There are some challenges to be had in
MechWarrior: Tactical Command, but sadly, the biggest challenges tend to stem from bugs in the game, itself. The A.I. pathfinding bug mentioned above is inexcusable. This bug, alone, makes it very difficult to get past certain levels, since one of your MechWarriors ends up running off in the completely wrong direction.
When you're not fighting the A.I. issues, it can still be very difficult to effectively control your four different MechWarriors in their different 'Mechs. Above and beyond the difficulty in simply managing four units at the same time, each MechWarrior has a special ability that you can use to gain the upper hand... if you remember to put them in the correct types of 'Mechs and, in some cases, put that ability into use. Additionally, there are certain actions that are only available to certain 'Mechs, such as jumping or "Death from Above" being limited to 'Mechs with jump-jets. You will only have these options available if you have a single 'Mech selected and it has that ability. You can't, for example, select two 'Mechs with jump jets and have them both jump together to a selected location. Further, there are some "assistance" items that can be used, such as an artillery barrage, a bombing run or radar - and these are available via a context menu when you have no units selected.
It all boils down to the fact that there are a lot of things you can do, but you have to have the appropriate units (or no units) selected in order to get them to show up on the context menu. The controls feel clunky and between the clunky U.I. and the clunky A.I., MechWarrior: Tactical Command is simply clunky to play... until you arrive at the point that the game simply crashes on you.
