ADG Episode 32 - MechWarrior

[@AMBCross]

Actually, the Marauder wasn't ripped, it was licensed. There were quite a bit of rights issues that resulted in a large lawsuit between FASA corporation and Harmony gold back in '96. All of it stemmed from some japanese companies not dishing out the rights properly. Check it out! www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseen

[@rustyshackleford6767]

Oh man I hope they bring the OLD unseen marauder back!

[@White_Tiger93]

so it was Japan company fault this whole fucking licenses of who own the Mechwarrior, Battletech & etc gone into drama queen!!

[@TheFifthHorseman_]

Gunslinger SyayoRPG/CRPG No, it was the fault of Harmony Gold - the aggressively litigious US distributor of Macross . Currently they are in yet another lawsuit related to the subject, and it comes to light that Harmony Gold may have never held the rights to the mecha in question either (Leonard French and Sid Alpha have a few videos on the subject on their channels)

[@Zeithri]

@@TheFifthHorseman_ ^This pretty much. Harmony Gold are pure evil.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

Good news, HBS beat HG to pulp in court. As per precedent, their copyright trolling can no longer proceed.

[@roguerifter9724]

I love this game, I used to play it at dad's oldest friend's house all the time. It and the two Crescent Hawk games are my top three Battletech games I want to see re-released

[@fluxrez]

This game is responsible for my interest in computers as a child

[@nothingbutchappy]

pro tip for this game, complete the story till last battle... then play then battles... its much cheaper and you get 12 million to play with

[@twoquickcapri]

I still enjoy this game today. I was just plating it earlier today. I normally use the Locust mech and gave my battle mates the Battlemaster and I will run behind the bad guy mechs and shoot their legs off and use my guys as decoys.

[@hlbatesjr]

WOW!!! I use to play the heck out of this game. I had bought the box set years ago and I still have it.

[@koalabrownie]

Yes as someone else has said they didn't copy or steal the designs. They licensed them from a company in Japan. But then also Harmony Gold (Robotech) licensed them from a different company or something. Anyway, short story HG sued them, FASA pulled the designs along with the non-Macross ones. Sucks but whatever.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

FASA shouldnt have budged, rather countersued, then the whole mess couldnt get to where it is. HG is quet literally a moneylaundering operation of the sicilian maffia, giving them an inch was a mistake.

[@koalabrownie]

@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Well FASA was already in the middle of suing a toy company- which they lost. And when you hear about authors like Stackpole getting paid late or not at all, don't think FASA had much legal power behind it. Stackpole himself was owed 10K+ and was only paid when Weisman sold FASA Interactive to Microsoft, then- after that he was immediately owed money again.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@@koalabrownie Now that is a sad state of affairs. I was unaware they had financial problems even by then.

[@reignick1133]

What kills me is all this talk of "copying" when FASA actually got the "unseen" mech designs form the original creators Studio NUE . There is no "copying" the reason they are unseen is a matter of legal confusion thanks to Harmony Gold who owns the rights to the US distribution of Macross though claims the international rights to the unseen designs. ( this claim is false as studio NUE never sold them the designs H.G. just bought the rights to the animated series ,NOT the mech design.)

[@TarlZaralka]

I remember playing an arcade game like this, it had a cockpit and everything. It was back in what 1998 when visiting relatives in Chicago. I think it was called BattleTech.

[@Pixelmusement]

TarlZaralka You're probably thinking of the Tesla Pods. There were a few variants, with the most advanced ones having SIX MFD screens and over 40 buttons, along with joystick, throttle and rudder controls. They were mostly known for BattleTech, which is the game universe MechWarrior is based in, but they also had a racing game I can't remember the name of at the moment.

[@TarlZaralka]

***** Well at least I know what they are now, either way that was a fun time and a good memory for me.

[@jamierose9095]

You only need one Battlemaster for the last 2 missions. Pick off the other mechs using cover as much as possible in part 1, then in part 2 just rush the base as fast as possible.

[@mrbigmouth502]

Might have to give this a try some time. I used to play the SNES port all the time, and though it has much nicer graphics and sound, it's greatly simplified in terms of story and gameplay.

[@otavioroz5494]

How can I run this game on DOSBOX perfectly? Because my game crashes in the middle of any mission.

[@Pixelmusement]

The settings I was using was to set the cycles count to 4000 and set the MIDI MPU401 setting to "uart" instead of "intelligent". If that doesn't help then there may be incompatibilities with the version of DOSBox you're using and you may need to try another, either a different build or a different branch like DOSBox-X or DOSBox ECE. Also, I've since discovered some software in DOSBox is not very tolerant of modern gaming mice with very high polling rates, so depending on the kind of mouse you're using that could also be an issue. If you have such a mouse but it allows adjusting the polling rate, set up a profile so you can turn it down to 125 Hz for when you're using DOSBox, or worst case scenario, use a cheaper mouse when playing games in DOSBox. (NOTE: Polling Rate is NOT the same as DPI or sensitivity, even though it has similar effects!)

[@thinkbolt]

I think you're going way overboard with the image concerns. I enjoyed the review, otherwise.

[@Brendan1259]

A lot of these mechs have been reworked in more recent games and you can blame Harmony Gold for the censorship.

[@ghost085]

Wow, Mechwarrior 2 was such an improvement.

[@SeekerLancer]

Well... it's 1995 3D vs. 1989 3D so I'd certainly hope so!

[@rubykelly2305]

When Gemini brought up the mechs and what they were based on, I googled each. The Phoenix Hawk draws inspiration from the Valkyrie, but it seems like a stretch to call it a ripoff. The Locust is fairly different from the Ostall. If I was going to design a super-lightweight mecha, I'd probably get something like the Locust or Ostall.

[@Pixelmusement]

I've long since learned the licensing fiasco was way more complicated and that the Mech designed were legitimately licensed originally, but then weird things happened and suddenly it became impossible to continue those licenses until MANY years later. :P

[@ThisIsGamerLisD]

Speaking of which, I have MechWarrior Gold sitting around somewhere... I should play it one of these days.

[@mrbigmouth502]

He didn't want to get into a legal shitstorm. I can't blame him. :P

[@KaroKoenich]

Wow. I always thought Battletech mechs were genuine. Never knew they were "inspired" by other franchises. Still love Batletech and everything connected with it.

[@Pixelmusement]

+KaroKoenich I've since learned it's a LOT more complicated than I thought it was. The designs weren't "stolen", rather the licensing got muddled up. I'm very much not an expert on what happened and continued to happen following and while I know some of the story I feel I'd butcher it if I tried to explain it. x_x;

[@AllOfTheRestWillFlow]

7 months too late but here's what happened: FASA (pronounced as a word, not an acronym btw) licensed the designs from the companies that originally made Macross and Mospeda, etc. Harmony Gold had also licensed the designs as part of their license to create the cartoon Robotech, which was a recutting of those separate series into one, with a different plot. FASA sued Playmates over their use of the designs licensed from Harmony Gold for the Robotech line of toys, citing that they created market confusion. They won, but didn't receive very much if any compensation. This led FASA to believe that they could be open to lawsuits themselves through their use of these designs, especially since Harmony Gold was known for being litigious. Accordingly, they decided to make the licensed designs "Unseen" and moved on to original designs. All in all I think this was good for the game and property, it led to iconic mechs like the Atlas and Mad Cat/Timber Wolf. The Unseen designs were revised and brought back much later, in a book called Project Phoenix. That's a MechWarrior Online DLC bundle too, that also brings the Unseen designs into the game.

[@TheFifthHorseman_]

PrinceCrystar Actually it's even more tangled up. FASA didn't license from the Japanese producers of the series but from Twentieth Century Imports, a US based importer of the model kits for the series in question. Not much can be found about that company, but apparently it was defunct at the point the HG v FASA legal debacle happened. Harmony Gold actually sued FASA after the Playmates lawsuit, although the case was eventually settled out of court. FASA gave up the use of the mecha supposedly controlled by Harmony Gold, and pulled any third party mecha designs from their products regardless of how and from whom they were licensed (including a few that FASA itself commissioned) to avoid such incidents in the future. NOW this goes even more tangled, as the matter of which of several co-producers of Macross owned which rights has been rather fuzzy - in early 2000s, this was clarified and Harmony Gold's license was amended to explicitly exclude rights to a number of mecha designs from the series. The same designs they went to heads with FASA over, in fact. This did not stop HG from continuing a policy of aggressive litigation over any perceived similar designs, and they are now suing producers of most recent Mechwarrior title over their rather different (and legally non-infringing) reimaginings of the mecha in question.

[@ineednochannelyoutube5384]

@@TheFifthHorseman_ Nd they got thrown out of court rather promptly dor being intellectual property trolls. With lrecedent now established, this farcical comedy shall end.

[@TheFifthHorseman_]

@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 Unfortunately, you're wrong. The case was settled and Harmony Gold's claim was never actually tested in the court of law. Several months ago, HG signed a new agreement with the rightsowners and now their license supposedly covers everything.

[@grapsorz]

i remember playing it for houers and houers.. until i hit a bug all the time :(