Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons Review (PC)

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key review info
  • Game: Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
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Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons

Finding good real-time strategy / tactics games is starting to be an increasingly difficult task. Turn-based fans can find a lot of good options, but for those who prefer to do things in real time, life is tough.

One of the reasons for that is the fact that it's really, really hard to make a good real-time strategy game, because you need a competent and streamlined interface in order to be able to control your units.

Having battles take place in a turn-based manner takes a lot of the pressure off the developer, and makes subpar AI and clunky interfaces much more manageable.

So, when developer Camel 1010 started working on Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons, they already faced an uphill battle against the idiosyncrasies of the genre. Let's jump in and see how well they fared.

Checking range
Checking range

Setting

The game takes place somewhere in space. You play the role of commander of a mercenary company, stranded in a section of the galaxy that is currently under attack.

The militaristic Tzanar Union has started an all-out war, and their latest target is the peaceful agricultural planet of Genai, that broadcast a mayday signal to anyone in range.

You (among others) presumably pulled a dollar-signs-for-eyes trick and jumped in, but alas, the planet has already been conquered, and the stargate blockaded, so now there's no leaving from the Oberon system.

Your only chance to escape alive is to assist the Genai in taking back their planet, fighting back against the oppressive Tzanar Union.

Unfortunately, that's where the story stops, at the introductory video. There are no more archives to study, no relationships to explore, and no further developments that can offer you a sense of context and belonging. Well, at least there are mechs.

Preparing for an assault
Preparing for an assault

Mission gameplay

You are in charge of the Black Talons company, a fierce mercenary outfit with a craving for cold, hard cash and bloody murder.

You can control a variety of infantry units, each of which is comprised of four to six members. There are light, medium and heavy units, differentiated mainly through health and movement speed.

In addition to this, your mercs also have classes, belonging either to assault, support, tactical or engineering units.

Theoretically, each of the classes drives gameplay complexity up, affording you new avenues to showcase your tactical mastery. In practice, the limited game engine makes anything but heavy units subpar.

There aren't any complex orders you can issue to your troops, aside from "walk to this point and maybe shoot things that are in your line of sight."

That means that all the tactical potential goes right out the window from the start, because without special orders such as going prone to gain avoidance, spotting to increase accuracy, suppression fire, and many, many other examples that would have enriched the experience, you're basically stuck sending your units for frontal attacks and crossing your fingers.

The strategic aspect is missing from actual missions, where you simply capture some resource generators that slowly give you points to spend on refilling your ranks and getting new troops at special drop pads, being more about patience than having an actual plan.

Most of the time, you will fortify yourself behind cover and endure relentless suicidal assaults from infinite enemies, switching between units when you get damaged, and waiting to get experience points and for your wounded units to buy reinforcements at dropship pads.

It lacks both the actual tactic gameplay of turn-based games and the moment-to-moment excitement of something like Starcraft 2. It would have been very satisfying if it were a slower-paced experience like Company of Heroes, but sadly, the mechanics are too stripped-down to warrant more engagement.

Outfitting my mech
Outfitting my mech

You can't really order your troops to do anything, you can't distract opponents other than luring them out of their cover, which many times is a winning strategy, as the game stacks the odds against you as much as it can in order to provide at least some engagement.

Why your enemy would leave the safety of cover when guarding narrow passageways is beyond me, especially since you don't have any devices such as grenades or other means of disruption, but that's the way the game plays.

Light and medium units die too fast to be able to provide any value on the field of battle, and the fact that many times you can't even order a swift assault team to flank the enemy in order to gain crossfire bonuses because they just sit around returning fire, in spite of you clicking for them to move, further detracts from the experience.

Games have been tackling these problems for years, with stuff like patrol orders, passive or aggressive engagement rules, and so on and so forth, and I know I can't expect an indie studio to equal the efforts of AAA teams, but Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons doesn't even have waypoints.

Heavy units become the bread and butter of your army, as they are able to take on multiple enemies at the same time, and given the fact that the game always overwhelms you with enemies favored by superior tactical positioning, behind cover and oftentimes unflankable, you'll lose your light units without managing to do any damage.

Furthermore, cover seemingly only works from one direction. If you find an enemy unit behind some barrels or a force field and you take them out, you won't be able to use that obstacle as cover against incoming units, as apparently cover is directional.

There is a unit of engineers, seemingly the only ones qualified enough to strap some explosives to objectives, and they can also build bunkers and turrets, which aren't a very good investment since they die very, very fast and can't be repaired.

Mechs are fun for a while but underwhelming, anyone expecting to be able to relive Mech Commander isn't going to have a good time. The maps are too small and constraining, everything seems contrived and there isn't much freedom to what you can do.

