Reminds me of an old Goosebumps lunchbox I had of a skeleton on it when I was little.
Awesome stuff. Gives that nostalgic creepy unsettling vibe just like my lunchbox did. <3

*unintelligible empanada truck*

I KNEW IT WAS BRIGADOR <3

One of my favorite artists, one of my favorite games. Not often I leave comments anywhere, but I just had to make my appreciation known. Just got Precursor James myself only recently, along with the achievement "Diamond Collector."

Admittedly, I haven't really considered the possibility that you may have known about this game. Looking back, it's kind of obvious that your interests lined up with it if your art in the past is any indication. Although I think I've already gotten this across, nice work!

I'm still gunning for Diamond Collector, it's one of the few I have left. Some of those missions, my god. Joy Bus / Hell Ride with the Shortbus was wild.

I do love the game though, pretty much everything about it. Special mention to the lore that kind of creeps up on you as you read more about things, and how suddenly a suface-level fun isometric shooter is actually extremely cold, psychotic, and dark. It's cool that they managed to make such an awful evil setting without it coming across as edgy or tryhard - I suppose it's just the matter-of-fact tone it tends to be written in.

Bombuchas, amirite? One of the next achievements I'm going to try for is completing Joy Bus/Hell Ride without firing a shot. That's going to be fun.

Indeed, it's probably the most acceptably non-dystopian looking - and sounding, on the surface at least - dystopian settings I've ever seen, and I love it. Even more, the lore just kind of explains most of the questions one might ask themselves. The writers display incredible competence with how they go about validating ridiculous aesthetics. Seven-story tall tanks are a lot more acceptable when your primary enemy are rebels who use seven-story tall tanks made of cars in an urban environment, not to mention the corrupt military bureaucracy, and I love that. It's just got such a creeping depth to it that people wouldn't really think is there. Come to think of it, I should probably take a listen to the audiobook sometime.

Haha, take the Arlo and just be patient about making the bombuchas struggle to catch up with you in a loop; try leaving them in the dust around the shipping container / traintrack "gate" thing and then zooming down to give the target tank a couple slams. That whole mission is just bait to be too cocky and die instantly for it.

Brigador really is good stuff, you can tell there's lots of love from the devs in crafting the world and with all the updates its been getting. I'm happy to see it's gotten something of a small second wind. I've still got to listen to the Audibook as well. I've heard really good things about it though, like more than you'd expect from a video game book. Definitely looking forward to it, especially after having given the universe a closer look and seeing all those awesome, subtle creeping intels come together.

I just ended up circling the bombuchas with the Fork and letting the command tank arty them for my so I could rear-end melee it in peace; works just as well I'd imagine lol

I actually don't think I came to know about the game until after the up-armored re-release, to be honest. And I can confirm the whole "better than other game books" thing from statements made to me by close friends, so I've got an extra bit of believability on that end as well. I hear it was written by someone who was, themselves, a Brigador fan rather than someone a big dev paid to write about their game, so that probably helps as to its quality. I'm personally really looking forward to... well, any expansion on the Brigaverse, honestly.

Ah, the old only true psychogamers apply method haha.

Do you have any particular favorite loadouts?

I've been off and on with it since it was official a couple years ago, mostly because it reminded me heavily of a Battletech Sega Genesis game I used to play as a kid, but made today. Only recently have I really dug into it and poked around the lore, really appreciating the work that went in that wasn't overtly just surface-level "cool!" (the music, designs, and general interface / aesthetic design pulled me in).

I don't really have any favorites, but I tend to have a theme. I generally prefer fast vehicles with high payout multipliers - a lot of Agravs you could probably guess - but past that my only regular loadout items are the AKP or active camo. My weapon choices kind of bounce between the "tried and true" and "niche and quirky" choices available. Plenty of variety in the weapon selection is something I really appreciate about the game, especially considering it's the technically "normal" set of lasers, railguns, and cannons, ignoring things like the Black Hand and Donkey.

Sort-of kind-of the same appeal base in my case, only with a later game that's Battletech affiliated, but not canon; MechAssault on Xbox was 3D but a lot of similarities can be drawn to it with Brigador. I also really loved Nuclear Strike on the PS1, so there's that too. Needless to say, I didn't expect the lore that came with the game in the slightest.

That's cool! Getting some mileage out of everything it sounds like! I find it kind of fun to build with specific objective in mind, like "structures only" or "commanders only," etc. Some of the more recent achievements have gotten me out of my comfort zone with weapon types; I had a ton of fun with all of the "stealth" setups. The game plays completely differently when you're in a Sleepwalker or Mog. Dual donks is always a trip, and of course so is just going full Lowmill / Otomo / König haha.

