to attack the Federated Suns' defense and claim control over the resources on Vale. Reception Reviews MechWarrior 3 received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. John Lee of NextGen called it "a worthy successor to the two earlier versions that should keep Mech pilots eagerly engaged until the mission packs start rolling out." Although there was only one called Pirate's Moon. Sales The game was heavily promoted in the lead-up to its release. It debuted at #2 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for May 30–June 5, 1999. The title rose to first place the following week, then remained in the top 10 from June 13–July 10. It took positions 1 and 9, respectively, for June and July overall. The game's sales had risen to 99,000 units in the U.S. by the end of July, according to PC Data. Mark Asher of CNET Gamecenter reported that these figures were "good but certainly not what Hasbro Interactive hoped for". Alongside the underperformance of Starsiege and Heavy Gear II, the sales of the game led Asher to speculate that "the mecha market just isn't as big as we thought". The game was absent from PC Data's weekly top 10 by the week ending July 17, and charted 16th for August before exiting the monthly top 20. In September 2000, Asher wrote that "the evidence seems to be piling up that games that require anything more than a keyboard and mouse for a control setup suffer at the cash register, [but] the FASA license is as strong as ever. Hasbro Interactive expects to sell about 200,000 copies of MechWarrior 3 this year alone." Awards The game was a runner-up for Computer Gaming Worlds 1999 "Science Fiction Simulation of the Year", GameSpots "Science-Fiction Simulation of the Year" and Computer Games Strategy Plus "Sci-Fi Simulation of the Year" awards, all of which ultimately went to FreeSpace 2. The staff of CGSP wrote: "While it [MechWarrior 3] was light on quantity of missions, Zipper finally got the scale right in a Mech sim." The magazine later named the game as a runner-up for its 2000 "10 Best Sci-Fi Simulations" list. The game won the award for "Best Sci-Fi Simulation" at the CNET Gamecenter Awards for 1999. It also won the Origins Awards for Best Action Computer Game of 1999, and for "Best Fantasy Sim" in PC PowerPlays Game of the Year 1999