BattleTanx

BattleTanx takes a beating in the N64 Anthology book, described as being "bereft of pleasurability", "a poor excuse for a game" and a game "for knuckle-draggers". Ouch. I disagree, and think it's a real shame the game only saw a USA release.

BattleTanx is an arena shooter of sorts in which you take control of not only tanks but similar vehicles and turrets. There are a surprising amount of modes on offer, all of which can be played in multiplayer (except the campaign) or single player with bots. The campaign sends you across USA, map objectives having you destroy enemies, reach the other side of the map or rescue 'Queenlords'. As odd as it sounds, Queenlords are females, all of whom have been elevated to a supreme status in an alternate reality where a virus has wiped out most females on earth. Left to their primitive devices without female influence, males have formed gangs and now engage in warfare, fighting for control. The game's story sounds ridiculous, but it's told with a surprising amount of depth rarely seen in similar games. Rather than dump you into a map with no context like similar games did at the time and still do, BattleTanx tells a b-movie story via a lengthy storyboarded intro cutscene, text introductions at the beginning of each level, and further cutscenes throughout. It never devolves into surface-level stuff, either; for the genre, there's an impressive amount of detail in both the game's events and its background.

Almost entirely destructible environments, hidden areas and special weapon pickups spice up the gameplay. The former allows you to look for tactical advantages by, for example, busting through a wall to get the jump on an enemy. However, many battles are decided by who fired first--your tank's turret can't be rotated independent of its body, so you've got to remain still to maintain your accuracy. This is my biggest gripe with BattleTanx, as increased manoeuvrability would've given the game a higher skill ceiling and made battles so much more dynamic. Shield and cloaking pickups go some way towards substituting for this, but both are relatively rare during the campaign and so the game can feel more difficult than it perhaps should be at times.

Still, BattleTanx offers up surprising depth and is just so fun to play. A multiplayer gem on the N64 and one of the last really solid releases to hit shelves in 1998.