Mechassault was a ton of fun I thought. It's a shame it seems to get a kind of stigma in the Mechwarrior/Battletech circles, but I thought it was great for what it was. I played a ton of Lone Wolf back in the day! I haven't played any of the Strike series (Thunder Strike isn't part of those, is it?), but I've seen that come up a bunch of times and I think I definitely need to seek that out.

Yeah, specialist loadouts are interesting to say the least. Small-class weapons are unique in the regard that they're purpose-built, which adds a bit more validity to their existence if you ask me. Mogs always were one of my favorite vehicles, but then the Spacer power armor came out and it's just better, which is both expected and disappointing for its own reasons, y'know?

Right? I can understand where the community's coming from with the way they react to it, but I don't think it should be as negative as it is. Things are made non-canon for the reason of "you can enjoy this without worrying," and too many people ignore that. And I've never heard of Thunder Strike before now, so just looked it up and I don't think it's part of that particular franchise. Nuclear strike was the one I really liked for reason that it was the only one I actually played in the series.

The Sledger with a König though haha

I dunno how you're doing with your achievement hunting, but I've only got Not One Stone and True Psychogamer left.

I'm a fan of both Mechassult and Mechwarrior; they both have their merits. What I wouldn't give to play MW2 though! My only contact of that was the arcade-y PSX port (which was still fun).

The sledger is either a blessing or a mistake, I'm not sure which XD

I took a break for a little while, the internet's been spotty and I've vowed not to play games when achievement hunting ever since I got perma-locked out of getting one for a different game a while back. You're certainly a _lot_ closer than I, however; acquisition achievements are tedious.

I'll admit, the only non-MechAssault MW games are Online and the recent Battletech RTS, though it's not for lack of interest in the other games. I just never got around to playing any of them.

Depends on if you're talking to Spacers, MB, or the Brigador doing 90mph backwards from the recoil I guess

That's a bummer to hear! That's one of my worst fears haha, spend hours doing some terrible thing like the Closed Casket Special and the power goes out or something.

How was Battletech? I'm not usually one for those kinds of games, I can never stick with them for too long, but if its anything like XCOM but with battlemechs, it might be kind of cool. Though I'm in love with the designs, I could never stick with Front Mission either. I'm kind of wary because the developers have kind of a spotty track record.

It is another one of those enjoyable things simply because of the niche ridiculousness that it represents, so I can't truly complain about its existence lol

Ugh... is there an achievement connected to that one? I can't remember.

I like the game, but it's deceptively hard to run, and even the steam requirements are misleading. I played a few missions in before uninstalling not because I didn't like the game, but because I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I don't have the best computer out there, but Battletech is just harder to run than it looks like it would be. There's quite a bit of complexity as far as depth of the game, I'd think, so I don't know if that's something you like or not but it's there.

There is - I've yet to get it. I got fed up with trying to do it skillfully or doing all the objectives - as soon as I hear the gates unlock, I'm there. I always use Precursor James too, or else that weird masochistic part of me feels like it doesn't count. It's bad enough in my mind I'm doing the bare minimum - still, it's quite the endeavor. I love the game to death and find it really fun, but that marathon of a freelance set is a bit much. It's so easy to get exhausted or tired and make a tiny slip and then it's all for naught, haha.

Too bad about Battletech! I'll probably end up sitting it out then. I don't really like political plots all that much, and I'm pretty sure it's all IS stuff, before the Clan Invasion and all of that fun stuff. If it runs kind of janky (a common complaint) and makes a kind of slow-paced game run even slower, that's a pass.

Well, like your achievements so far show, it's kind of an end-game thing so there's some credibility for it in that regard. Not saying I look forward to it, of course XD

That's fair. I can definitely vouch that it's a slow game.

This is fantastic. I love it.

MFW i pilot an unstoppable mechanical terror of death and mayhem

"Uplink Established. Welcome, Brigador..."

"U-UPLINK ESTABLI-BLISHED. WE-WE-WELCOME, BRIGADOR-DOR-DOR," stuttered a voice with peculiar inflection. It was synthesized, utterly inhuman. It was something the pilot imagined if a mech could speak. It was a garbled, glitched mess. "GRE-GRE-GREAT LEADER HAS DIED. SO-SOLO NO-NO-NOBRE MUST FALL. HE-HERE IS YO-YOUR CONTRACT-ACT."

The transmission lagged as it began sending in the contract. Thanks to the attacks many Brigadors conducted, majority of the comm towers were lost, forcing the general populace to use less-efficient means of communication.

"DO YOU A-A-ACCEPT?"

The pilot looked at their screen with interest, a growing smile forming on their face.