Imagine Battlezone crossed with Pac-Man. I know that sounds like a silly thing to do, but go ahead, live a little. Imagine sleek, futuristic tanks in a maze-based slugfest gathering up as many "gems" as they can. You now have a pretty good idea of what the play mechanics of Sony's upcoming Assault Rigs is going to be like. And if you've seen the movie Tron, you already know the look by heart.
Obviously, this is a pretty simplistic description of the game, but this is not a very complex game in the first place. The general idea of Assault Rigs is that in the not so far flung future, all wars and conflicts will be settled in cyberspace rather than risk real human lives. (Pretty optimistic concept, don't you think?) Soldiers get into virtual reality pods (that look like smaller versions of the "Body Wars" ride at Epcot) and enter the Arena, where the fate of their nation will be decided. The player gets to choose between three tanks: one that's heavily armored but slow, one that's fast and brittle, and one in between these extremes.
Remember, this is a game about a game, so almost no pretense at real physics has been attempted. These tanks can zip all over the place in exactly the way real tanks don't zip. Bouncing off of walls doesn't do damage to either the tank or the walls. But if you flip over, it takes a while to get right side up again, and your opponents have time to zap you as hard as possible before you do. You run over various items on the field that can give you points or other useful items. There are also a number of hovering blue cubes, each with a goody inside. Shoot the cubes and you'll uncover extra armor, faster guns, and various weapon power-ups including heat-seeking missiles, fly-by-wire missiles, and bouncing bullets (a la Atari's classic Combat). All told, there are twenty different power-ups. When you deploy one of these new weapons, your turret morphs into the appropriate nozzle, thereby showing you what's loaded and also looking really neat. But not all of the cool gizmos can be used by all the tanks. The light, fast tank in particular can't handle much heavy armament, so greater speed may mean sacrificing some nifty toys.
The graphics start off looking, as mentioned earlier, very much like the light cycle scene in Disney's first computer-graphics based movie (before Toy Story), Tron. The Arena is a grid of neon green lines. The tanks also have an art deco, glow-in-the-dark quality about them. As you advance in levels, the style of the graphics starts to change, adding texture maps and shading, until it finally looks like you're playing a completely different game, perhaps one that actually has something to do with real tanks. Have no fear, though, gameplay stays just as arcade simple as ever, and the motion stays wickedly smooth at 30 frames per second. You can also view the carnage from five different camera perspectives.
Of course, the Arena itself is no mere football field with walls. It's going to be difficult enough making your way around the environment without worrying about your enemies. The playing fields include elements like jump-ramps, sky-ways, trenches, movable blocks, elevators, push-rods and sentry turrets. Also, for no apparent reason, you will be cheered on by an encouraging voice saying things like "Great jump!" or "Nice shot!" in case you can't figure out how well you're doing on your own. Another great feature is an off button for the previous feature.
What would a game based in a computer be like without a reference to everyone's favorite cyber-metaphor, the virus? Yes, you can inflict technological torture on your enemies by subjecting them to bio-mechanical diseases. Of course, they can do the same to you, so don't get cocky. While the game can be played as a single player or in two player split-screen mode, the real fun is going to be network play, with up to eight spots available for daring drivers.
Assault Rigs promises to deliver yet another jolt of testosterone-driven mayhem from the Psygnosis design team, who have already graced the PlayStation world with Destruction Derby and WipeOut, two games that make you go "Arrrrrr!" With its net capabilities and it's nostalgic gameplay and graphics, not to mention nifty explosions, this will probably be yet another jump-off-the-shelf title from the people behind the big white owl.
