MechAssault - The First Game on Xbox Live | Retcon_404 

FWIW, the MadCat and Timber Wolf are the same mech in the minis game. Timber Wolf is the Clan's name for it, while MadCat was the ID the Inner Sphere settled on because their recognition software kept getting confused over whether it was looking at a Marauder or a Catapult when they first encountered the Clans. That happens with a bunch of the Clan mech designs - they were even briefly believed to be hostile aliens initially. Like you said, lot of lore to the setting.

The sound of that mech reactor explosion unlocked a core memory for me. Damn. That was a sound I heard so much in my childhood.

The lore for this series is insane, if you have a remote interest in it I'd recommend looking more into it. Tex Talks Battletech on the BlackPants Legion is a wonderful channel to learn more, and the Sarna Wiki is also phenomenal

Feels good to hear an earth shaking explosion, confirming a pilot died thrashing about in their cockpit, electronics exploding in front of their faces, burning up in their seats, then being heat fused to said seats...ahhhhh, glorious

Retcon_404 and battletech, what a pleasant surprise :D

36 year old here......this was one of the best MP games back in its day.....the ability to destroy cities was great and the banter between players was fire.....I miss this game so much. Im hoping the genre can make a return. Thanks for making this video

Aside from the obvious Black Pants Legion, Sven van der Plank has an excellent sub-10 minute primer on Battletech, an excellent point to start with just for the plot and lore. They also have several multihour productions covering important eras!

This is one of my favorite games ever. When i got the MadCat i mained it for the rest of the game. Nothing could stop me.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Mech Assault on this channel. Fun Fact: It's not just Mech Assault, none of the video games based on Battletech are canon. They all take place in different times of the setting, but none of the events and conclusions depicted in any of the games affect the lore. Only the novels and settings books for the tabletop are considered lore. This game gets a bad rep from the greater Mechwarrior community because it doesn't handle like the simulation experience like on the PC, but i think they are a fun arcade alternative! =D

To give you a sense of how nutty Battletech lore can get the Wolf's Dragoons were a secret scouting force sent by the Clans to spy on the Inner Sphere and prepare the way for the Clan Invasion. Who are the Clans? The descendants of the military of the long dead Star League, which was the first united Galactic Government. Their was a coup that toppled that government, and there was a war so terrible and disgusting that after the Star League military finally won and brought the traitors to justice, they vowed to never let that happen again. The commander of the military saw that various factions were ready to continue waging war to take over the remanents of the Star League so he gathered all those loyal to him and the league and they abandoned the Inner Sphere and went to the far Peripherary so their weapons and soldiers couldn't be used for more slaughter. He sent a radio message that he knew would take hundreds of years to reach Terra basically wishing that the Inner Sphere would find peace and promising that one day the Star League would return. It was a hopeful and inspiring message....except that this group eventually evolved into a strict caste society based all around warfare, and when they did eventually return, they returned to conquer the Inner Sphere. They had come to believe in order to save it they must conquer it. The Wolf's Dragoons were an advance party meant to gain Intel and prepare the way for the clans. Their cover was working as mercenaries. They eventually switched sides and instead helped the Inner Sphere fight the clans.

I spent hours playing this as a kid, I really wish they would reimagine the ragnarok & ymir in MWO. They already started playing with fresh non cannon designs a few years ago. Also, this game used clan / inner sphere naming conventions for alternative loadouts. Aka madcat in the main game, Timberwolf in the multi-player. One had ppc and I think the other has guass or autocannon main weapons.

That description of the visuals is spot on, it does look like those action games people have made using the Starcraft 2 map editor.

Oh gods, even here there's no escape from the Word of Blake idiocy. They truly are Space AT&T. :)

The sound design in this game really is amazing. The launching of missiles, the building destruction, and of course the mechs falling and exploding. This game made me realize I liked anything mecha. Always wanted to get my own copy and finish play it all the way through.

