BattleTech

I read my first BattleTech novel today.  It was a gift from my brother-in-law, who rolled his eyes as he handed it over.  It was not a very good novel, and if anything a closer examination of the world of BattleTech made it seem less convincing. Powerful, machine-mounted laser weapons missing?  At ranges of a few hundred meters?  Interstellar travel is mastered, but nukes and anti-matter and space bombardment and artillery are not effective?

 But, I'm pretty sick and exhausted, and the characters were better than you might expect, and I was reminded that I had quite enjoyed playing MechCommander.

It's always worth Googling things, too, because I was amazed to find Mechcommander 2 was released as an example with source code by Microsoft. It is minus all the supporting video and animation, and I'm not sure about the in-game art.  Unfortunately it was a Windows XP game, I'm not sure I'll be able to get it running on Windows 7.  Maybe Wine?  Or I do still have the windows Me machine...

Update: Full release (which was made available free by the original publishers at the same time that Microsoft used it as an example) allegedly available here. Smaller download too.