|
Free Duel, Oh This Hot Seat Of Ours
Round Three: Top-down Mayhem
Third part of our selection features top-down viewed little mass-murderers, gun-maniacs and similarly mean men and women - a very popular theme in the past (comparable to 3D shooters, certainly), some of us probably could never forget Commando, Ikari Warriors, Alien Breed or Smash TV even.
These three games again bear resemblance to each other, (this actually manifests with all having solid one-player and even co-operative modes, and all games make a good download just for them) but are also actually pretty distinguishable from each other, both in terms of gameplay and representation.
While BMF is graphically the least impressive, it is also the most complicated of the three. The engine features quite a neat lighting and line-of-sight routines, but otherwise it looks quite crude and even a little messy. The size of characters is also much smaller than in the other games.
Controls are much more versatile than in the other two games, featuring for instance a grenade throwing system I really like (press the button to increase range), but on the downside a lot more learning is required to fully take advantage of all the possibilities.. actually, I'd wager on you losing control in the heat of the battle every now and then before it eventually gets to your spine. All in all there are 12 keys for each player, some with more than a single function. Be sure to read and remember the instructions. ;)
On one computer BMF can handle a split-screen two player mode, but the beef is that the game boasts a networking (yeah, working alright) capability. Unfortunately BMF was written for a high-end DOS machines, so its IPX support, and actually even the main program, written Pascal and Assembler, doesn't come completely to its own in modern machines. But just in case you have a network of 4 old Pentium machines lying around in a corner, be sure to grab BMF. Of these games, it's the one designed with the deathmatching most in mind.
The Ultimate Tapan Kaikki's focus is in the campaigns, which can be played in co-operative mode too, which is pretty much the main reason I've played the game, but deathmatch is also surprisingly playable. Compared to the two first genres, the top-down viewed mercenaries are not as easy to make a good duel game, since the lack of physics I've discussed. Often the combat turns into the two facing each other standing and just emptying their machine guns into other's face, which I personally don't regard very entertaining. On the other hand, the pressure waves of the pretty explosions actually make up for this a little. :-) TUT's deathmatch is best played as a stress reliever when you frustratingly die in the last level of the campaign. TUT's deathmatch, too, can be played via IPX (more players than two should be good) but the latest version, as of writing, is a DOS application just like BMF. There indeed is a Win32-version in the making, though.
C-DOGS I'll spare with a small mention. This game especially I should praise for its single player and co-operative modes. Randomized levels, albeit obviously repetitive, give the game a lot of replayability - and the campaigns, designed to give distinguishable frames for the randomization, succeed. The password system spares you from starting all over again, should you lose. With pleasant cartoony graphics and sounds, excellent playability and decent AI, the experience is very player friendly overall. But since we are talking deathmatchy multiplayer here, I have to say that mode in C-DOGS sinks, even more than its counterpart in Ultimate Tapan Kaikki, to just provide a bit of a deviation between co-op games. The engine is designed for blasting not-too-smart ogres and other villains into pulp, and feels limited with a smarter opponent.
|
