Power, agility, and flitting from objective to objective while raining death and destruction wherever you go makes you feel like a robot god.

It's a mech power fantasy unlike anything else.

The first time you line up your crosshairs on some 30-plus incoming enemy fighters and let loose that wave of missiles will give you chills. This suit is capable of switching between fighter mode, where you to fly about space Freelancer-style, and giant killer robot mode where you turn into a Macross-style mecha capable of taking down clouds of enemy fighters at the touch of a button. You start off piloting a fairly standard space fighter, but pretty soon come across an experimental piece of military hardware called the Strike Suit. It’s space-faring Japanese mecha at its best. There’s an appeal to the lumbering tank-like combat of some mech games, but Strike Suit Zero captures the thrill of piloting an agile death machine packed with more missile launchers than the entire US Navy fleet. And once you've gotten everything figured out you'll be able to customize hundreds of different mechs with over a hundred unique weapons systems, with all of it steeped in rich lore born from a classic game franchise. But it has a devoted community that is genuinely welcoming to newbies and has created abundant out-of-game resources to get new MechWarriors up to speed. With an overly complex skill tree and an unintuitive menu system, MechWarrior Online isn't exactly friendly to newcomers. Being behind the wheel of a lumbering robot makes it impossible to get yourself out of trouble once you get into it, making cooperation with teammates a crucial part of victory. Unlike most first-person shooters out there, where players can correct their mistakes with lightning quick reflexes, your life in MechWarrior often hangs with decisions made 30 seconds ago. While that comes with its own share of problems like a long grind and microtransactions, MechWarrior Online excels at capturing the slow pace of combat that made the series so revered to begin with.

The free-to-play shooter might not have a singleplayer campaign, but it captures the tense thrill of attrition-based warfare in its excellent competitive matches.Įach game is a 12v12 slugfest that ends with players earning currency and experience, and customizing their rides in between rounds. It's developed by Piranha Games, the same studio that released MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries this year. But make no mistake, MechWarrior Online is a great mech game in its own right. MechWarrior Online inherited the august legacy of classic titles like MechWarrior 2 and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries-both games we’d love to include in this list if they weren’t so damn hard to get running on modern hardware.

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