If there’s a genre you don’t see enough of these days, it’s the proper fun-focused Real-Time Strategy. Sure, you get the historically accurate intense tactics-fests (Total War, Company of Heroes), the odd attempted heir to Homeworld’s space-based crown (Ancient Space), a plague of MOBAs, and whatever the hell Blizzard feels like getting up to, but fun ground-based Command & Conquer or Dawn of War-style craziness? Surprisingly few. Upcoming there’s Grey Goo and The Red Solstice, and earlier this year there was the entertaining Meridian: New World, but perhaps you might care to peruse Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons from Camel 101? Why? Because it’s looking good fun, that’s why.
In the straightforward sci-fi story, the titular Black Talons are a mercenary group hired by the Noctae Republic to assist in their battle with the Tzanar Union. Unfortunately when the Talons arrive the Republic has already been overwhelmed by the Union. Normally this would be when a Mercenary group goes “oh darn, well nevermind, let’s go to the pub” but sadly the Tzanar Union have locked down all the Stargates (SG-1, Atlantis, even the pretty crappy movie) and are hunting down anyone with links to the Republic. As the Talons were basically the Noctae’s army they’re Public Enemy Number 1, so what was previously a fight for money has become a fight for survival. Oh, and there are Mechs too. Awesome.
Mechs & Mercs plays out in two ways - the main land-based RTS battles and in XCOM-like Base Management between missions. The RTS side seems straightforward at first but this simplicity is just skin-deep, you’ll have to consider a lot tactically if you want to succeed. Your starting team of several squads (and perhaps a Mech) drops in at a Landing Pad. You have one main mission and several optional side missions or simply ways to complete that main objective, but the key to victory is usually in gaining control over Resource Pumps and enemy Landing Pads to stop them getting reinforcements. Not always necessary admittedly perhaps but capturing those certainly helps a lot.
TURRET GO BOOM
Squads can take cover in certain areas, crouch for slightly improved accuracy and evasion, and have different attributes depending on how powerful they are so you have to make sure to use each carefully. For example, it may seem tempting to wade in to the battlefield with only a few teams of Heavy Armour Mercs but while strong they’re incredibly slow so they’re not the most useful in any mission that’s reliant on time, like half the ones I played. Likewise Mechs are fun but extremely expensive to buy and maintain, and Medium to Low Armour Mercs are cheap and quick but get cut down fast without any bigger boys to draw the fire. Finally there’s the Engineers, who can reprogram turrets and computers and build handy structures but won’t last two seconds in the line of fire.
The main resource is the not-very-exotic-sounding Command Points, which are spent on replenishing squads, repairing Mechs, building defensive structures with Engineers, and shuttling down new squads. On the battlefield these can only be obtained at special structures. In the first couple of missions I often had more Command Points than I knew what to spend on, but once the expensive Mechs entered the fray on my third mission, set on a Tatooine-like desert planet, I began struggling to keep up with any demands. Fortunately you get a completely different currency of Credits to spend back at your base, earned by completing missions.
The base, which is actually your main Battlecruiser, isn’t quite as in-depth as XCOM (no Research to be done here) but you can upgrade it, level up and mess with the equipment for your squads and Mechs, buy new stuff on the Black Market, and choose your next mission. It’s all quite straightforward really, which was lucky as there wasn’t much in the way of tutorials in the preview version I played (although it did cover the basics), and the Battlecruiser definitely adds another layer to the battlefield.
Yes! Buy it! Buy all the Mechs!
What I definitely noticed was the upgrading of unit squads. Mechs & Mercs isn’t an infinite units game like Command & Conquer, you have a select amount and if you don’t use them carefully you’re liable to end your game permanently. I personally treated squads with the same “shit, they died, I better reload my game” level of reverence as I did in XCOM, which was made even harder by the fact that mid-mission saving currently isn’t a thing. Your troops aren’t cannon fodder (which is ironic, since I treated troops in Cannon Fodder just as carefully). If you’re running low on men pull them back to a Landing Pad and buy some new members with Command Points, and if your Mech starts smoking it’s not going through its teen rebellious phase - it needs repairing, pronto. Fail to keep your men alive mission-to-mission and you’ll find the later missions get even tougher if you try to take them on using fresh teams without any upgrades.
Even then it’s a bugger, since Mechs & Mercs is tough. Seriously, I had to knock the difficulty down to ‘Novice’ on more than one occasion and even then I struggled on most missions. Even the tutorial mission gave me absolutely no quarter, luring me in with straightforward “here is a turret, shoot it” and “this is a Landing Pad, capture it” messages before suddenly opening up a bridge and bombarding me with enemy squad after enemy squad. Then it told me to basically assault a fortress with three small teams, a couple of speccy Engineers, and some bad language. And that’s just the tutorial - the following missions get much harder much faster, so don’t be surprised if you have to repeat more than one of them. I did certainly, but then I suck at thinking tactically.
Of course the game isn’t quite finished yet so there’s plenty of time for balance. Graphics for example are varied in terms of environments but aren’t the prettiest you’ll see on PC right now. That’s not necessarily important, but there are still certainly bugs or just plain areas to improve you’ll probably notice in the video. Units have trouble getting into cover spots for example, and it’s often hard to tell if they’re crouched or not. Furthermore a better and slightly fairer tutorial is recommended, even if it’s just to tell idiots like me how to replenish their squads. Oh, and a mid-mission save would be nice.
Never bring a soldier to a Mech fight
If you’re looking for a challenging, “old-school with the advantages of new-school” style RTS then Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons could well be what you’re after. It’s incredibly tough and takes-no-prisoners but when things go right it can be extremely tactically satisfying. And you can’t beat taking down an evil space empire of pillaging marauders using heavily-armoured grunts armed with rocket launchers and laser cannons and sweet, sweet Mechs.
Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons is a PC-only RTS, the best kind of RTS, and has a general release date of “Q4 2014”, so they better hurry up a bit.
