MechWarrior 3 - The Flawed Favorite 

What is your MechWarrior 3 memory?

Seriously, the intel officers VO work is still one of the best performances in video gaming

What's great about MW3 is how it feels much more "mil" sim vs others in the franchise in a large part of from the briefings/mission structure, HUD, free aiming controls, environmental impact on cooling, how lasers work etc. MW4 and MW5 don't fully realise what MW3 captured

The only Mech Warrior game with good, convincing voice acting.

I'm an old timer that played all MW games when they came out. MW3 to me was the best of the bunch because it was the closest to a simulation it ever got. MW4 turned into a FPS with mech skins. I was so bummed when MW4 released because I was hoping to see an upgraded MW3 engine. A real shame because even MW online and MW5 although better than 4 stayed away from being a full sim. It's all about being accessible I guess. Long live MW3!

This is my favorite of the Mechwarrior games! I completed it on stream a few months ago and I basically won't shut up about it whenever the conversation turns to this series lol

My favorite thing about MW3 is how quickly we meet up with our buddy Keith Andrew. And we love it how all the plans come together. *cough* :) "Thanks... You know how to liven up the party. Keith? KEITH ANDREW!"

This game desighner was doing double duty… mate thats the entire industry in 90s and early 2000s. Most if not all voice acting were staff. All the same guys voice acting was fantastic.

My first MechWarrior or let's say Mech-Kneecapper game. Playing this beauty with a joystick was so much fun. Sadly I can barely run my original copy of this gem on modern PCs nowadays...

One thing this title managed to convey really well is the lumbering nature of mechs. I felt mech's in MW4 were cartoonish, zig-zagging all over the place and jerking their huge weapons as if they were toys. Not until the latest titles - MWO & MW5 - did designers manage to recapture the heft & weight of mechs.

Loved the "calm professional" voice for the Intelligence officer. Reminds me of the pilot voices in Homeworld. Also loved the milsim nature of it, the destructible environment and feeling all the maps were connected. Though I just packed my Thor with ER Lasers and heat sinks and sniped legs from BVR.

Does anyone remember the old Star League online system built on a website to show battle results in real-time so to try and make MW into a real world campaign system? And remember Phil Kildare aka: Archon Kildare of House Steiner? I was his right hand man, his military advisor (and pre-clans Inner Sphere Battletech historian), my handle was MH Davion, as in Morgan Hasek Davion. I also knew Jordan Weisman and Sam Lewis from FASA too. Used to run the Renegade Legion boardgame demos at gemcons for Sam back in the 80s in SoCal too. And played for years at the Virtual World Battletech centers in SoCal too. Oh the fun days! Miss them a lot today!

Another really well done review! This game is still my favourite Mechwarrior game. It has the limitations you mentioned but I was just blown away back in the day by the graphical improvements. I played all MW2 games and loved them but coming from them and seeing the much more detailed mechs and environments was a real eye opener. Also the small details like birds and the mech footprints on the ground or the steam rising from the water around your mech when it was starting to overheat made the game world feel more alive. I also preferred the mechlab to MW2 and definitely to MW4 which uses a slightly annoying system to streamline the way one outfits his/her mech - you will see what I mean when you review MW4. 😄 The ease of legging mechs in the game is an issue but when switching to the mode where the weapons are fixed to the rotation of the torso it makes it a bit harder, especially in close combat. That's how I played it most of the time.

this game looks so dang good. every game zipper ever touched is a classic, no wonder.

To me, this is the best MechWarrior game. Playing 4 felt like a step backwards and I never really got into it. I understand 3 may not be quite as good in terms of simulation, but I just think the overall experience is much more fun. The intro cinematic was absolutely killer too and really got you in the mood to play. The voices, sound effects, graphics, and missions are all awesome. I mean come on the startup sequence in this game is too good and the weapons sound so much better and chunkier than other entries. I'll admit the variety of playstyles and environments can be a bit lacking. If you play just to enjoy though, not to minmax and destroy everything as fast as possible, it's just a great experience.

