Greetings Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur…
Wait. That’s not right. Oh, I see, wrong continuity.
Still, it looks like we’ll have BattleMechs before we have Mobile Infantry powered armor. Right now it’s just being sold as a rich man’s toy instead of as a military weapon, but really, how long do you think it will take? The fact that it’s being sold commercially means that it’s light-years ahead of any powered armor I’m aware of. And how much work do you think it would take to replace those BB gun Gatlings with a real gun, or add a quality targeting system? Sensors should be fairly easy, too, although tying them into the HUD would be the hardest part. Rough terrain capability might require hardware changes to the legs, but pretty much all the technology needed for that already exists and should be pretty easy to integrate. Actually, the legs make me think of a Tachikoma more than a BattleMech, but the overall design is a bit more anthropomorphic and BattleMech-like.
It even uses an X-box Kinect as part of the controls.
I don’t care how impractical it is. I want one (or two).
There are some cool videos at the manufacturer’s website.
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[Source: Yahoo! Games article, retrieved 7/31/12]
Curses! Foiled Again! 
wfgodbold
/ July 31, 2012The Tachikoma design has got to be more stable than a bipedal design; Gundams look cool, but they’d fall over all the time.
Unfortunately, since I’m not an angsty teenager, I’m not qualified to pilot a mech. 😦
Fortunately, Kickstarter has brought a way to pilot miniature giant mechs (made from Lego!): Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack!
The various mechs people have built and posted on flickr are awesome.