Game of the week: Mechwarrior 2 for Macs

The year is 3057. You are a warrior for either Clan Jade Falcon or Clan Wolf. Ahead of you lies the Refusal War in which you must pilot a BattleMech against your enemies. The future of the galaxy depends upon you, soldier!

Yeah? Who cares?

Let's get to shooting and blowing up stuff! Because that's what the MechWarrior games are really all about.

And MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat won't let down fans of the BattleMech genre. There's tons of combat and explosive action to be found here.

I have to admit right up front that back in the early-to-mid 1990s, I preferred Apple's Macintosh computers for gaming because they had better graphics. PC play has caught up today, but back then, the Macs ruled.

Which was on reason I preferred to play MechWarrior 2 on a Macintosh. Better graphics.

There is a complex background story to this game, and it does come up from time to time while playing, but for the most part you can just sit back and enjoy riding along in a gigantic bi-pedal tank that's sort of like a robot while you get to blow up stuff and shoot stuff.

At the start of Mechwarrior 2 you are given a choice of which of two clans to join, but either way you will face 16 missions ahead of you. The first mission or two are relatively straightforward and relatively easy, but the missions get tougher and tougher, as does the action!

This game will not bore you, I promise. Each mission is different and has different jobs needing done, and you'll have a variety of Mechs to drive as well as you'll face a variety of enemy Mechs, too.

The controls can get a little complicated because there are so many buttons to keep track of on your keyboard, and each one is important, but one of the cool things about this game is you can set up your own controls, and there's an option for quite simple controls, basically just pointing and shooting with a little movement.

The graphics are superb for the time period, perhaps the best 3D computer game graphics from the mid-1990s. And the sound is quite awesome as well; not only are the explosions and Mech noises quite believable but the musical soundtrack by Jeehun Hwang is excellent, quite militaristic in places.

So, if you're an old-school Mac gamer, you've got to get this game. You'll be doing yourself a favor.

Enjoy!