Among a lot of nice things I could remember about MW3 (not as nice ones were few), I want to put forward just two: in MW3 I really felt like piloting a 80 ton machine, the second is MW3 worked fine (and looked great) on Pentium 133/24 with an ancient 2 Mb video card. Also thanks for a short and yet very balanced review.

Probably my favorite for feel out of the series

This was my childhood. Thank you for such a great video covering it!

MW3 has the best atmosphere in entirety of franchise imho, the feeling of isolation, hostile planet and guerilla grit hasn't been matched

The plotline was somehow bleaker than Starsiege (which is an accomplishment). Being isolated, on an enemy planet (a clan one at that, with their degree of alienness), essentially stranded on a suicide mission, and then proceeding to engage in total war (i.e. commit war-crimes)... made it feel like every time you lost was a timeline where your characters did die instead of escaping. There were terrain glitches that could do you in part way through a mission - but I remember it as being very white knuckled.

The 1.0 bug that had lbx autocannons have a outsized chance to knock down enemy mechs. I used to cheese that soooo much

Great review - as another commenter mentioned, extremely fair and well balanced. For me, MW3 is a game of incredible promise. There are many things it does better than any other title in the series, but it also has it's fair share of flaws as well. For me, it is the detail, immersion, and "sim" feeling that make MW3 what it is. The recoil you experience when firing a heavy weapon. The fear that comes from facing down a UAC20 wielding enemy mech, as each shot throws your aim off and leaves you in serious trouble. And the maps - did you catch the way that all the missions link together? There's really only 5(or 6, depending on how you count it) different maps in the game, but they're massive areas that are then divided up in the smaller individual missions, with each mission linking in with the last and the next. You can backtrack through previous missions if you want, which all adds to the immersion. In world, each mission is taking place immediately after the next, and I love that. And a quick thing on the voice acting, the in-game credits list Michael Mancuso as both the tactical officer, and also game design. Now, Pirate's Moon on the other hand....I look forward to your thoughts!

This was such an awesome game to play in my childhood. I never had the chance to play it enough, due to my age and accessibility. It was only at my grandfathers, that I was able to play. The only game that finally scratched the itch that not playing this game enough is Everspace. Both games allows you to customize your machine visually and the weapons as well. It was mostly the weapon customizing that I loved, but also the different parts on mechs being damaged. I always knew there was much awesomeness to this game, that I didn't even have the chance to touch.

Sounds strange, but one of my favorite things about this game was that the radio chatter would overlap. And other games, a voice (sometimes even enemies) would patiently wait for the last person to finish talking. Felt so fake

The voice actor is indeed Michael Mancuso. Last I heard he was lecturing in game design but that would have been a decade or so ago. He really did do a fantastic job - I think because it's not as hammy and over-the-top compared to the usual voice acting fare present in MW games. As it's now 25 years old, I am baffled no one has put together an interview with the Zipper Interactive/Hasbro Games/FASA Interactive/MicroProse team - especially Mancuso - it would be fascinating to hear from them about what happened behind the scenes and their memories of working on it, other things they wanted to do and what they are most proud of. As the menus are so lean and there are limited rendered cutscenes the impression is one of a very, very lean production schedule, but they did a superb job. The voice acting, sounds, the visuals, the 'feel' of the mechs and weaponry are all brilliant and no other mechwarrior game has come close to getting that heft of a 100 ton mech firing ultra autocannons in the way this one did. Has anyone ever found an explanation for the blip in the Pirate's Moon expansion? During the escort the convoy along the road to madre mission, it is mentioned that Dominic is missing, but then he appears as a voice over at the end of the mission. It always felt like they got those two missions and their respective voiceovers out of order.

7:17 "i see you're back 621" ayo OwO!

You work so hard doing these. You def need more than just 1.7k views!

Bought a computer that would play it in 99' been hooked every since. I currently have been playing MWO for almost 10 years now. It is very similar game play. Pirates Moon was a sweet version and MSN gamezone server was almost lag free.

As I recall it was a demanding game at the time that never emulated well over the years so it never got much attention. It's a crime against gaming that this series hasn't been preserved for sale.

