How would a younger me react to the concept of game seasons? “Leave me alone, please. I’m busy replaying The Suffering 2 for the sixth time only to see a new 15-second cutscene recognizing which combination of morally aligned beginning and ending I chose. It reads your save from the first game and everything!”. These days, say “memory card” to a youthful Fortnite enthusiast with a broccoli mane. Go on, I challenge you. Before you know it you are in a house.
Still, having regular new toys is a real result of our new barrage of short-lived novelties, constantly hurled at my dizzy eyeballs like shiny carnival daggers at exhausted spinning wheels. Especially if they are in favor of Mechabellum’s excellent strategy. Season 2 was released simultaneously yesterday patch 1.2along with a new unit and specialist, some reworks, and a lot of cosmetic bits that I pretend I don’t care about but get excited when I unlock a new one.
The new unit is the Raiden, a gigantic flier that fires three lightning bolts simultaneously at different targets. He is good at fighting medium units. There are also adjustments for the Sabertooth (new model, new technology) and the Overlord, which is now “bigger, stronger and more expensive”. Death Knell is a new, scarier version of my beloved big laser boy Melting Point, but it’s only available in Brawl and Survival modes, which I don’t play. A concrete, tangible tactical thought I often have in Mechabellum when considering my formation is “more pew needed!”, so maybe I should take it a step further.
But the star of the show is undoubtedly the new Specialist, especially because of how utterly haunted he looks after his years of service in the mechanized forever wars. The Intensive Training Expert receives 50 additional supplies in the first round, plus a free upgrade for intensive training. That’s the one that takes a unit to the next level. In part, Mechabellum is a game about deciding how much time to spend catching up and reacting to your opponent’s specific chain of cascading power spikes, so I’m curious to see how much this deeply troubled war bastard will affect things.
Here’s my review of Mechabellum, which I slapped a Bestest Best on. Here is the paragraph that I think summarizes the game best:
The greatest joy lies in wanton destruction; so incredibly tangible for a game where not a single shell casing is spent without minutes between the pull of the locked trigger and the crescendo of the muzzle flare. Looking for weak spots, applying the most economical pressure without overextending, and watching entire flanks crumble as several rounds of planning paid off – planning that might have looked like panicking waving at your opponent. Having the slightest premonition of a premonition that’s confirmed as you scan the patterns in your enemy’s position, and have already answered their plan with a firm “not today, son of a bitch” before they’ve even gotten close to figuring it out feed.
Nice robots big. Big robots fun.