Mechwarrior 3: Pirate's Moon

The 20 new missions (including night operations) included with the add-on are split into two minicampaigns of 10 missions each. Players first fight a wily band of Mech pirates, then get to switch sides to play the game from the pirates' perspective. Battles are more difficult than in the original MechWarrior 3, a result of enhanced enemy artificial intelligence and the sheer tonnage of enemy equipment thrown at you each mission. Thankfully, the artificial intelligence works both ways, as your computer-controlled "wingmen" (called lancemates) do a fairly good job of helping out during the more grueling battles.

The challenging missions are Pirate's Moon's greatest asset if you are an experienced player or its greatest liability if you just squeaked by in the original game. The new goodies should be enough to make this an add-on any MechWarrior 3 fan will appreciate. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Enhances the original game's special effects
• Challenging new missions
• New Mechs and weapons to play with

• A bit unfair in terms of difficulty
• Night missions leave a lot to be desired

The first mission of the game, you have a choice of one medium (50 tons) mech, and two lights (35 tons each) for two pilots. Then you proceed to face, not one, but two Thors, which outweigh you by 20 to 35 tons.

On the second mission, again, you are facing much heavier mechs than you have access to, and if you stray too close to the enemy base, you end up with an assault lance on your trail. Did I mention that the enemy is using pretty much all Clan mechs?

The third mission you have to protect a base. If you can get there before the enemy wipes it off the face of Vail that is. You have to run all out to TRY to get there first, and then you face off with several heavy mechs, while the enemy Ryoken is tearing things apart.

On the fourth mission, you have to protect a convoy, which generally gets destroyed before you ever get relatively close to it. Even if you get close, they have destroyed more than half of it, and you will have your hands too full to try to find out which mech is taking out the trucks. Either way, you tend to lose over, and over, and over, and over.

What it seems like is that they traded a variety of missions with having to play the same one over and over until you actually beat it. Each of the missions you have to flat out run to get where you have to be, or you will lose. No options. No choices. Had I known that it was so unballanced, I would never have wasted my money on this game.


Keep the expansions coming, guys!   May 24, 2003
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This, the one and only expansion to Mechwarrior 3 rocks. You play a pilot on a remote moon, battling the 'New Belt Pirates' an unknown pirate group.

The game interface is the same one used in the original game, so it rocks. The added background story in this game makes it more fun to play that the original, as do the new 'mechs you can get. I think I play this more than the original Mechwarrior 3. Hmm....

This is an expansion, and will not play without the original game installed on your system. If you purchase the MW3 Gold edition it comes with the expansion. That would be the way to go.


Bushmaster is nutz ITS a E-X-P-A-N-S-I-O-N-!   March 23, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Well Bushmaster really is mental,he doesnt understand that they put the slip EXPANSION PACK on the game so people wont be expecting a whole new game with new graphics and huge updates.

If they didnt have Expansion Pack on it well of course id be with Bushmaster but they had it on... Anyway

()to the point()

This game is quite good,i find the mechs are quite excellent too.theres just one mech that i dun think could hold its ground against 5 apcs but its quite good...and if you DO look close enough you can see the graphics are just a tiny bit improved.Though nothing to MW4 this is a great addition to the Mech Warrior series expansion and can really warm the story from MW3 up a bit.

This is a game worth the money.

()Put em up Bushmaster put em up!!()


Good but MW3 still loads first.   January 9, 2001
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you are a single player person who is looking for some more action out of the Battletech games this is a fine addition to the collection. The addition of mechs, weapons and improved graphics will be quite pleasing. However for Multiplayer MechWarriors this is probably not the product to buy, the MW3 CD still sits in my computer for internet play as well as LAN games.