BattleTanx

Developer: 3DO Publisher: 3DO

Released: December 31, 1998 Rated: T 8/10

Somewhere between an army shooter and a car combat title, we arrive in the post-apocalyptic dudefest of BattleTanx, where roving gangs of tanks, big and small, roam the American countryside. With some help from a Captain Trips-like virus, 99% of women on earth have been wiped out, and those that remain are regarded as Queenlords, to be hoarded and guarded by these gangs while world powers engage in nuclear war over the remaining quarantine zones of major cities. It’s a much darker and bleaker tone than you’ll find in most titles on the N64, even compared to other more violent real-world settings like the oil-depleted US of Vigilante 8 or the alien-ravaged LA of Duke Nukem 64.

Naturally, our protagonist, Griffin, has his surviving sweetheart taken from him and decides that they messed with the wrong guy in this case, so he heads off from his home in New York City in a tank of his own on a cross-country warpath to build up a posse and rescue his lady. Told, as you might expect, through a series of lightly animated images and text, à la Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, BattleTanx doesn’t exactly interweave its narrative and gameplay with any particular mastery or anything like that, but it kicks off with this attention-grabbing premise effectively and offers a more memorable story than most of its peers, so it’s worth laying the groundwork with the game’s unique tone and style, especially as the other major series from the company behind the tonal whiplash of a series like Army Men.

As with most US and global brands, the country essentially consists of California, Chicago, New York, and a whole lotta nothin’ in between.

Following a mission-based structure, the campaign pits Griffin and his own steadily-growing army against the gangs on their respective home turf, either requiring you to eliminate a set number of enemies on a map, rescue Queenlords à la capture the flag, or cross from one side of an area to the other (usually across a major bridge such as the George Washington out of NYC, bringing the action in tighter and making it harder to retreat). At only 13 missions and four bonus levels, it could be a bit longer or more varied, but it’s a quick sequence with a rewarding difficulty curve that sets up the replayability of deathmatches and other skirmish modes pretty well.

Gameplay in BattleTanx is far from the land of complicated sims or strategy titles that might also heavily feature armored vehicles around this time. This is pure arcade action more akin to Twisted Metal or Quake than Panzer General or the BattleZone reboot the N64 gets in 2000. Three types of tanks — standard, Goliath, and MotoTank — provide a small amount of variety in the vein of NES Ice Hockey’s “small-middle-big” options, and a selection of power-ups and special weapons provide all the gameplay variety you might need. Players will find their preferences with both, especially in modes that ask you to choose a faction that determines your fleet and starting weapons. Along with a base gun that differs on each of the three models, weapons like swarming missiles, grenades, turrets, and the fun-yet-twitchy guided missiles are all rather satisfying to use and you’ll very quickly hone in on your favorites in each category.

How come your gang lets you have *two* Queenlords?

Utilizing a variety of locales across the US does give BattleTanx some nice visuals to play with, even if it most often goes for dark and claustrophobic city streets, especially in the early and more Eastern areas. Opening up to the midday sun and seaside setting of San Francisco by the end of the campaign is an interesting contrast, at any rate. It can often feel a little too reminiscent of the gray/brown era or AAA titles but at least it’s in an appropriate post-apocalyptic setting and doesn’t resemble every other game on the system while doing it. The comic-inspired stills in the cutscenes are a satisfactory option knowing the technical limitations that led us to them, though it’s actually when used in the depictions of the different gangs and other places where a flat render fits best that the art style holds up particularly well.

While the visuals do suffer a little bit from the dark tone and hardware, however, the score and sound design uses a lot of this dreariness to its advantage. The brass-laden marching tunes that comprise the melodies get a big boost in tone by being processed through the MIDI sound fonts, lending a more industrialized sound to a soundtrack that pretty brilliantly wears the facade of glory and conviction with an undercurrent of mechanization. It fits both the vehicle-based gameplay and the moral ambiguity of the participants as, like many post-apocalyptic protagonists, Griffin and his army are barely any more noble in their struggle for survival than any gangs they fight, at least while they’re behind the controls of their war machines (we’re certainly not going to get into the philosophies of each gang in this article at the very least). Along with some excellent and hefty Foley work on tank treads, firing cannons, and all sorts of explosions, there’s also the blunt, robotic narrator that lends that final glaze of frost to the gameplay. It may be a small part of the package, but BattleTanx really hits a bullseye in how it uses its sound design.

Obviously the hardware is limited, but the status of tanks and buildings progressing from intact to damaged to destroyed is always kind of a clever albeit funny visual.

You’ll likely end up finishing BattleTanx just wishing there was a bit more of it. A longer campaign, a bigger arsenal, a few more maps and game modes. Thankfully, a sequel would be along before too long, and while it goes almost too far with the variety, it’s hard to argue that what BattleTanx does have in this initial entry is almost better on average in some ways than its sequel. A worthy exclusive in its time and a true third party gem, BattleTanx is a dark horse candidate for the finest third-party exclusive on the system and it does so with almost the opposite approach to everything the system is usually known for.