This game can't be judged on its single player experience. I feel like it was literally designed to be the load bearing structure for XBL when it launched. For the time, it was an incredible game. Easy to pick up, fast paced, but also rewarded experienced play and surprisingly balanced (at least if memory serves...)

Great vid, i played the demo that was pre-loaded on my original xbox many many.. many times. Dont miss the days of being a kid with a very limited library of games, but atleast they had at neat demo to try out and hey i ended up getting later for little to nothing due to it being everywhere. If i remember correctly this game and Brute Force had package deals when you purchased the console.

Good video man. It's always great to hear your perspective on things. You gotta check out the old ps3 Gundam games.

Power armor fights were the best thing in this game online back in the day, good time

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Battletech is literally my favorite setting out there. EDIT: The reason why the Mad-Cat and the Timberwolf are retextures is because its just two different names for the same mech. Timberwolf is the Clanner name, Mad-Cat is the Inner Sphere name (because it looks like a Marauder and a Catapult)!

Before i was born my dad decided to get me PS One so that once i was old enough, me and him would be able to play together. The PS2 has been out for a while and dad asked around when i was 2 if i wanted a PlayStation 2 since we loved our PS One so much. I told him ill think about then one day we went to my cousins apartment and he bought himself an Xbox and i saw the mechassault demo. Thats when i realized i needed the xbox. Me and my brother loved this game and for sure have more then 3k hours on it. I wish i could have had Xbox Live but more then 14 years later i was able top play on Xlink Kai and then recently played on Insignia. My favorite childhood game.

Dude I remember playing this game when I was a kid. I had a ton of fun with it :D

Really think its great how you look into the fandom to know how it is thought of by people who follow the franchise.

Xbox Live and games like this were my main motivations for talking my parents into getting broadband internet. Ah, the memories...

Loved this game as a kid, i loved MechAssault Lone Wolf as well. I remember when it came out i was so excited 😄wish i still had both games.

I remember this game so much. I played the _shit_ out of it. Hell, it what made me fall in love with mecha in the first place. It was the best mecha game at the time.

Dude, you should do more retro game review, this one was very well made, you’re killing it!

I played Mechwarrior on ps1, Mechassault, and lone wolf. I come from the arcade days, before consoles, so I have seen video games from the start. I still love Mech Assault better than lone wolf. The Appreciation of these games were the culmination of the dream of a 3D universe. This by far my all time favorite game, even in 2024!!!!

This guy really used the Alien 3 videogame soundtrack lol awesome

I got this game solely because it was on Xbox live and man I can’t describe how fun it was in multiplayer. The campaign wasn’t too bad, but live was where it shined.

I'm a big Battletech fan. Play the tabletop game(s), love the lore, and have played most of the video games. MechAssault was a goodntime back in the day. My brother and I played the hell out of it and the sequel. It's an arcade shooter funtime game, which is exactly what it set out to be. If you want a more simulationist game, check out MechWarrior 5 (or any of the older Mechwarrior games). But if you really want to get a taste of the Battletech universe (or at least a glimpse since it's fucking enormous), I suggest the game Battletech from Hare Brained Schemes. Absolutely great strategy game that combines my love of big robots and turn based strategy a la X-COM. Great video!

I know someone else said it but the Mad Cat and Timber Wolf are the same. Inner Sphere vs Clan names. The short version is that the Timber Wolf looks like a combination of the Marauder (MAD) and Catapult (CAT) and the targeting computers couldn’t decide so the flipped back and forth between the two until merging them as one 🤷🏻‍♂️

The soundtrack was so good! I played this before i found out about MW4, so it was super cool

I had so much fun playing this as a kid…just got into mech 5

Ooooh, more Battletech/Mechwarrior stuff in the future? I appreciate your retrospectives and it’s neat to hear your take on my favorite universe!

I own both physically. I know majority of the lore because I own many of the novels and source books. Never played the table top game but I have played most games since Mechwarrior 2 for the PC. Currently there is a Humble Bundle for 20+ of the novels in digital format.