Fact, Microprose is back as a publisher for indie sim am strat games, and their games are quite good.

Back in the day of 56K modems where you had to learn to lag shoot

Been good watching your progress through the series

I remember MW3 beeing buged as h_ll. There was this one mission with this long bridge. I couldn't get past this mission because of bugs. Most of the time your own convoy got stuck or didn't move at all. Other times the AI destroyed the bridge while trying to hit me or simply repeatedly ramed into its pillars with thier mechs. I've even seen a mech walking through the air, after the bridge was destroyed under his feets. And of course more than once the game simply crashed. I put this game to the side and waited for MW4.

The first battletech game i've played :)

I'm pretty sure the voice actor for the mobile base command is done by Garry Chalk. He voiced optimus prime in the 90's beast wars and I also remember he was in star gate sg1 as a Russian general. I'm pretty sure he also did the mw2 mercs tutorial teacher.

this is without a doubt the best mech game, the story telling is so engulfing you feel like your the guy in the mech. the intercepted messages just make you feel so vindicated

Great job on the video!

This is where Battletech peaked. The best of the best.

Your madcat build is just like mine lol. The ER leg assassin

Ii really enjoyed MechWarrior 3. The campaign was pretty fun.

I have the big box with all the manuals etc. Started it some time ago on my Windows 98 retro PC, felt good. Should try to continue when I have the time.

I remember seeing it being demo'ed in the video game section of a Walmart once.I was thoroughly impressed with it. Tomb Raider 2 was also being demonstrated at the time. Yeah, this was the early GameCube days when Star Wars Rogue Squadron had insane graphics.

Love this game. The bushwacker is a cool mech.

This is one of the few games that has gotten multiple full playthroughs out of me.... and yes using the ERPPC + med laser build is one of the most effective ways to run through the campaign. The heaviest LB-X autocannon loadout manageable on the Annihilator was definitely a great way to wipe out legs or just generally deal damage at close range.... but ammo was definitely an issue that kept me from using it that much, same with the rest of the ballistic weapons. I learned early on that the rest of the crew better be on energy weapon loadout due to ammo and accuracy issues. I don't think they even did well with LRMs...... Most of the time they mostly seemed only really useful to draw fire. I kind of wished that the LRM+ Targeting Computer had been more effective at taking out cockpits. As it was, legging opponents with energy weapons was really the best way to go. I also wondered why the ACs had the range drop as the caliber increased.... It made some sense with the LBX canons since they are a shotgun like weapon, but heavier calibers usually carry their momentum further than lighter calibers due to the cube/square effect. A lot more goes into the final range, but we are firing a larger, more effective round out of a similar design gun with caliber being the main defining character, and the useful range doesn't just decrease a little, it tanks the range hard between an AC2 and the AC20 going from 720 all the way down to 270. I would have thought that as long as the round is still being shot fast enough to still deal much larger damage it should still have at least a similar effective range, or at least not this big of a loss.

This is another game that I only got to experience after its heyday. But it is the most faithful and brutal MechWarrior outing to date. I love MW5, but MW3 was special. And it's the only game that made Targeting Computers actually do something. And that was great. And I loved the differences in mechanics between standard lasers and pulse lasers.

It's true you can knee cap your way to victory pretty easily. But this is the best game engine out the bunch from 1-5. It feels very weighty to control and detaching your reticule makes killing bad guys easy peasy. There is an issue with pulse lasers not pulsing, visually like a standard laser would not, pulse lasers are for heat conservation. But what I'm about to say about MW4 is game breaking. In MW4 if you do not fire whilst your laser or ballistic shot is on the enemy and in front of your crosshair it will fail to connect. Even if the enemy immediately becomes in your crosshairs a millisecond later and your laser is a long sustained shot - no damage will be done to the enemy. The above paragraph makes MW4 into a complete joke. The whole game is just making sure you NEVER fire a shot unless you have an enemy directly in front of your crosshairs. There's no leading shots, no peppering the enemy as best you can by firing all over the place. The whole game is about pinpoint precision or a complete miss. No in-between. Made much more difficult now you can't detach your reticule. This is so monumentally crap, I can't believe it isn't moaned about constantly or been fixed. But that is why MW4 is a silly toy game.

