"Have You Driven An Urban Assault Vehicle Lately?" Get ready to rumble through town in Gun Metal. Driving to destruction! In Gun Metal, you play the role of a pilot driving a Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) in the Nataka Imperial Armored Cavalry. Your RPV is like a hovertank, fast and maneuverable that you fly by remote control. You whiz around and shoot at the "bad" robots and work your way through hallways. Be careful because you'll find that some spaces are too narrow for you to turn around in, especially if you have purchased a heavy chassis. If you get really stuck you'll be pleased to know that a self-destruct system is standard issue for Nataka RPVs.

With that said, I'm also pleased to know that my computer came with a delete button. This is yet another 3D shooter to come along and as I soon shall say, this one AIN'T helping the genre. You drive around this hovertank and try to make it through the levels.

At first it reminded me of Descent, except you can't go up and down. That, in itself, limits the game because it narrows it down to the already overcrowded linear First Person Quake Clones. This game is DOS, and if you're a gamer you already know that DOS is DEAD. I don't know who in their right mind would make a game in DOS when everything's being done through Windows today. This brings up my first point. Graphics. It has various video modes from 320x200 to 800x600 in 256 colors to 64k colors and it has Glide. Lets just say the software modes look like Descent I. If I'm not mistaken, that game came out almost four years ago, not a good sign for Mad Genius. If you run it in Glide, the graphics do get better. I swear they're almost 3D now. The cockpit is done through sprites so it looks the same no matter what graphics mode you're using and that's pretty ugly. I've noticed most Glide games don't take a long time to load since it's not loading the software rendering. This game, however takes long in BOTH graphics modes. The water and fire effects are about the only way to tell you're playing in 3D, because it looks like Duke3D otherwise.

The sounds were adequate for this game, probably the best aspect to it. The sounds of water rushing and dripping were very realistic, although the volume levels could have been a little better. You do get some spatial sound so you can tell if there's a guy hiding nearby trying to get the jump on you. All in all, it's not too bad.

Gameplay was bland. You've been here, done that no matter how few FPS's you've played. It looks like a gimpy version of Descent. Nothing real interesting. The AI was pretty good. They'll shoot you from behind if you're not looking, they'll dodge your shots, and run away if they get beat on. The levels are pretty big so you get to wander around a bit before you make it to the end. It does have some interesting environmental effects like lava and gravity wells, but in between it's pretty much shoot the bad guys and pick up ammo/shields/weapons, just like Descent, except with a dull storyline and no plot. This just isn't that fun. The ship also seemed to move too fast and I was only at half throttle. Now granted I've got a PII 300, but still games shouldn't be outdated by hardware when they're released.

Multiplayer... it's there, but I was already sick of the game and since I have no friends that want to play with me I won't say anything about it. (Of course, if I did have my friends play this game, I probably wouldn't have any more friends) It does have a split screen mode which I guess if you liked that sort of multiplayer it might be okay.

I wanted to say to dust off your 486's cause this sure looks like it'll run on it, after all Descent did, but alas you need a P90 to run the "Highly Detailed" non-accelerated graphics. I have a feeling that Mad Genius is probably going to have pretty good sales for this because they're hyping it to death. Just by visiting their page it sounds like God's gift to the "Un-Accelerated". However I think it's more hype then it's worth and I'd stay away from this game (the farther, the better).

NOTE: We could not capture 3D Accelerated screenshots, so the shots you see are Non-Accelerated.