Not one mention of how you can hijack enemy player mechs was probably my all time favorite part

always liked yer content and now yer talkin my fav IP 😍😍😍

We call that big ol' explosion "Stackpoling" after the author who made mechs exploding from their reactor a staple, despite that only happening from ammo, because Battltech is (usually) too realistic for random explosions. Radiation is the much bigger danger, but usually only if a mech is exposed to far too much heat, or if the engine is being serviced. The realism is a big part of the fun, since the answer as to why mechs are thing at all is because, "BS honor wars are far better than the irradiated hell holes created from total war, since planets like that that don't pay taxes."

Great vid as always man

I'm all for more mech game reviews and retrospectives =D

I remember playing this game for hours on end with my cousins and brother when i was like 6-7 years old. It randomly pops in my head sometimes, ill never forget the Mech that shoots purple shots. We called it "purple nurple" and as a 6 year old i thought that was comedy gold lmao

This was one of the funnest games I ever played online back in the day. The single player mode was a good once over. Mulitplayer was legit because they came out with quite a bit of downloadable content. Everyone who was anyone always had a Mad Cat with PPC's unless it was CTF. Then it was just a race of the smallest Mech's. If you weren't playing this online, then it was Whacked! Or Moto GP before Halo 2, PSO and Rainbow Six came out.

Oh hey, I'm going to paint my Crusader and Atlas to this video.

I got this game in 02' or 03' and for a 9 or 10 year old at a time it was a blast.

Thank you for covering this. MechAssault was a much more arcade style shooter, which might explain the mixed reception among the fan base. I highly recommend MechWarrior 3 and 4, MechCommander 2, and the BattleTech turn based strategy game made by the original founder of the franchise.

Mechassault 1 & 2 lotta good childhood memories with both games

I love the loki mech. It's 1 of 4 dlc mechs it's similar to the mad dog. But has 2 autocannon and 3 crossbow missiles. Plus it can turn invisible and is fast. I have a short clip of it in action. Ps. The pink pulse laser is my fave thing.

Holy shit this game, I remember the sequel very we’ll and I was ranked in the top 100 for a long period of time, such good memories. Granted if you were in a decent clan it was t hard to get up into that level

I have a copy of the 2nd mechassault and would love to send it to you for review. Thanks for covering this series. It was my favorite video game series growing up.

I actually DO have this game sitting in a box Just completed the second game a little while ago on the hardest difficulty and yeah it was a hell of a fun time playing the horde mode with my sister and seeing how long we could last

I like the videogame videos! I watched Seed Destiny and a bunch of other Gundam shows recently, so I could watch your videos on them too. You pick interesting stuff to cover! Seed Destiny was so painful though. Lol.

Still rock...recently bought an xbox original play this game first time

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I played the crap out of this and Unreal Championship growing up. I remember the campaign being impactful because that’s the only way you could unlock 2 mechs for multiplayer. The Thor and ragnork if I recall correctly. My favorite online mode was CTF. All 3 different styles of mechs felt useful. The small ones that could go invisible were fast and good for flag running. The atlas stayed at the base to protect. And a lot of madcats in mid. Most ctf maps had a few different lanes. Outer ones being slower but normally safer after all the buildings in mid were blown up by the madcats. If your atlas was lucky enough to get the juiced purple lasers he would sometimes come out into mid when all the buildings and cover were gone and just decimate. Anyways thanks for the video.

This game made my 12th birthday. I still remember it even at 30. It was rainy, my mom took my friend and i to a best buy and its cover immediately caught my attention. Definitely a highlight game from my childhood. But beside all that its like a 7/10, honestly.

At my house we had the PC Mechwarrior games and I really wanted to play them as they looked fantastic, but early elementary school me didn't have the mental wherewithal to play something so sim-like so I didn't get very far in any of them. When MechAssault came out I felt like they'd made the super-casual arcade game experience from Mechwarrior that I wanted... but at that point I was a PS2 kid so I could only stare wistfully in MechAssault's direction. Obviously, the PS2 would go on to have plenty of mech-related games - and that console was my introduction to classic Gundam - but nevertheless a part of me was always curious about the MechAssault franchise.

