MegaMek on Mekwars:Legends

I don't always play video games. No. Sometimes I delve into the deeper chasms of Nerdor. Through the Dead Marsh of Mobile Games, up the Stairs of Consoles, through the ever-labyrinthine horrors of PC gaming; all to wander the dice-filled wastes far beyond the realm of sanity and close to Mt. Doom, spewing that Cheetos remnant that always gets on the tips of your fingers. Verily, I have rolled 20s, and they were good.

All OS covered.

MegaMek is not so multifaceted as other table-top games, in fact, it has 3/5 the facets as the well-known Dungeons and Dragons. But the two games are unrelated except in the sense that only we outcasts of society gather to entertain ourselves with them. Fans of this game can laugh at those other elf-eared nerds... while showing each other how they painted their miniature robot men.

We see this. In our brains.

 Anyway, MegaMek is a freeware Java version of the Classic Battletech tabletop game, a sci-fi military tactical experience, with dice, endless sheets of damage recording papers, and battlemechs! Yes, those of us who have strapped on neurohelmets can truly understand the awesome power of these three-story tall death machines. And now they are really small!

This is what normal people see. (The small PC screenshot is the MegaMek version of this situation).

Essentially, MegaMek takes all of the pain-in-the-ass rules, calculations, dice-rolling, and damage-tracking that made the tabletop game so fun/drawn-out-pain-in-the-ass and makes your computer do it. After that, all you need to think about is strategy and tactics, using your carefully constructed army to devastate those of the opponent. Think Panzer General and you won't be that far off.

In fact, the tactical element is really the entire game. The core experience is maneuvering your forces in such a way that your pilots have a better chance of hitting their targets than getting shot themselves. Then, you designate your troops their targets, and cross your fingers as the Random Number Generator decides (with two six-sided dice) if they hit anything. Repeat until your enemy's mechs are piles of molten scrap metal.

This is exciting. Providing you know what the hell is going on.

Like the table-top game, all of the action is turn-based, with each player taking turns moving their units. But you will be busy anticipating your enemy's moves, carefully measuring the ranges of their weapons, and exploiting the battlefield terrain. Every game is dynamic, every game is fun- because your opponents are always human players (though the game has a rudimentary bot function.)

However, facing human players has one draw back: human players can be incredibly good at a game. And since many of the diehards playing MegaMek online have been playing for years, if not decades, the learning curve is incredibly steep. Going from never-played to I-just-won-my-first-game-yay took 10 games. 10 terrible, devastating, crushing, humbling, and educational defeats. Not to mention watching perhaps five games between veterans, reading the table-top game's source books, and asking many, many questions. Those who put in that time are well rewarded with an endlessly rich game for arm-chair generals.

For the merely curious: you will be scared away.

Where to play it?

MegaMek does not feature any sort of matchmaking device within the client, so it is up to you to find games. There are several websites that manage some form of MegaMek matches, often keeping track of units through message boards and what not. For people like me (i.e. would like a little customization, but mostly just mechs to shoot people with), I've found the Mekwars: Legends server to be amazing. It wraps the MegaMek client into a program that keeps track of the entire galaxy, and each player takes command of a military unit in a galactic empire. So not only do you get tactical games with another player, you can give your conquests meaning by taking over the galaxy planet by planet with a large team of other players.