As much as I'd love to be a mech, there are definitely some drawbacks. You can fire a kaleidoscopic array of lasers out of your face, which is neat, but if you overdo it you shut down and have to spend several minutes gently venting hot gas, which has to be on the list of most embarrassing things that can happen in public. Perhaps that's the reason that you won't actually be the mech in Mechwarrior Online. In the cockpit, you're a pilot in a cockpit, with legs and everything.

As with the original Mechwarrior games, controlling your mech won't be as easy as looking around with your mouse and left-clicking to fire lasers. There's throttle to think about, and weapon groups, and the direction in which your legs and torso are facing, and what to do if your pilot suddenly needs a wee. Some of these issues are addressed in this latest video diary from Mechwarrior Online developers, Piranha Games. Look, here they are, trapped in a tiny box of web code: