BattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat
The 31st century is a brutal and violent place. The galaxy is racked by a devastating war waged with gigantic 75-ton BattleMechs teeming with the most ruinous weapons that science can create. MechWarriors like you are needed to pilot the "Madcat" Heavy OmniMech on desperate missions against enemy installations! This is the world of BATTLETECH! Alone against the relentless onslaught of hordes of enemy defenders, you'll need skill and cunning to knock out your objectives. Steer your lumbering 'Mech into the savage fury of a hornet's nest of attackers, and cut loose with the Madcat's incredible firepower to lay waste to all before you! Fight to the last for a victory that will bring you honor and glory! And if honor isn't motivation enough, it helps to remember that the enemy doesn't take prisoners... The game has the player control a Mech outfitted with an arsenal of missiles and energy weapons in missions that take place on a large map. The player can freely roam around and explore the mission's map before tackling the objectives of the stage. The main single player mode in the came is a campaign that tasks them with several objectives spanning various missions. These can be getting to objective points, clearing out enemies, or escorting convoys across the map. The game contains a cooperative two player mode where one player controls the bottom half of the Mech to navigate it around the battlefield while the other player controls the top half of the Mech and its arsenal independently.
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This is perhaps best summed up as 'Desert Strike with mechs', and it's hard to go wrong with a game featuring giant robots shooting at each other. It also did a lot right: there's a nice variety of weapons to choose from, and interesting missions with different objectives that need to be completed before progressing, like destroying radar jammers, or finding bomb components to destroy a wall.
Its biggest misstep is unfortunately one that most action games live and die on: its controls. One extremely big issue is how the mech responds when you engage firing mode; if you're already locked onto an enemy then you will remain locked onto them even as you move around, but if you're not locked onto an enemy then your d-pad will control the direction of fire as you continue walking in the same direction. The problem is that 'locking on' is so finicky that if you're trying to shoot a turret while backing away from its return fire, about half the time you'll end up walking straight into its line of fire while shooting backwards like a dumbass. On later stages with more powerful enemies, the difference between these two actions is the difference between life and death, and given how many enemies you face you will end up dying a lot with it very rarely being your fault.
Better controls and perhaps an unlimited continues/checkpoint system would have made this many times better!