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By Al Giovetti
Price: $50
Genre: action tank simulator
Release: August 96
Developer: Core Design
Producer:
Publisher: U. S. Gold
Phone: 415-693-0297
Website: www.domark.com
Requirements: 486 DX, 66 MHz, 8 MB RAM, 1 MB hard disk drive space, DOS 5.0, 2X CD ROM drive, speakers, mouse, sound board, fingers, wrists, nose bleed poster.gif - 46.2 K

Plot: In 1997, you take the rule of a recruit in a New York tank mercenary group, Da Wardenz. You will receive missions to blow things up with a group of really destructive weapons. Being a mercenary you must make money and apply it to upgrades, ordinance, and repairs.

Equipment: You purchase your equipment from Props, which includes armor, gun coolant, faster reload upgrade, surface to air missiles (SAMS), targetting computer, better engines, and better tracks.

You drive: An M-13 Predator Battletank

Aggressors: are Armored Personnel Carriers (APCS), gunboats, helicopters, and tanks.

Interface: This game is more like Battlezone, an arcade game classic from the old days, than any other game. When not in the mission there is a typical combat simulator base to look around. Steer with the keyboards or joystick.

Graphics. Most of the graphics are dark saving those glowing bright pixels. The resolution is 320x200, but they are artfully done to eliminate the normal blocky feel that graphics of this type give. This is achieved in part by the large blocky objects that the game illustrates. Graphics are not texture-mapped but the artists again have surprising ability to make the game look good.

Music: The music is by Bar None, William Floyd of the San Francisco 49ers, and while distinctly "different" hard driving hip hop music, it too becomes boring because there is not enough of it and the style does not change to fit the situations. emblem.gif - 7.7 K

Sound effects: Make it fun to blow things up.

Voice actors: do a passable job, which fit with the ethnic characters portrayed.

Multiplayer: eight player network mode

Summary: A fun game, with an ethnic gangster element that some may find offensive.

References:
Zach believes that giving to plot in the review to a game is boring: Zach Meston, Computer Player, volume 3, number 1, June, 1996, 6/10, (60%).
PC Games, May, 1996