Mechwarrior 2®
When MechWarrior 2® came out last year it rapidly established itself as the definitive land-based equivalent of X-Wing. The mission format transferred painlessly from piloting a star fighter to driving a huge, walking killing machine across stark battle plains. Since the first product, however, the MechWarrior 2 family has been growing. There's MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries expected in October, and we've already got the Windows 95 version of the old faithful, and NetMech, a network and modem add-on for the DOS game.

Like Activision's other Windows 95 games, MechWarrior 2® uses DirectX for graphics, but unlike the later titles, it's a strange compound beast. All the initial interaction, including the opening movie and training/mission selection takes place in a conventional window. When you go into a mission, the game takes over the full screen, looking exactly like the DOS version, down to the rather odd bar requesting that you type Ctrl-Q to exit at the end of a mission. Nonetheless, it runs fine on a Windows 95 machine and throws in a couple of extra help facilities between missions. I'm a real fan of MechWarrior 2® - the controls are complex enough to take some learning but simple enough to become instinctive, the graphics are atmospheric and the missions engaging.

One other extra that the Windows 95 version has is built-in NetMech™. This is the facility that enables up to 8 players on a network, or two via a modem to play head to head. Sadly, you can't connect the Win95 and DOS versions to each other, and the Windows variant doesn't support a null modem cable, but I was able to use a cable to connect two DOS PCs using the add-on NetMech. The host machine needs a copy of MechWarrior 2® in the drive - other players only need the NetMech software. There are facilities for text chat before a mission, then you are dropped in with live players.

Back in the misty depths of time, there was a text game based on Star Trek, played on Dec minis and mainframes. In it, you could boldly go and phaser the hell out of lots of Klingons. But it was totally transformed when the version called DecWars came out that enabled multiple players to take sides. It was always a delight to watch an innocent user log on and be splattered by the combined might of the IT department before (s)he could raise a finger. NetMech brought back this feeling. Missions are great, but there's something special about a human opponent, especially presented as one of the huge, armour plated monstrosities of the MechWarrior world. I did have technical problems - either my LapLink cable isn't a true null modem cable, or my slower PC couldn't keep up well enough to maintain synchronisation - but when it worked it was great. Overall - MechWarrior 2 for Windows 95 proves again that the new-look Windows (with a Pentium) is no sluggard as a games machine. It's every bit as smooth as the DOS game, and provided your DirectX installation goes well, there's none of the fiddling about required to get the DOS version going.
MechWarrior 2® in DOS or Win95 flavours is priced at around ú39.99 in the UK (with free extension pack to the end of November).
Netmech™ for DOS is around ú9.99 (Windows 95 version free).
Produced by Activision