Mastering your loadout is just as important as battlefield prowess.

Browser-based games have been awesome for a long time thanks to independent Flash developers, but there’s still a general distaste for them amongst the gaming community due in part to the legion of generic, boring titles unleashed on Facebook users. If you still hear the word “browser” and immediately think about closing the story you’re reading (please don’t go!), MechWarrior Tactics could be the title that changes your mind. Using a Unity engine plugin, the team at Roadhouse Interactive has accomplished some strikingly pretty visuals. While Tactics won’t be as complex as playing a classic round of tabletop MechWarrior, a surprisingly robust customization system and deep combat mechanics make this anything but a throwaway, casual version of the franchise.

While MechWarrior Tactic’s turn-based nature makes it a bit more approachable than the intense in-cockpit combat of MechWarrior Online, Tactics doesn’t shy away from layering on complex mechanics. To start, you have to decide which types of mechs to include in your four-member fighting group, or Lance, and then which armaments they take into battle. Things get a bit more intricate when you consider that every weapon you get, even if it’s the same type of laser or missile, will have different stats associated with it based on the manufacturer. Adding to that, you assign your four mechs a pilot, each of whom has specific traits that affect how they play, and any would-be mech commander already has a host of things to consider before he ever drops into the field.

Not that you’ll have a gigantic list of items and pilots to choose from the start. All items and pilots are acquired by either earning or purchasing randomly assorted packs of items called STACs. (Think of a booster pack for a collectible card game.) Using whatever items you get from your STAC, you then do your best to, as the team behind Tactics says, “create synergy” by mixing items, pilots and chassis that complement one another. For instance you might have a pilot who does additional damage to damaged targets, so you might equip him with a mech that can handle heavy weapons, and then put a super long-range laser or missile on him so he can really give it to a hurting enemy.

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Via ca.ign.com by Anthony Gallegos