Another day another great video.

MW3 was challenging for a number of reasons. 1 - the voice acting was good. But after MW2, where the story happened in your head, I got sick of the same voice over and over. Amazing how much more effective MechCommander was in creating an immersive story. 2 - largely forgotten now but as one poster said game was glitchy, and actually had a lot compatibility issues. It was well known that this game was temperamental and didnt jive with all systems of that time, particularly videocards. It did not like my Diamond Viper 770 TNT2 card at all. Never actually finished the game as I got to one mission involving an ANH and it would crash. Every time. Tried all sorts of tricks to stabilise it - Mission Failed. 3 - hype hangover. MW2 was such a colossal event in Battletech. MW3 could never be that again, despite wild graphics improvements and interesting gameplay concepts it always felt somehow sterile and lonely. Should have enjoyed it more. Loved the cut scenes and box art. The bugs and endless empty world/disconnect from story kind of ruined it for me back then I guess. After MW2 I expected so much. Too much maybe.

the VO of the intelligence officer, has a part in the intro of Falcon 4.0 as an F-16 pilot too

We bought this game probably around 2000 and my was i relieved that sequels DID exist for this franchise. Without prior knowledge regarding the importance of CPU/GPU performance, our pc ran a pentium 100 with a trident 2D/3D card running the software at 10-23 frames per second. And this game is infamous for its bugs and glitches often freezing the entire computer. One of the biggest departures and letdowns of this sequel is Jeehun Hwang didnt return to score this installment. You know when a product is rushed, that only TWO tracks is present in the redbook audio of the game which had me CRUSHED. Overall, i beat the game using the same primitive system specs and felt underwhelmed by the end of it. Good luck finding a copy on Ebay with the box...its over $300 now. This game was a total miss for me. 🤷‍♂😔

Buenos días el Mech 4 fue el que me engancho y en español ya no volvió a repetirse 😂

I remember there were little soldiers you could tread on, and maim horribly haha it was diabolical

Played this one on a Pentium II 450, with a 32 megabyte Diamond V770. Scrounged every penny I had to buy that card.

this gmae used to be nearly impossible to run on modern systems.

yeah it took a while, but the voodoo tool is pretty reliable. There is a mod for mw3 and it looks really awesome, but I never could get it to run on my machine.

The ability to use mouselook to control the targeting reticle without moving torso was a great way to simulate helmet /head tracking targeting. Loved it, and lack of this was imho the worst disappointment in following mechwarrior games.

MW3 has the best interface in the series.

MFBs. That alone, *made* this game vs. the rest of the series. Only seeing stationary 'gantry' style (M)FBs in MW4 and 5 (and *very* rarely), is a shame. Also worth noting, the style of and the way the textures are rendered, leaves MW3 'aging well'.

It's mad how modding can make a game run that smooth! Man, I'm not sure i could stick a game that's just escort missions!

yeah i remember being a bit dissapointed by this one when it came out,. Use to call it cripplewarrior.

Besides very distinct "control" / pacing feel mw 3 has vs mw4/mw5, one thing that is weird, but I kinda liked it - completely free build of mechs without slots limitations. Have supernova chassis, wana put UAC20 on it? yeah go ahead :) . Also I only got to try pirates moon much (10-15 years later), and omg the jump in difficulty, granted I played mw3 isnane number of times, I could probably recite objectives of each mission and decent plan how to go about them, but still... right from the get go pirates moon missions are harder than hardest original mw3 missions.

Just as a film nerd, what Malkovich movies have you seen? Interested in the voice actor thing

I love this game its just so glitchy. Needs a remaster because it has some really excellent ideas. Mobile field base is really cool and it has a sense of scale, weight and immersion beyond the others. Mw2 had the atmosphere Mw3 has the scale and immersion Mw4 has the game play

I never managed to play through this game. By the time I had a computer powerful enough to run it, things like drivers got in the way and I could never get it to run without ground vehicles bouncing around like fleas on a trampoline (due to the fact that I was using an ATI graphics card).

