Mechwarrior 3 (German)

A couple of weekends ago I was invited to take part in a LAN game of MechWarrior 3 (MW3). I was very excited, because I had heard great things about the game and never really had a chance to play it. I didn't allow myself to get too pumped up about the game, as one of my friends had brought his German friend to the LAN party, and it was the tall German fellow who had suggested we play MW3. My gut instinct was correct, as we all began happily installing the German version of MW3.

For those of you who don't know anything about the game or the genre. In the MechWarrior games, you drive a "mech", basically a robot with lots of guns and missles (see picture to the right). You can play single or multiplayer modes and either complete missions in single player mode or walk/fly/drive around and blow up your friends in multiplayer mode. Mech type games tend to run on the more complicated side, as there are many different commands you can send to your mech. Commands range from controlling the temperature of your mech to grouping weapons.

Now that you know a little more about the type of game we were playing, imagine trying to setup all of the controls without understanding a single word that was displayed on the screen. Yah, it was tough. If we had not had our German friend there to give us the basics of movement and firing we wouldn't have been able to play. However, in the end we all were able to get our mechs running and even kill each other a few times.

The graphics were stunning, you really felt like you were diriving a 70 foot robot, unfortunately I didn't have sound, but the game did sound good coming through my friend's speakers. I think I would have enjoyed the game tremendously if it had not been in German, and I could have been able to read all the text that kept flashing on the screen. I'm seroiusly thinking of picking up the American version of this game, and I think you should too.