Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons

 PC
User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 16 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 16
  3. Negative: 6 out of 16

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  1. Perun
    Jan 10, 2015
    7
    Its really hard to rate this game, there are good things and bad

    Firstly, this game was made for small group of tactical gamers, but developers somehow tried to bring this game not to only to tactical gamers but to wider audience and mixed it with arcade-ish gameplay -and thats bad, people who play starcraft will come and say "Its so slooow" and tactical gamers will miss lot of    Its really hard to rate this game, there are good things and bad

    Firstly, this game was made for small group of tactical gamers, but developers somehow tried to bring this game not to only to tactical gamers but to wider audience and mixed it with arcade-ish gameplay -and thats bad, people who play starcraft will come and say "Its so slooow" and tactical gamers will miss lot of strategic options which make game slower and more boring for wider audience but more better for us (who are first to buy title like this)
    -so thats problem nuber one, lack of deep strategy, tactics
    Your soldiers just stay there in open and shoot few secs until some of them die ...thats all, there IS suppression and even crossfire which is caused when you flank your enemy but real fight is so fast that you almost never use it
    There is no prone stance, no spotters, no ambush, no ballsitics, its just Command and Conquer style fight
    -Second problem are maps, aesthetically pleasing, but not strategically. Most of the time you have only one option and one narrow passage to attack your enemy positions and you can only apply one strategy "frontal assault", game just throw you into series of frontal assaults even if they are slaughter for your soldiers and any sane person would just deserted from your mercenary band, resuppling your squad with new members have no penalty toexperience which is pretty stupid, because most of the time you will loose lot men from 6 men squads (one time I lost 23 men from one squad, but becasue one always somehow survived I just respplied them with new ones)
    -Balance, light units are useless, medium are barely usable and heavy slow moving squad is just "must have" they have biggest versatility, longest range and can withstand this fights when opposing sites just stand and shoot on each other
    I would give light units ability to go prone which will give them less hit probability and higher accuracy, option to hide in terrain to ambush unsuspecting enemies etc. hell, options are limitless
    -various bugs -sometimes soldiers have problem with pathfinding, sometimes one or two members of squad are stuck in some tree or wall, sometimes I give them order to defend barricade, yet they just slowly start moving at enemy and not whole squad but just one soldier
    -for small studio there is quite nice music, and sounds are kinda good but lack that ...impact on you ...like ricochet on soldier armor sounds like knocking on tin pot, guns have indistinguishable sounds and voices are just constant mumbling with same one voice
    -hilarious ragdolls, bodies just fly in air like paper,
    and what piss me off mostly bodies disappear from battlefield in one second, its year 2015 and not 2005, pc machines can handle few dead bodies!

    And now good things

    -Atmosphere, its really nice, it looks like something from future and it feels like it.
    -Design, its huge win of this game, from ships to soldiers design is just superb, soldiers in futuristic suits and weapons looks all great and are exactly how I imagine future battlefields
    -large variety of weapons and mechs
    -experience system, its simplistic but have various options to upgrade your soldiers and even have upgrade path
    -You choose your contracts
    -Some sort of diplomacy -you can ally with variety of factions and they are all different, with different goals and tech that can provide to you    … Expand
  2. Thrillseeker
    Jan 12, 2015
    3
    I wanted to like this game, i really did. But it keeps... well, being what it is.

    The premise is interesting, but the execution is shoddy at best. The game is hopelessly clunky, units move dreadfully slowly, they react slowly or sometimes not at all. Pathfinding is tragic, i've had soldiers get stuck on trees, turrets and various bits of scenery. Many times i had soldiers leave cover to    I wanted to like this game, i really did. But it keeps... well, being what it is.

    The premise is interesting, but the execution is shoddy at best. The game is hopelessly clunky, units move dreadfully slowly, they react slowly or sometimes not at all. Pathfinding is tragic, i've had soldiers get stuck on trees, turrets and various bits of scenery. Many times i had soldiers leave cover to engage enemies without me specifically ordering them to do it - which of course ends badly for my men.
    Balance - what balance ? Light squads are pointless, medium squads only work when shielded by heavies or in cover. Mechs have poor firepower and are idiotically expensive to fix in the field, which makes using them pointless. Heavy squad can do the same job better in every way. The only use a mech has is to be equipped with longest range weapon possible and staying behind heavies who soak up the punishment. Even then, for the cost and weight the extra firepower isn't worth it, especially since You can only deploy 6 combat units. Medium squad has higher damage output and since You have to use heavies as a shield in both cases, you're just better off. Also, medium squad is a lot cheaper, cheaper to maintain (replacing lost members vs repairing a mech), and when levelled up they might bring unique abilities to the table. Mech pilots don't get that. Similar problem with weapons - missile launchers are end-all be-all weapon, everything else is second tier.
    Graphics are okay i guess, not great but good enough for a game of this type. One issue i had with the looks are the animations - units movements are stiff and ugly, especially mechs which move like they weren't huge hunks of metal. There is simply no weight to them. Not a massive problem but it kept annoying me.
    Music is pretty good, sounds do their job, even tho lots of automatic weapons sound exactly (or almost exactly) the same.
    I liked the ship, ability to specialize squads (even tho they don't level high enough for You to seriously beef up Your squads with skills and extra health/armor/accucuracy and such...), customize their loadouts to some extent (tho it is somewhat limited), and the fact that even within the same armor weight there are differently specialized squads (support, recon, tactical etc) all of which come with their own set of skills. What i didn't like is customization of mechs which was poor i thought. There isn't enough room to play with, not enough equipment choices for them.

