Battlezone
Score: 75% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Atari Developer: Paradigm Entertainment Media: UMD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Action/ Third Person Shooter/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: Playing Battlezone had me flashing back to some old school joint and I couldn't remember the name to save my life. A little research paid off and I found my old notes on World Destruction League Thunder Tanks from PlayStation (yes, we actually just called it PlayStation at that time...) and PS2. 3DO did a masterful job of mashing up a driving game with a Fragfest concept in the WDL series. I'm sure that Battlezone is equal or greater to the old WDL games visually, but it doesn't come close in the gameplay department. It just goes to show that things change and don't necessarily stay the same. Sometimes they go in reverse. We can admit to the novelty of having a raucous, arena-driving/battle game on a PSP. You'll find relatively large environments, but not so large that you'll ever lose sight of the other side of the arena. You'll find neat lighting and cool weapon effects, but nothing we haven't seen already in lots of PSP games. The movement of the vehicles is not nearly as dynamic as you will think from looking at concept art or screenshots. There is a lot of role-playing that has to go on for you to find Battlezone very exciting. The big let-down was the static view out the cockpit window, around the arenas. None of the scenery really grabbed me and after I played any one area for three minutes, it was just a constant repetition of the same stuff going by the portal. Sure there are plenty of arena options to unlock, but I would gladly have settled for fewer, bigger arenas.
Gameplay: There are folks who love to frag with friends. I can say that Battlezone provides a decent option for those who have played everything else. We aren't exactly swimming in first-person shooters or combat driving games for the system, so maybe this will fill some needed void. My guess is that we might have viewed this game differently in the past. Older systems saw a spate of games like this, arena battle games with every imaginable theme and license. Obviously the Twisted Metal franchise was a high-water mark but there were many, many others. As a benchmark against Battlezone, I would say that the past could have informed the present and made this a better game. The first rule of this genre is that you need to have tight controls. The controls for Battlezone are okay, but the interface is clumsy and muddled. There are too many things going on in a small space and the tanks aren't nearly prominent enough. The result is a muddled blast of action and then everyone disperses to recoup and plan the next attack. The first few times, this has an adrenaline rush to it and against human opponents, you may be able to sustain the energy a bit longer. The A.I. battles are just old after a while. There aren't nearly enough smart moves under the A.I.'s hood and the lack of distinction between the different vehicles makes it barely worthwhile to experiment. The second rule of the genre is to provide neat environments and killer multiplayer. Everyone recognizes that the single-player mode is largely a throw-away in a title like this, so it's all about the fragging. Four players can do the same six things they always get to do in games like this. It really is time to break out a few new modes. Rockstar manages to devise hundreds of creative missions with very few mechanics, so why can't everyone else? Playing Capture the Flag one more time is going to send me into a Berzerker rage... If there were points for camping out in one place or destroying an enemy base, I would grant them, but I used up all those review points back in the 1990's.
Difficulty: The single-player game doesn't challenge much other than your ability to drive around the arena and press buttons quickly. The logic of balance for each vehicle is decent, so you can select a hulking bruiser if you don't feel ready to go fast with no armor. The weapons are pretty to look at and sound cool on paper, but few of them have any "ah-hah" excitement going for them. Playing against others will always have more excitement due to the various levels of ability in your group. The most difficult thing you may face is finding three other people who have a copy of the game...
Game Mechanics: There are a few nice things and a few things lacking here. There is a neat feature that allows you to build a custom arena online and download to a PC. You have to go to battlezonegame.com and then download the arena to your PC and then connect your PSP to the computer to get the custom arena. You have to do this because the PSP isn't a web-enabled device.... oh wait, it IS a web-enabled device. So what gives? What gives is a lame excuse for a USB cable. When you have Wip3out Pure kicking all kinds of content for download as a launch title, don't tell me we can't get some download content for Battlezone directly to my PSP! It just doesn't make sense. Maybe in a world of rushed development and release cycles, it makes sense. The controls for the tanks are smooth and silky, but the actual response of the vehicles is flatline. There are slight differences from tank to tank, but not enough to make it fun. I just found the battle experience tedious. The vehicles have a floaty feeling for the most part, so at least getting around the arena is simple. One of the worst things about Battlezone is setting up the options for your next round of play. The menus are somehow incredibly unintuitive, and you would have thought that so many years of menus would have smoothed things out. The big problem seems to be a desire to throw everything and the kitchen sink into Battlezone. If one or two ideas had been better implemented with true online play, this could have been a sleeper. A more free-roaming game that included larger arenas, and variety in tanks that was actually reflected in the gameplay would have improved Battlezone greatly. As it stands, this is a curiosity rental, with some features well implemented, but nothing truly exceptional.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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