. I bought the "JumpShip Edition" bundle some time back and the game didn't immediately grab my attention. After watching a friend play the game for a while, though, I was able to get back into it. Much too far into it, as it turned out. Sucking up all my free time including time I would have spent documenting stuff on this blog. I guess that counts as an endorsement of the game.

I count myself among the old-school PC games who remember MechWarrior 2 as a landmark title of its age. Given how fast gaming franchises turn over new ways to milk money from their audience, it took a surprising amount of time to get from MW2 to MW5. But now that it is here and it has "clicked" in my mind, I couldn't tear myself away. Big fighting robots, man, can't beat that.

Part of what makes a MechWarrior game is obsessing over how to best configure each machine under my command. There are a lot of options in the mech lab, easily overwhelming a beginner. And yet, that is only a simplified version of the full complexity available in the original board game. I've learned there's a robust modding scene with many published options on Steam Workshop, and some of these modes expose many more customization options. I decided against going down that route: the stock mech lab is quite enough for me to manage.

I can't say too much about the two DLCs that came as part of the JumpShip Edition I bought: they were present throughout my entire MW5:Mercs experience so I can't tell how they've added to the game and whether they'd be worth spending money for someone who doesn't already have them. By the same token, I can't say much about the remaining DLCs because I don't have them.

The game environment is a huge step over the simple terrain of MechWarrior 2, not surprising given the age difference. Yet the environment felt very antiseptic. There are no animals in the forest scurrying out of your way, and there are no cars driving around in the city. I also never saw any depiction of human beings at human scale, even though it was depicted in some of the transition graphics. This cut both ways: when I am hired to destroy a military base, it would be cool to see pilots running to the cockpits of mechs powering up to defend against my attack. On the other hand, mercenaries are occasionally hired under distasteful contracts to destroy population centers. I don't need to see myself mowing down a mom and her stroller. I decided it was just as well the game is unrealistic in that way.

While there are scripted campaign missions in the game, the core game loop is structured around randomly generated contracts. This is great, because my obsession session has completed every single campaign mission and most of the challenges I had set out for myself. Now all I have is the open world (open galaxy, actually) baseline level of play where I can jump in, do a handful of missions, then quit and get back to my life. Some people play Solitaire for a few minutes of distraction, I play MW5: Mercenaries for a few missions before returning to my projects.

[Pictured: one of my self-assigned challenges, making a perfect shot on an Atlas-class mech.]