This game needs a proper remake. It's super difficult to get running stable.

Needs a remake or at least a steam release including the expansion.

Man, I've tried to get this game running on Windows 7/10, but it's such a pain in the ass I always end giving up. I can set up and play MECH 2 Mercs easily though, and that's DOS game.

Flaws? This game had none.

He also played the Narrator is Star Trek

I used to play this online , shooting legs was considered taboo and ghey

Weird. I thought I had commented on this video last night (Its about 1:30 AM here). I guess two channels I watch reviewed the game a few hours apart or something. Anyway I love this game. I prefer the next game's story and the period it and its expansions are in. My main issue is the changes in Mech customization. Sure this game didn't include any of my favorite Mechs but it didn't matter because as long as I had a Mech in the right weight class, and the proper parts I could make a custom Mech that was exactly what I wanted to pilot. I usually ran a modded Orion, Avatar, or Timber Wolf. Your build sounds kind of like mine but I go for two ER Large Lasers (The longest range weapons in the game if memory serves), four to six Medium Pulse Lasers, and include some Jump Jets. Edit: You should like 4. The main game isn't multi planet but there's more feudal political influence in the story. It focuses on a planetary rebellion that is part of a massive civil war across the nation the planet belongs to.

It was a good game..

Ran it on Windows ME.

Whats great about MW3 it featured elementals something pgi is incapable of acomplishing....

How do you even get this thing running? MW4 was enough of a struggle.

I'd be willing to try this game out if it wasn't such a bitch to get working. I guess i'll have to stick to Starsiege for now.

The best in series. Every shot has substantial impact, mech moves like heavy but agile creatures. Damage marks on mechs. Even craters after missiles hit the ground. (But dumb ai and wrong machinegun mechanics)

This game came free when I bought the sidewinder joystick for combat flight Sim. This game blew my socks off and all the others still feel inferior.

May I Request Video about all MW3 weapons?

Mechwarrior 3 is by far the best. Its atmosphere, campaign, visuals and mechanics were amazing.. and especially compared to the very disappointing Mechwarrior 4 which was a downgrade on so many levels.

I loved mechwarrior 2. I really did not like mechwarrior 3. I love all the mechwarrior 4 games, and mechwarrior online in the first 2 years.

Trying to play 3 for furst time. I fonally.got.se.stuff sorted and patched but no mattwr.how i try to turn thw game.down. the glass breaking blasts my ears off.. i cant play the game till i find a mod that fixes or something. Please anyone know anything i been searching for awhile

MW3 still a better game then PGI’s MW5.

dude, your pronunciation of jaguar is throwing me, never heard it that way..

MW3 looked and played better than MW4....fight me

Umm you are like 300 years late to the party, mate xD

My least favorite of the series.

Back in the day before big budget voice acting in video games, game devs often did pull double duty for voice acting on the cheap or free. Not sure if this was the case in MW3, but it certainly could have been.

It's true you can knee cap your way to victory pretty easily. But this is the best game engine out the bunch from 1-5. It feels very weighty to control and detaching your reticule makes killing bad guys easy peasy. There is an issue with pulse lasers not pulsing, visually like a standard laser would not, pulse lasers are for heat conservation. But what I'm about to say about MW4 is game breaking. In MW4 if you do not fire whilst your laser or ballistic shot is on the enemy and in front of your crosshair it will fail to connect. Even if the enemy immediately becomes in your crosshairs a millisecond later and your laser is a long sustained shot - no damage will be done to the enemy. The above paragraph makes MW4 into a complete joke. The whole game is just making sure you NEVER fire a shot unless you have an enemy directly in front of your crosshairs. There's no leading shots, no peppering the enemy as best you can by firing all over the place. The whole game is about pinpoint precision or a complete miss. No in-between. Made much more difficult now you can't detach your reticule. This is so monumentally crap, I can't believe it isn't moaned about constantly or been fixed. But that is why MW4 is a silly toy game.