Hands down one of the funnest games ever made

Yes the online play was the crown jewels of this game. And just like Halo, it was at first to be an RTS like MechCommander, but then all things had to be a FPS at that time. Like MechCommander you couldn't change anything on the Battlemechs unlike all the rest of the games in this setting out there. Even the one on the SNES had mech loadout customization.

I’m a big Mechwarrior 2, 3, & 4 for PC fan. I’ve got a few legacy Win98 PCs that I use just for these games. I bought Mech Assault like you did but I have no way of playing it. It looks a lot like MechWarrior 4. Halo came along and the entire gaming world changed forever…. I’m stuck in 2002 forever.

Absolutely adore battletech as a franchise, never played mech assault but i play tabletop wargame quite a bit. Plus battletech was my into to mecha and eventually caused gundam and macross/robotech to peek my interest And as a battletech fan and someone who despises how there is no easy way to enjoy macross without sailing the seven seas, may harmony gold burn for all eternity

Definitely childhood memories 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Would love to see your review of the Battletech cartoon series (if you can find it) and or the Mechwarrior series of games.

This game was soooo much fun online

God this game. I almost forgot about it. What a trip down memory lane

I had the sequel disc for a long time, I played it a ton on the 360 and loved it... Until my sister wanted to decorate her room and took a bunch of my old xbox discs and painted the backs of them.

I played this game SO much

I loved mechassault 2 so much

Best explosions ever!need to be on Xbox store👍

I have the DS mech assault game. With a Action Replay you can have unlimited ammo and rapid fire. so fun.

Everyone, Mechassault 1 is now able to be played on PC using XEMU, an original XBOX emulator

Oh the memories are back

I wish this game had a remake or at least a remaster of this spin-off series! Specially for casual mech games who are not vey mush on the side of strategy (for those I recommend 2018 Battletech game). Luckily mecha game fans will have a feast on Armored Core 6.

The first Xbox game I ever played

Wait.. a thing will inevitably eat my motherboard??? Crap, what do I have to do?

I really hope you can find a copy of #2 as it is a really fun game

5:08 yeah. I forgot about fracture also. It was definitely one of the games of all time. Now, pariah was a sleeper gem on the og Xbox with an amazing map editor. Too bad no one played it Eta: nobody mentioned pariah I just remembered renting it from Netflix back when they sent you discs in the mail.

I remember loving this game for many reasons, mostly because you could buffer overflow through a save and softmod the xbox, and FTP in a XBMC GUI.

Freekn love this game and the 2nd one wish they had made more

I think the RU-vidr BigTa1k might be able to help a bit with the playing online issue...

the reason mech assault 1 was not included in backward compatibility is because its infamous as being able to jailbreak the console DRM on an unmodded console if you mess with it.

Would love to see a video about Federation vs Zeon. Got into gundam by wing and g gundam but that game is how I learned about the Universal Century

Hey Retcon. I never wrote to tou. But i joined a couple months ago. And i fucking love your channel. From the retrospect, to the music you use. (My god the music❤) Don't know if you have. But would you be interested in reviewing " Robotech Battlecry" I fucking love and miss that game. Thanks dude. Keep up the great work

They really need to bring this game back.. for the multiplayer… so sad! I actually made the switch from ps2 to Xbox after playing the multiplayer at my cousins place!

I did not know about the Xbox deteriorating issue. I keep one exclusively for Steel Battalion, that makes me worry

ooh 360 era! Dude Cover the lost planet series.... it's got mechs, bugs, guns and even an anime spin-off on the ps3 and 3ds😂👍Pretty great game coverage dog keep it up 🫡

It's actually not an xbox exclusive series, the third one was a NDS exclusive, and it was a full on mech assault game, fully featured and everything.

