Recoil

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Review: Recoil

While the "us against the machines" storyline for Zipper Interactive's Recoil isn't anything we haven't seen before, this tank shooter acquits itself admirably in terms of challenge and fun.

Unfortunately, it doesn't acquit itself nearly as well in terms of actual play time.

Recoil finds you in control of a solitary BFT--good guess, but it stands for Battle Force Tank--bristling with fancy weaponry and complex technology as it guns its way through the same basic plot as the Terminator movies.

By the year 2019, machines and computers designed by the Mega Corporation have developed enough artificial intelligence to turn against their human masters and are now trying to brainwash or eradicate mankind. An Alliance of Dissidents formed from the few surviving free-thinkers sends you covert video transmissions explaining your goals in each of the six campaigns. As you progress deeper into the game, the weapons become considerably more potent and your tank adapts to changing environments using amphibian, hovercraft, and submarine technology looted from defeated enemy robot labs.

Gameplay is more involved than simply blasting the bejeezus out of everything that crosses your path. You might also be called upon to unearth hidden technologies or use your pulse gun to restructure some of the game's deformable scenery and structures into convenient launching ramps that your BFT can use to reach otherwise inaccessible heights. (This tank, controlled from toggle-able first- and third-person views, is a remarkably nimble weapon of mass destruction.)

The enemy AI, although unlikely to keep Rommel and Patton types awake at night, offers decent tactical opposition. Enemies won't simply advance into your gunsights, as is often the case with lesser shooters. While they also won't pursue you beyond the battlefield, they do remain mobile to avoid your fire and attack when you give them an opening.

The six campaigns offered for solo play might seem a generous pool of missions, but each is little more than an extended single mission with multiple goals and objectives. It took me less than a day to blow through the first three campaigns at the hardest difficulty level, and that certainly doesn't bode well for a long-term lease on my hard drive.

On the other hand, Recoil's modem, LAN, and TCP/IP multiplayer options--along with free, rock-solid Internet support on Westwood Studios' dedicated server--may stretch this stay a lot further. I had a spirited online session with three Westwood techs on the server and found that the multiplay component, although prone to some occasional lag, otherwise worked flawlessly.

Although not as stunning as cutting-edge titles like Incoming, the visuals in Recoil are nevertheless quite attractive and the game has a silky-smooth frame rate in both software and Glide modes. The terrain graphics have a somewhat blocky, angular look about them, but the vehicle textures are very well done. Special effects like moving cloud layers and lava flows provide enough bonus eye candy to appeal to most discerning gamers. The audio is also well done and, while I couldn't test it, includes support for Aureal A3D sound cards.

But solid gameplay, attractive graphics, and comprehensive multiplayer support can only go so far toward rescuing a 3D shooter that offers less than a week of stand-alone play. Recoil does well almost everything one could ask of it.

It just doesn't do it for long enough.-- Andy Mahood / GamePro