Okay, StarSiege is certainly not the first "Mech sim" that Dynamix has created.  Hard Core gamers may remember EarthSiege and its sequel.  While I myself was not overly impressed with the older games, I did welcome StarSiege to a market experiencing a drought in Mech sims.

The first thing I noticed when playing StarSiege, was that Dynamix had finally added all the key components; graphics and gameplay.  There are a handful of training missions to get you oriented with the controls of your Herc, and for basic navigation of typical mission scenarios.  If you have played older Mech games like Mech Warrior 2, you will pick up the controls of this game almost instantly.   For me, there was practically no learning curve, I felt right at home piloting my Herc into combat.  Unlike Mech Warrior 2, the complexity of using the keyboard was taken down one notch, allowing you to enjoy the action of the game more, having to memorize less keys on the keyboard.  Communicating between your allied units is very easy too.  Simply press the F4 key, and then tell your friendlys what you want them to do... "attack my target", "halt!", "follow me", and many others.  Once you remember what numbers correlate with what command, you will be very efficient at coordinating strikes using allies.  Perhaps the most impressive component of the game is the smooth gameplay and easy to use and learn controls.

Graphically, StarSiege is not the messiah of 3D games, but it does boast a very solid 3D engine, that brings the Hercs to life by animating the units extremely well, and adding many smaller details that are great looking.  Each weapon looks different, the best ones being missiles and special plasma blasters.  StarSiege was tested using a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 card, and I was able to select which resolution I wanted, up to insanely high settings beyond 1600 X 1200.  The depth of your sight range is very high, with not a single sight of "pop-up" being found anywhere in the game.  The mountains and hazy atmosphere are top notch in the game, providing a believable theatre of war.  The Hercs themselves, in my opinion, could have looked a bit more detailed (needs more polygons), but their quality animation at high frame rates make up for that.

You will battle across 7 different planets, in over 45 single player and multiplayer missions.  There are 25 different types of vehicles for you to customize, with 40 different weapons to chose from.  There are default settings for the Hercs, but you will often find yourself customizing the weapons and features of the Hercs for the challenging missions.

StarSiege provides a surprising challenge.  You will often find yourself altering your strategy after losing a battle, changing your tactics drastically, from a heavy weapons platform to a speedy squad of lighter faster Hercs.  I often found myself Giving my comrades the faster lighter armed Hercs, while giving myself the behemoth Herc that was a slow moving command center that had the ability to stream death from its many weapon platforms.

I highly recommend StarSiege for all gamers.  Old school sim fans will enjoy the many challenging missions and sweet controls.  Beginners to the genre will appreciate the easy to pick up learning curve.  StarSiege is easily the best Mech sim game that Dynamix has ever developed.  I think it is safe to say that StarSiege is the best of its breed to date.  The only challenger is Mech Warrior 3 from Microprose, either way the gamer wins.  StarSiege is top notch!