I got the impression that the gripe people had was that the mechs in Mech 4 didn't feel like the big, lumbering robots they should've been. I mean, running around in an Atlas sure felt slow, but even the heavies were kinda nimble consider they were only around 25 tons less. It made the game feel a lot more arcade-y than like a simulation. Mech 3 had a real sim feel, while Mech 4 was a lot more like an arcade game. I'll acknowledge that's how my thinking about the two games goes. The third game had you choosing what to salvage and what to leave behind since you could only carry so much in your refit vehicles, while the fourth game pretty much let you take everything. Sure, there was some resource management in the sense that you could sell excess equipment for C-Bills and then use that cash to buy other equipment, but for the most part, it was... yes, dumbed down.
But even with that, I still had much, much fun with the whole thing. "Dumbed down" or not, I didn't have a problem with Mech 4 or Mech 4 Mercs, even if I did like the third game better.

MW4 for free?! With all the expansions?! What a sweet deal! This is the perfect way to promote the new game. :)
I would prefer MW2, of course, but it's by Activision (not FASA) and is very difficult to get working on modern versions of Windows; only the Titanium and Windows 95/"Pentium" versions can be made compatible with XP, and the patches don't work at all with Vista and 7.

It's pretty straightforward to get the dos version of MW2 working on Vista (thanks to dosbox) but of course that doesn't look as nice as the Titanium version. :-/

Man, I loved the old Mechwarrior 3 ( only one I bought and played in the series ).
Now combined with the free release of MEchwarrior 4 and the sweet sweet trailer of the upcoming one, I for one think it will be a great year ( well, maybe next two-three years depending on when next is released ;) ) for Mech-heads

Anyone know when this anniversary thing is? The best wikipedia can give me for the release date of battletech is 1984 which is slightly vague. I never played mechwarrior 4 & am rather eager for a go

Good game and god that will be released with all addons. Merceneries is best of it, even Vengence is IMO worse.

Cant wait for the free mechwarrior 4 release. : )
edit> Wow, it will include all the expansions!!! holy s***!!!

Thanks for that, Mr Glued-to-his-PS3.

I had a read of that, I hope they manage to get a good publisher, because it really sounds like the fate of the game depends on it. I do like the direction they want to take the game in, as well as some of the features they want to bring to the series in particular the co-op.

Yeah my enthusiasm for it has been blunted slightly by the news they don't even have a BUDGET yet much less a publisher. With luck they'll get someone willing to give them the time they need to make it right rather than push it for a relatively pointless christmas release no matter what state the game is in

Can't wait for MW2, MW3, MW4 and all mission disks and packs to show up on GOG.
Same goes for MechCommander 1 and 2.

Just in case you missed it elsewhere in this thread, MechWarrior 4 is going to be re-released in the near future for free to build interest in the new MechWarrior, and it will include all the expansions and mech packs. As far as I know MW4 runs fine on XP/Vista/7 already so you'll be all set. :)

I can confirm that MW4 does run fine on XP, but I don't know about Vista or 7.