Recoil

THE BAD:

SUMMARY:
BACKGROUND

This is a world of robotic tanks and high technology weapons. Employees of Mega Corp, the company that created these tanks, sabotaged their AI turning the tanks into human killers. In a top secret location, Mega Corp engineers were fighting against this virus. They created the BFT (Battle Force Tank), programmed totally different so that the saboteurs would never take control of it. You have control of the BFT from a remote location and the fate in mankind now depends on you.

A more detailed background can be found on the booklet.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10

There are 18 weapons in all ranging from pulse guns to mine launchers and from freon cannons to electrical charges that can split up to hit multiple enemies at once. The better, high-tech weapons can be found later in the game. But you need to search hard as these are often hidden or protected by powerful enemies.

The enemy robot-tanks are just as creative. These range from tanks to boats and from submarines to helicopters. A total of 16 enemies can be found, each carrying a specific weapon. Some of these are powerful, slow-moving vehicles, some are light, fast and weak, capable of catching you when you're not expecting them.

Your tank alone isn't capable of mastering the terrain of the different campaigns. You sometimes need get additional upgrades to your BFT. These include turning your tank into an amphibian, making you capable of skimming over water, a hovercraft, making you capable to float over lava and sub technology that allows you to go underwater. When underwater you cannot use lasers, electricity or sound waves. Doing so will destroy your tank immediately. Also unlike some other shooter games, you don't just go shooting every tank up and complete the mission. There are times where you need to think and use part of the environment to reach a location or to complete objectives like how to make something self destruct. There are six campaigns in all, each with a different theme and objectives. For example in campaign 3, the robots are using a volcano to power themselves, in campaign five they are making human clones under the ice and so on. The last level was rather a disappointment. It includes teleporting which, even although it's based on high technology, sounds impossible and destroys the game's feeling as the type of technology found in the rest of the game is quite possible in the future. Although, the teleports teleport to you places reminding you of previous levels. So for example one of the teleports takes you to a a canyon based area, reminding you of campaign two which is based on the same theme.

The design of the level plus the enemies AI make the battleground a tense place. The lighter enemies surprise you by coming out of unexpecting places. The others don't just stand in your aim and shoot. They constantly move about or shoot then go for cover repeatedly making themselves not an easy target. The only exception to this is when they are very close to you and don't have time to go for cover. So rushing is the last thing you want to do in the battleground.

The multiplayer, well, is like playing on single player without any enemies. I never seen anyone play on multiplayer partly because this game runs best on Windows 98, which is now old.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

Reasonable for Windows 98. Not amazing but not bad too. Sometimes the textures of the surroundings can be muddy but still not dull. While in other places, the graphics are somewhat stunning (for Windows 98). Your tank and the other enemies are detailed quite well.

SOUNDS: 7/10

Like the graphics, good in some but bad in others. For example when shooting the Arc Sabre, the 'electricity-gun' you only hear a sound in the beginning then it fades out.

OVERALL: 10/10

With creative campaigns, weapons and enemies, intelligent AI and strategy-based objectives makes the battleground a tense place where sometimes firepower is not all you need, as there are times where, after eliminating all enemies in the area, you need to sit back and think how to progress tho your next objective.