You can't even move the camera properly, you can't zoom out far enough to get a better view of the battlefield, there are no minimap prompts when something that requires your interest happens, and the list goes on.

This pretty much sums up the gameplay
This pretty much sums up the gameplay

Headquarters gameplay

The addition of this layer saves the game to some degree, as it introduces a thematically sound mechanic, where you actually have to behave like a commander, recruiting new units and outfitting existing ones, investing skill points and researching and improving your facilities, as well as selecting missions from the available contracts in the system.

However, the interface is horrendous and belongs in the '90s, with everything requiring unneeded extra clicks, and without the relevant information being relayed to you in a comprehensive manner that would facilitate your decision-making.

You know, kind of like it would be if you were an actual merc squad leader. Instead, it feels very video gamey, rudimentary and clunky.

The mechanics themselves aren't very complex, and you can't really control any advanced settings like loadouts. Having an inventory to manage like in the original XCOM would have offered a much more satisfying experience.

There's a black market, you can outfit your mechs and buy new pilots and units, prepare for future engagements, but the lack of actual control and micromanagement options and the artificial limitations imposed on certain unit types make it feel like a very limited experience that misses its mark.

Decisions between extra magazines, grenades and medikits would have delivered a much more engrossing and tense experience. The possibility of choosing between different types of armor and having to balance trade-offs would have made for a much more organic experience than simply choosing to buy a heavy troop, over the composition of which you have no control.

Furthermore, there aren't a lot of options at your disposal when it comes to contracts. Adding various factions that can aid you with units or fight against you based on your reputation with them, which is earned or lost in accordance to which missions you undertake, is a welcome layer of complexity, but it falls short of delivering a compelling experience.

Overall, there simply isn't enough weight to the world and to your decisions, not enough narrative depth to make you feel like you're immersed in an actual universe where you're just a lowly entity trying to make a living, serving a limited purpose in far greater schemes.

Sound and visuals

The game doesn't have high production values or too much polish. It's not bad and looks serviceable overall, not horrible but nothing to wow you.

The fact that your units and your enemies look exactly the same makes things confusing during battles, but that's okay, because it's not like there is any mechanical difference between them, or any special abilities to justify the need to quickly be able to tell them apart and issue orders.

The art direction seems a tad drab, with many environments looking sterile, and the effects aren't all that great either, especially the visual cues and interface buttons that should have enabled you to play more tactically.

Dead bodies disappear from the battlefield in a matter of seconds, which is a shame, because you can't even measure your prowess in the height of the mound of slain suicidal enemies, shambling on your position like mindless drones.

Furthermore, the lack of basic visual information is something that further marks the entire experience down. Aside from numbers on your team's tags, there are no health bars that can cue you to when it would be a good time for a unit to make a run for it, or when the enemy is close to dying.

This becomes even more frustrating when it comes to bunkers, as in certain situations you won't know whether you'll be able to destroy the fortification before reinforcements arrive for your enemy.

The music doesn't always fit what's going on on-screen, and the sound effects are limited in scope, especially considering that they could have provided a ton of helpful hints such as when your troops are under fire, so you would direct your attention their way and maybe not lose them without having any idea what happened.


The Good

  • It has both tactical and strategic gameplay

The Bad

  • Lackluster mechanics
  • Clunky interface
  • Bad enemy AI
  • It lacks polish

Conclusion

Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons is a lackluster game, a subpar and clumsy real-time tactics experience with a very limited scope. Sometimes it even feels like it's not actually a complete game, but just an alpha that's still missing features.

From the clunky interface to the sometimes horrible level and engagement design, to the lack of actual tactical options and infinitely spawning enemies, the game fails to deliver a satisfying gameplay experience.

It feels like a ton of different ideas were thrown together, and none of them given enough time and care to blossom into a full-fledged feature. There are hints of a better experience, like actual orders to give your units, but the means to achieve one are missing.

The setting and concept set the stage for some exciting gameplay, but the actual thing is far from being even remotely satisfying.

All units have the same range, there are times when your units are being fired upon without retaliating or doing anything else, like retreating, and all the maps are stacked against, both in terrain design and enemy troops, because of the poor enemy AI, which most of the time simply sends wave after wave of suicide missions against you, in the hope of whittling down your forces before you can get to the healing pad.

An overall disappointing experience that could have become at least decent, given enough time to mature and refine its gameplay systems. Instead, Mechs & Mercs: Black Talon seems like a rushed and incomplete product, the way it is right now.

story 3
gameplay 3
concept 6
graphics 5
audio 6
multiplayer 0
final rating 4.5
Editor's review
poor
 
NEXT REVIEW: Majestic Nights

Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons screenshots (24 Images)

Mechs & Mercs: Black TalonsChecking rangePreparing for an assaultOutfitting my mechThis pretty much sums up the gameplay
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