MechWarrior 3 Expansion Pack: Pirate's Moon
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
MechWarrior 3's first expansion pack, Pirate's Moon, adds new maps, weapons, and mechs to the popular franchise. But is it worth thirty big ones?
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But I have to give it up to the folks over at Zipper Interactive; they've listened very closely to what BattleTech fans have been asking for since the release of MW3. And it's evident in Pirate's Moon, MW3's very first expansion pack.
The story picks up right after MW3. You must act on orders from the Federated Commonwealth and lead a squad of Eridani Light Horse mechs into battle against a more organized group of pirates in the New Belt area. That is, if you choose to play the "good guy" role. In Pirate's Moon, you're also allowed to play from the New Belt Pirate's perspective: Looting, pillaging, and fighting off swarms of pesky Eridani Light Horse agents.
You get more than a dozen new missions for each side, Eridani Light Horse or New Belt Pirates. The missions also tend to overlap one another: In one Eridani mission you'll be fighting to protect ore shipments, in a pirate mission you'll be trying to steal the ore. Next you'll be sent to destroy the pirate's satellite array. Or as the pirates, be assigned to defend it.
Playing as both sides is very challenging, and immensely entertaining.
Pirate's Moon also adds six new mechs to choose from. Mechs like the 100-ton Atlas, the Masakari, and the Awesome to name a few--not to mention the fact that you can finally play as an Elemental, a sophisticated, anti-mech power-suit (multiplayer only). This was one of the most popular requests coming from the BattleTech community.
You get five new weapons; some of which really change the way MW3 is played. Take the new Thunderbolt Missile for example, a devastating single-round missile that can deliver up to 20 points of damage, with the lock-on ability of a missile. Or the new Medium Range Missiles (MRM), that boast volleys of up to 40 missiles! While the others, like the X-Pulse Laser, Heavy Laser, or Light Gauss Rifle don't seem to add much to the game.
But sadly, only four new maps were added to the fray. It becomes really apparent when the missions recycle the same four maps over and over again. I would trade the new weapons for new maps in a heartbeat. And where's the official terrain/mission editor, Zipper?
Multiplayer has also been tweaked. Two new multiplayer modes were added, Attack/Defend a base (one base) or Attack/Defend a base (two bases).
Ending off the new additions list are night missions (your mechs now have headlights), volcanic activity (watch out for eruptions), and bottomless trenches to avoid or jump over.
As far as sound and graphics go, I didn't see much improvement on the graphics save the inclusion of new mechs and weapon effects. And the sound effects seem to have gone unchanged, save new weapon effects. Pirates Moon simply looks and sounds as good as MW3 does.
If you're a serious BattleTech fan, you should already have bought Pirate's Moon. The ability to play as an Elemental is worth $30 bucks to most of the fanboys I know (myself included). But for all you casual fans, you may want to wait for MW4 which will no doubt have all these improvement/additions and then some.
