From: n8443916@henson.cc.wwu.edu (John Gossman)
Subject: Re: CULTURE: Battletech Center makes me gag
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1992 22:10:57 GMT
Organization: Western Washington University



cyberoid@hitl.washington.edu (Bob Jacobson) writes:

>Battletech, the multiplayer wargame, may be a fine technological 
>achievement, but this is ludicrous (from the brochure):

>        The year is 3028--the 4th Succession War has begun.  It's
>        a war that will be decided by BattleMechs--30' tall
>        human-shaped fighting tanks.  

	Stuff deleted of the same sort

>Let's change the archetype, game designers.  Please.

	I agree its unfortunate some better game theme than war hasn't
made it big.  It seems to be something essentially human--look at football
and boxing as two other examples of this fascination with violent conflict.

	Battletech is much older than the current computer-VR version.
It is based on a set of comic books and semi-RPG (non-computer type) that
first showed up in the early 80s.  The target audience was boys of about
8th grade age, not research computer scientists.  If you stop by a good
game store (like American Eagles in Seattle), you'll find out that there
is tons of Battletech stuff with detailed histories of the Succession Wars
and such stuff--its one of the most popular games out.  It also inspired
a movie called Robot Jox a few years ago.

	Anyway, it's something of a relief to realize that the computer
game designers didn't spend a lot of time coming up with such a silly
rationale for such a neat game.  
	
	DISCLAIMER:  I'm not a fan, I've never played this game.  I've just
seen it while hanging around hobby shops.