Wow, that first picture looks like MW2:Mercenaries, except with more modern graphics.
That's what it reminded me of too. I remember the first time I tried the campaign in that, I skipped all the special campaign missions. The filler missions in that campaign paid only 300k and didn't seem to allow mech salvage so I managed to scrape together enough C-Bills for a mighty 40 ton Cicada just in time for
On the bright side, there is a hidden contract in the MW2: Mercenaries campaign that you can only find if you take a filler mission on a certain month, so I knew about that.
Haha, remember the PPCs? They were big blue spiky balls that flew pretty slow, I saw an Awesome moonwalk out of the way of one once.
ahem theres also.... mw4 mercs which was classic but the only way to find a copy is to find someone still circulating the tapes, so to speak. that one was just as good because it introduced my favorite activity; the solaris arena with full commentary by duncan fisher. honestly its the only reason i consider mw5 a inferior game, because they didn't keep this in.
Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries was actually released for free some time ago. Unfortunately hosting of the free files has been spotty over time, but one can at least rest easy knowing it's not contraband.
MW5 is... fine. Don't get it full price, but it's probably worth it at ~half off. Just make sure to look into the modding scene, as last I played modders had to fix some core issues like combat AI.
I haven't modded it yet, but I agree that the AI isn't so great sometimes,
(after you give an attack order your AI lancemates all revert to following you instead of going back to an assigned position)
It works best in a rabid ai swarm but it will send a lone Locust against 4 assault mechs because it doesn't coordinate it's units well and relies on overwhelming the player lance in a swarm, and it often has respawns of some sort.
The lance commands could have used an Attack Closest order for the lance so they go out and harvest turrets and mechs for resources automatically while Main Character hides in the corner of a hill by the start and slowly destroys a city 2km away with an AC/2 to complete the demolition mission. Haha, infrastructure week!
What the game could really use though is a way to field the whole mech company for missions if the employer provides a dropship since the Leopard only has 4 bays. It seems to be a 4 mech limit for player control the whole way through so far.
The game could also use some kind of co-op lobby to find games to join, it looks like you have to invite people with an invite code or other skullduggery.
It would be convenient if there were a way to pay a big pile of C-Bills to find a specific kind of standard mech. I can't find a Flea anywhere,, but I can throw 10 million C-Bills at it now if I could order it I could switch out the Firestarter I've been using for a iny mech with very close to the same weapons but no jump jet options.
I also dislike that the mech upgrades disappear if you put a mech into storage. That means I can't swap out badly damaged mechs for stripped but undamaged mechs without losing those, and they cost too many C-Bills to do that often.
Overall I think it's a pretty solid game. I enjoy flattening bases. After I finish the Campaign and the 4th Succession War one, I'll probably be done, but I think I will leave it installed with a sandbox run as a piratey mercenary band like the story enemy in the campaign, for unnecessarily burning everything in flamethrower range.