Zone Raiders

"From WarBird to the X-Car"

Zone Raiders was created by Virgin Interactive and released in 1995 originally for Windows/DOS, but was later released in a format to run on the Macintosh OS. This game has a lot to offer for its time, with an assortment of weapons, enemies and a few unlockable cars that you gain access to throughout the game.

Story: 5.5/10
The story of this game is a big mystery. Apparently you a new member to some renegade group. You never find out why you are raiding the enemies zones, where the enemies came from, who the enemies are, or why they try to kill you. The year at which this game takes place is unknown, and you do not find out much of anything through playing the game. The opening intro video is pretty cool however.

Controls: 9/10
The controls for this game are pretty good, actually. However, for some reason the vehicle speed is a bit faster in the demo version than it is in the actual game until you unlock new cars. The controls are easy to get adjusted to and very easy to use once you master them. One problem I noticed which is a bit annoying is that you cannot turn to the left while accelerating and shooting so, you must either stop shooting or stop accelerating to turn left. Oddly enough though, you can turn to the right while shooting and accelerating which leads me to believe this was a glitch the programmers did not catch before releasing the game, but I think a patch was released sometime later and fixed this problem.

Graphics: 6/10
The graphics are bad. However this is a DOS game from 1995, and not exactly Halo. DOS games generally have low grade graphics. The cars for this game are very blockey. The majority of the levels in this game seem more like race tracks than levels, which make you seem as though you are a toy car on a kids play car track. The backgrounds are for the most part poor, and do not contain enough detail. The enemies are lacking detail and the weapons you use are not anywhere near realistic looking, but overall the graphics are easy to adjust to and are not that bad once you start playing.

Gameplay: 7.5/10
The gameplay can be a bit slow at times. You may often find yourself circling levels searching every part of unexplored areas while following the increasingly more rapid beeping of your V-Locator (radar) just to find a wall in front of you with an overpass above with the item you are searing for on it, forcing you to find another route to get to it. Some levels can take up to a half hour to complete, and you will often have to play levels over due to running out of time. When the timer reaches zero the "Guardian" (aka a giant UFO which fires random weapons at you) comes to hunt and destroy you which can take anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute depending on how good you are at driving in reverse and dodging homing missiles. Usually you will have to start over once the guardian comes though, because it is virtually impossible to escape it. One good thing about this game is, there are many hidden/secret passages in this game, and they usually contain assortments of weapons and shield repairs, however some contain enemies. Some are hard to find and will leave you blasting at walls you'd never expect to lead anywhere, so use your map and if there appears to be a route leading from nowhere, investigate it, and most likely you will find a secret passage full of power-ups.

Overall: 7/10
This game is worth a try. If you like hovercars and like race the clock style games this is definitely a game for you. If you judge games by graphics quality rather than gameplay however, you might want to stay away from this one.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/09

Game Release: Zone Raiders (US, 11/30/95)