Wild Metal

"An addictive little game"

Coming from creators of Grand Theft Auto, this sci-fi tank based shooter comes of something of a surprise. There's little in the way of plot, but for what it's worth, robots sent to colonise three remote planets have decided to take over and wipe out every life form on the planet. We're not talking the humanoid variety here though, all the robots are tanks and such. Anyway, you've been sent down in a tank of your own to collect 8 power cores from a number of areas on each of the three planets to save the day. Quite how collecting power cores will help the problem is unclear, but that's pretty much all the objective you have.

With this in mind you must choose one of five tanks (a tip here, choose the Manta - the rest are pretty unusable!) and head down to the world. The control system is quite ingenius. B and Y control the camera, A shoots, X drops a mine (I must admit I never bothered with this), the analogue stick directs you and the L and R triggers rotate your turret so you can shoot in a different direction from the way your moving. Despite sounding a little weird, once you're actually playing it all makes perfect sense. Also, in order to gauge the distance of your shot, holding down A lifts the barrel of your cannon and releasing it fires the shot. It may take quite a while for you to get used to this system, but once you do you'll be blasting like a pro.

Graphically, it's quite bland. You trundle through the worlds and although it's not exactly offensively ugly, there's little impressive to see, aside from the sexy lighting effects on the night levels - and even those aren't a patch on say, Expendable. In terms of sound, there's actually no in game music whatsoever. There's some music on the title screen, but that's it. However the clunks, bangs and howling winds during gameplay a well done, if a little sparse.

So with a gameplay objective of simply mooching round baron sand dunes/tundras collecting meaningless objects on every single level and average graphics and sound, what exactly does this game have going for it? I must admit, it's very hard to say, but I got totally addicted to it. Perhaps it's just the sheer no frills simplicity of it. But whilst simple in nature, it does sport an incredibly realistic physics engine that means there's always multiple ways of reaching hard-to-get power cores. For instance, in order to get to a core guarded by a force field, you could go into a heavily guarded area to knock out the shield generator... or you could use your cannon to shoot at it and move it out of the force field. And when you do shoot it, such is the nature of the physics engine, that it will actually roll rather than just move. Other great effects of the engine are that you'll often see enemy tanks coming down a slope chasing you, when all of a sudden they start going to fast and flip over, rolling down the hill leaving them upturned and prone to getting blasted. Rather than coming across as being dodgy AI, it really does make the game seem very realistic.

Although there are only 3 different planets, each of the areas (there are 7 or so for each) are well designed and different and take a fair time to work your way through. The two player mode isn't the best in the world, but it is mildly diverting for a game or two.

All in all, this is a game that you'll either love or hate - it's slow, bland looking and simplistic, but its that simpleness to the gameplay that really got me addicted. If you liked games like Blam! Machinehead or BattleZone (the 90s remake, not the original), then chances are that you'll like this. The games physics engine is magnificient and if you actually fall into the ''liking it'' category, then chances are you'll play it from start to finish. However it probably is a game more directed at the hardcore gamer, so if you're after a quick blast and fancy graphics, then you're going to really hate this. Whatever though, I loved this game and although it's never going to win any prizes, if a slower paced addictive game is what you're after, I strongly advise you pick this up.

GRAPHICS - 6/10 - Nice ligthing effects and textures, but still very basic looking. The occassional drop in frame rate is quite frustrating, but these instances are few and far between.

SOUND - 6/10 - No music, but the sound effects are very well done. A lot of them do appear to have been nicked from Blam! Machinehead, mind you...

GAMEPLAY - 9/10 - Some will no doubt loathe it, for the same reasons I loved it... its slow and basic, but I found that this suited it perfectly. An incredibly addictive game.

LIFESPAN - 7/10 - The two player mode isn't so great and there's only 3 planets, although there are lots of levels from each of the planets. If you do ''get'' the gameplay though, you'll stick with it until the end.

OVERALL - 8/10 - This ought to be pretty rubbish... so why am I so addicted to it?! A great physics engine, coupled with great old-skool gameplay. I loved it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/24/03, Updated 01/24/03