<!--
	Title: (REVIEWS) Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception
	Author: Bob Guerra
	Source: COMPUTE!, v11(10)
	Date: Oct 1989
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

A suit of armor is more than a metal shell in the
thirty-first century; it's a BattleMech, a 20- to 25-ton
armored robot with a MechWarrior inside. As
Jason Youngblood, you train for your own command
of a fighting machine.

*Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception*, is another in
Infocom's new line of role-playing, graphics adventures. While traditional
role-playing games put you in charge of a half-dozen gold-hungry, monster-slaying
warriors, sorcerers, monks, and dwarves, *Battletech* starts you off
with just one character — Jason Youngblood, an aspiring MechWarrior.
As the game progresses, Jason can form alliances with other
MechWarriors and add new characters to the party.

Your first objective in *Battletech* is to guide Jason through cadet training
at the Pacific BattleMech Training Facility. Success earns Jason the title
of MechWarrior with the Commonwealth Corps and prepares him to
command his own BattleMech. The BattleMech is equipped with a variety
of on-board weapons such as lasers, short-range missiles, and submachine
guns. In addition, Jason can modify his Mech with better armor and more
destructive high-tech weaponry such as particle-projection cannons and
flamers.

To guide you as you play Jason, the game screen is divided into three
windows. The largest shows an overhead view of your characters and the
surrounding terrain. A smaller window displays descriptive battle reports
and occasional animated closeups of the action below. A third window lists
your characters and indicates the strength of their attributes — body,
dexterity, and charisma — in small bar graphs.

<figure class="float-right">
	<img src="/public/img/articles/compute-battletech-review/battletech-screen-shot.png" alt="Battletech Screen Shot">
	<figcaption><strong>Learn to command your own thirty-first-century
		fighting machine in <em>Battletech</em>.</strong></figcaption>
</figure>

During Infantry or BattleMech combat, this list of characters is replaced
with an action menu. Use this menu to move your character, select
weapons, scan for other Mechs, target specific enemies, fight, or flee if you
find yourself heavily out-gunned. Throughout the game, all selections
are made with the cursor keys or the standard numeric keypad to highlight
the desired menu choices. The game doesn't support a joystick or a mouse,
but the menu system is so easy to use that you won't miss them.

As you find in most role-playing games, as Jason, you must accumulate
wealth so you can buy many of the items and skills your characters need.
You start with just 35 money units and, although money can be earned in
the *Battletech* arenas, you gain true wealth only by investing wisely in the
stock market. You can spend money on combat classes that will improve
your proficiency with bows and blades, pistols and handguns, or rifles
and submachine guns. Or choose medical and technical training so you
can tend to the wounded and service-damaged Mechs.

I like *Battletech* partly because you can customize the way you play
it. By selecting Change Game Settings from the main menu, you can increase
the movement rate of your characters from one space per key
press to two or even four spaces per keypress. This helps Jason move
quickly through large open areas. An other option lets you select combat
speed. Similarly, you can adjust the frequency of animated outtakes during
combat. Also, before most battles you can ask the computer to control
Jason's Mech. Although this option may be useful against humans with
machine guns, for serious battles with heavily armed Mechs, you're better
off controlling the action yourself.

*Battletech* stands apart from most other role-playing games because it includes
several automated, noninteractive sequences. These provide
background information and move the plot along. For example, early in
the game, Jason is sleeping at the barracks between training missions. He's
awakened, it seems, by alarms signal ing a hostile takeover of the citadel by
Marik terrorists. He infiltrates the complex and is about to attack the
Marik leader when he really wakes up. He had been dreaming. Later, Jason
finds himself in a weapon store during a holdup attempt; this time, however,
it's no dream. Fortunately, Jason has developed the skill and courage necessary
to foil the robbers. Out of gratitude, the shopkeeper rewards Jason
with some much-needed weaponry.

<div class="article-sidebar float-right">

Amiga—$49.95<br>
Apple II—$42.95<br>
Commodore 64/128—$34.95<br>
IBM PC and compatibles with 384K RAM—$49.95

INFOCOM<br>
125 Cambridge Park Dr.<br>
Cambridge, MA 02140<br>
(800) 227-6900

</div>

As you'll discover, when you complete your MechWarrior training
and begin venturing away from the training center, the world of *Battletech*
is huge and it can take weeks, perhaps even months, to explore all of it.
However, surprising plot twists, along with Battletech's colorful graphics and
futuristic science-fiction backdrop, should make your career as a Mech
Warrior an exciting one.