    I love the idea of a small but skilled mercenary unit backed up with mechs. It just doesn't deliver. There is not enough 'merc' stuff - weapons aren't bought, You don't have to pay people to stay with You, You don't pay for fuel or deployments. Only thing You pay for are new squads, new mechs and tech upgrades for the ship (and dropship) itself. It doesn't seem to be a merc outfit at all.

    It pains me to do this, but i have to advise caution when considering purchase of this game. It looks good on screens, the premise is very appealing - but it never quite gets there. Big, big shame.    … Expand
  3. blade01
    Jan 9, 2015
    3
    This game lookes promissing at first, but after a short time im bored.Some nice ideas!The game is influenced from many other, older games.You can upgrade your ship, customize your troops and mechs, there are several factions and so on.Nothing of this can save the clunky mechanics.Dont by this game!The RTS part is painfull to watch and so slow, it hurts.Even you scout-units that proballyThis game lookes promissing at first, but after a short time im bored.Some nice ideas!The game is influenced from many other, older games.You can upgrade your ship, customize your troops and mechs, there are several factions and so on.Nothing of this can save the clunky mechanics.Dont by this game!The RTS part is painfull to watch and so slow, it hurts.Even you scout-units that probally should be fast and agile are slow.The mapdesign is bad when you consider the features in the game.You can take cover, get bonus to def.This is contrdicted my the fact that its hard to take cover.You units wander arround, painfully slow and you cant take cover from the side you want.The game tells you where you can take cover.One example:You storm a up a ramp, the enemy is in cover.You need to fight your way up th ramp without cover, thats ok.But when you reach the cover, you cant use it from your side!!!Only from the other side, where the enemy was.What the heck?This is stupid.And in the first mission the game tells you that you can use crossfire.On the first map, the mapdesign is so dumb that you cant use features such as crossfire because the map is designed to give the AI an adavantag.There are chokepoints everywhere.Another problem is the unit selction.Example:Second mission, you get no usefull infos in the briefing.The briefing tell you to escort civilists.So i thought i should bring along some heavy troopers because my other troops die too quickly.Turns out, you dont know where the civilists will go and you dont know where the enemys will spawn.So, because of the fact that EVERY unit is so slow, you need to restart this mission when you know how to approach it(because you can take 4 units with you, which is not enough inthis mission i think).

    This game is bad, im sorry.Sound is bad, visuals are bad too.Everything looks bad and on my PC even the intro is lagging.What the hell?Btw, if you make a game where take you units through the entire campaign you should do everything in your power to make sure all the features are working properly.Like the cover system!And the units die far too quick i think.Plus, i was not be able to heal my units.I could order reinforcements, but the rest of the unit remains in its shape.Bug?Dont know, dont care, dont my this game!Buy Ground Control instead, its much better!!!    … Expand
  4. totalmech
    Jan 10, 2015
    8
    I've been following the progress of this game since kickstarter.
    Just got it today, and I must say I'm impressed.
    There's a perfect blend of genres here that remind (obviously) Xcom but in a different way.
    The only thing I have to note is that there could be more info about the weapons.
  5. Buba28
    Jan 10, 2015
    9
    The game is fun, reminds me of warhammer dawn of war mixed with mechwarrior. If you don't like rts games this is not a game for you. I enjoyed it for 10 hours already it's longer than that for sure. I didn't encountered any major bugs so far.
  6. Kapanga
    Jan 12, 2015
    9
    Mechs & Mercs is a tactical game that happens to be in real time.
    That doesn't mean that it's RTS. It's a RTT game.
    There's no base building and infinite unit spawning here.
    You need to care for your troops and plan your moves wisely.
    It's tactically very demanding, which is very refreshing compared to the dumbed down trend of lately.
  7. Buliza
    Jan 12, 2015
    8
    Game puts you in control of a mercenary company that fields soldiers and mechs.
    It throws you right into the thick of the action and gives you no quarter. You'll have to make use of cover, terrain and the specific tactical bonuses of each class (heavy, stealth, etc).
    I'm giving it an 8 because the game is great. With more updating from the devs, I can give it a 9.
  8. LovelySHole
    Feb 6, 2015
    9
    Indie game that deserves its place among the crowd.
    The missions require a tactically precision that's rarely seen in this type of game. The XCom spirit is obvious in the battleship, where soldiers can be trained and equipped with diverse material.

Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 3 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 3 out of 3
  1. Eurogamer Italy
    Jan 28, 2015
    40
    Merchs & Mercs Black Talons is an uninspired RTS that doesn't add anything interesting to the classic formula; instead it falls completely flat because of its simplistic and trivial gameplay.
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  2. Softpedia
    Jan 18, 2015
    45
    An overall disappointing experience that could have become at least decent, given enough time to mature and refine its gameplay systems. Instead, Mechs & Mercs: Black Talon seems like a rushed and incomplete product, the way it is right now.
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  3. Hooked Gamers
    Jan 18, 2015
    30
    It’s hard to see Mechs & Mercs: Black Talon as anything but a sloppily made game.
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