Hardware: Online Arena

"Addictive, if you can find anyone to play"

First time I played it, I loved it. Online tank battling game - sounds fun, and it was. Yet since everyone flocked to SOCOM II and other games, and you seem to find a maximum of 50 people online at one moment, it's gone downhill.
Let's look at the actual gameplay, though...
You select a tank or a jeep with a cannon or heavy-machine gun respectively, and proceed to the arena where blow up everything and anything that dares get in your way. Great fun. The controls are, also, virtually perfect - using R1 for the Primary weapon and R2 for any secondary weapons that you pick up, and the right analog stick to rotate the turret, you have no problem with causing destruction (well - you need, of course, some skill). The controls for moving are also spot on - you can use X to go forward and Square to reverse, or L1 and L2 respectively. The arenas are huge, and excellently designed, and there are a massive number of weapons available - from Rail guns and Lasers to Light Missiles and Rockets. There are health and armour pick-ups, adding on a bit more time before you get fragged... All in all, it's excellent fun. The graphics are quite impressive, headset functionality is included and as is a buddy list mixed in with that from Central Station, somehow, and the game is pretty cheap.
Yet it is not all good. It's features an odd ranking system (which I can't say bothers me - I'm only playing it for fun, but may bother others), but is bogged down by the lack of support for it. You play SOCOM II, and thousands of people are online a once. You play this - less than a hundred.
Still - I've managed to find a decent game pretty much every time I've played it, and I've always ended up playing it for much longer than I intended to. So what do I say about it overall? It's a great game, and well worth getting. Shame it hasn't received as much attention as it deserves.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/04