You absolutely MUST do a review of R.A.D. Robot Alchemic Drive

For the record though, if you want more mech customization, the 2018 hare brained schemes battletech is pretty great if you want to go turn based, and the mechwarrior titles (five being the most readily available) are solid real time mech games. Online is kinda mixed the core game is solid, but the micro transactions really hurt it.

Been getting back into Mechwarrior Online as i wait for Armored Core 6. I gotta say that the Cougar from the box art is among my top five favorite Battlemech designs. In the lore There's an experimental variant with wings that the Inner Sphere thought was actually a macross style tramsformable battlemech...

Nice fallout 3 pc wallpaper

I think this game had a built in demo or trailer in the Brute Force game.

Hope you talk about mech assault phantom assualt on ds sometime later

I love mech assault....

3:17 So long as your ripped your own ISO, emulation isn't piracy.

I can't wait for your retrospective of the Battletech cartoon series. Please bear in mind that it's been officially retconned as in-universe propaganda aimed at children.

Battletech is my favorite sci fi universe. I'm an absolute mark for the franchise and have watched everything from the fan films to the original cartoon, and played every game since MW2 on PS1. It's unfortunate that the Harmony Gold issue (fuck HG, all my MechWarriors hate HG) and passing of the license to so many hands that it's faded in popularity over the last couple decades. IMO the TImber Wolf should be as iconic as a Space Marine or a Gundam when it comes to sci fi pop culture.

I forgot to post my comment last time, so this suggestion will come a bit late, but I'd like to throw out an obscure Mecha game suggestion based on 17:25 and 17:45 - "Sometimes, missions even remind me out of something out off an RTS." Battle Engine Aquila is very dear to me for exactly that kind of reason, though I know I'm probably biased and overestimating this 2003 game. It sits at $9.99 on Steam/GoG and centers on a future-conflict where global warming has reduced the world's landmass to about... nine islands. The story and voice acting is nothing to write home about, but the two competing armies are visually distinct with infantry, tanks, air and navy forces, and even base buildings which will churn out forces until destroyed. Your allies are outnumbered on most every mission, but you happen to pilot a pretty overpowered quadrupedal walker, the titular "Battle Engine." On the ground, you have a very powerful regenerating shield while in flight mode, that same shield meter instead becomes your flight gauge. Just... don't go in the water - the dialogue says the BEA will shut down, but I distinctly remember it exploding in gameplay. Have fun landing on enemy Battleships to take them out since you can't swim~ I think part of what gives me an "RTS scale" feeling is that your allied units will fight to their full potential, and they do come out force on defense and assault missions - they're outnumbered and outgunned by default, and sometimes too many allied losses is a game over even if you're overall winning the battle which is -annoying-, but soften up the enemy enough and surviving tank columns will push objectives, destroy enemy bases and even hunt threats. If you've won the air battle and there are no enemy air units left, allied fighters will join your bombers in gun running enemy ground troops. These aren't "Cinematic" allies that are immortal or made of plastic, they give the sense that your cool transforming walker is the hero unit in an imbalanced RTS campaign. This comment is way too long, but IMO it's an option to look into since I find that sensation of "piloting a vehicle in the middle of an RTS match" to be very rare outside of, say, dedicated action-RTS like Battlezone and Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. Thanks for taking the time to whoever read this whole thing.

Mech Assault was one of the first games to let you be an actual pilot, the tabletop was always played from far above, abstracted really. But MA, it let you feel like you were driving an engine of destruction, like you were an unstoppable badass mechwarrior here to leave your mark on the universe. Well, I suppose the Tesla pods did that too, but this didn't cost 300 plus bucks, and this one had clan mechs

Man i miss this game. Wish i could trust emulators and roms not to be riddled with viruses.

Playable on Insignia.

This reminds me of steel battalion for fact it was a Xbox exclusive. Was a shame as was summit I was interested in but not enough to get a Xbox for