Recwar

RecWar is a 2D top-down vehicle combat game for 1-2 players (or 1-4 over a LAN) in the spirit of the Twisted Metal series with a bit of GTA and Liero thrown into the mix. In the game, you offered a selection of 3 different vehicles: the Tank, the Hummer, and the Hovercraft, as well as 3 modes of play. The game offers a certain amount of customization when it comes to vehicles, allowing you to pick 2 different colors and one of several different design with which the colors can be used. Other dynamic variables include the amount of armor vehicles have, as well as the colors, names and vehicles that the computer bots use.

Weapons include a minigun, particle beam, cluster bombs, automatic missiles, homing missiles, guided missiles, "the BFG" and land mines. From the beginning of each stint of gameplay the user has all of the weapons an unlimited cache of ammunition (excluding the landmine, which you only have 10 of). As a last resort, the player can also activate a self destruct mechanism, destroying them, aswell as anything around them.

The first mode of combat is "Deathmatch". This is a every man for himself battle to the death. This mode is arguably better with around 10-15 players (bots) as anymore make it so frenzied that sometimes you'll die as soon as you re-spawn.

The second type of game is called "Team War". This pits you and up to 32 other bots against an opposing team of equal size. In this mode, the more participants, the better. Fast paced and intense, this mode is best played with health set to 100%.

The Final mode of play is called "Capture the Cow". This is the RecWar equivalent of Capture the Flag, but with a cow!). You can have several teams all playing at once (depending on the map), which makes this even more dificuly, but exciting aswell. This mode is best played with the health set at 200%, as it will be incredibly difficult to ever make it through the other teams base and to their cow with any less of a setting.

One slight drawback of this game is its controls. When you first start playing, its a bit hard to get used to how the vehicles control, not to mention how each vehicle steers (the hovercraft, though the fastest vehicle, is also the hardest to control, being a hovercraft and all). However, after about 5 minutes of play, you become acustom to the controls.

Also, the interface of the game is a bit lacking. When you start the game, there’s no splash screen, the game just goes straight to game type selection, along with the vehicle customization utility at the top.

The graphics are a perfect fit for the game and are of very high quality. Explosion animations are perfect and movement is smooth. This game is just as good as any of its commercial counterparts, and the sound is of equivalent quality. The AI is great, making this game very fun, with unlimited hours of gameplay.

(Note: Also included is a map editor, which is very easy to use, by just tiling textures on a map, and making walls, you can make maps very easily. Somewhat similar to Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness’ map editor).

Pros:

Many modes
Very customisable
Great gameplay and replay value

Cons:

Interface lacking
Controls slight learning curve

Review by Mather