Assault Rigs

As the game's description states, Assault Rigs is the Saturn port of the Playstation VR Tank Action/shooter game. While it was released in Japan it never saw a Us release on Saturn due to some exclusivity agreement that Sony had with Psygnosis. Other games that suffered this fate were the Saturn Ports of Destruction Derby and Krazy Ivan. The game takes place in total, free roaming 3D. The best way to describe the gameplay is by calling it a 3D arena based scavenger hunt with a little combat thrown in for good measure. It gives you a choice of about 4 views including third person, overhead and my personal favorite, First Person. These camera angles each have their own little problems, some of which I will explain later.

First, the point of the game, Assault Rigs is supposed to be the next step in the world of video games. In the intro we see the evolution of games up to Assault Rigs, a large tank like vehicle that you can enter, and play a sort of VR Combat. You have three standard tank styles to choose from, light armor with high speed, heavy armor with low speed and the all around average tank. The main point of the game, is to navigate the 3D arenas and collect various gems scattered throughout. Once you get all the gems you must reach the exit in the allotted time. You are then whisked to a new location to do it all over again. To deter you from your goal, are various enemies including fellow tanks and missile turrets. To aid in their destruction there are weapon cubes strewn about the arenas. Shooting the small cubes reveals a new weapon (with limited ammo) to use. Unfortunately, enemies respawn, and they do not take their time doing so. This means that there is no way to clear the stage before searching for the gems. Thankfully, the weapon cubes respawn as well. As you can probably tell, the emphasis is on collecting the gems and making it out alive, rather than fighting the enemies.

I'll admit, when I first started playing the game, I was having a great time. It was just good old mindless fun. Then, while trying to dodge an enemy in a small room I discovered my first problem with the game, which I will touch on in a bit. I figured it wasn't a big deal and since I was having so much fun up until this point I should give it a chance. Well, I played for a while longer and then the second problem showed up. That was the end for me. I tried to play the game ignoring these two problems, I really did, but the second one just got too bad to ignore. So, just what are these problems? Read on to find out.

Let's talk about the first negative aspect of the game: Control. My main problem with the control has to do with strafing. Circle strafing in particular. While circle strafing, if the back of your tank clips the wall, rather than stopping you or allowing you to continue strafing, you will get "pulled" towards said wall, straightening your tank against the wall, and probably taking some damage from enemy fire in the process. Hopefully that made sense because I've been racking my brain thinking of how to explain it. Baring this annoying problem, the tanks feel like they are moving on ice. It's not too bad, but you'd think tanks would have a little more traction.

Now, onto what forced me to stop playing the game, it's graphics. Hold on a minute, don't think that graphics are the deciding factor of a game to me. As long as they do not hurt playability, graphics are the least important part of a game in my opinion. The moment they start to hurt the gameplay, is when we run into a problem and in Assault Rigs case, it's a pretty big problem. The game literally became non-playable to me. It was making me sick. As the game progresses, the arenas get larger, and the frame rate drops, significantly. Eventually, it gets to the point where the game moves along like a slideshow, which makes me rather dizzy. The frame rate is just all over the place resulting in very choppy gameplay. Forget about precision aiming when the framerate drops. I had to stop playing. Not only was it making the game hard to play, it was making it hard for me to continue, it made me dizzy and sick to my stomach with all the frame rate fluctuation. Shame, because apart from the graphics and strafing problems, the game was pretty fun. As if it matters, but in addition to the low framerate/slowdown, the graphics are pretty bad overall.

Quickly, I'd like to touch on a couple problems with the camera views. The frame rate seems to drop quite a bit more when in first person mode. Either that or it is easier to notice. While the overhead view is pretty cool, if you hit a wall, the camera does an "extreme close up" on your tank, until you back off. It can also be hard to tell if your tank is traveling up sloped terrain or if it is just going across flat ground.

The music is rather dull. It sounds like a mix of techno and Native American chanting. Sadly, this combo doesn't work too well together. That's not to say it is a bad mix of styles, just that they didn't do too good a job with it. There is also some standard techno style tunes in the game, overall though, nothing exciting. Sound Fx are lame. When you hit enemies it sounds like you are banging a metal spoon on a pan.

Overall, I'd recommend skipping the game. The frame rate just kills it. The control problems, as annoying as they are, could be overcome with time, but nothing will fix this shoddy frame rate. It really is a shame because at the end of the day, the basic gameplay, while rather shallow, is quite fun. Yet another fun game killed by choppy gameplay thanks to a shoddy frame rate.

©2002 Ed Finnegan

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