When
I took over the ZZAP! strategy reviews I expected the
games I'd be sent to be different, but I did not expect
to find a toolkit in one. And I don't mean a software
toolkit, I mean a miniature set of screwdrivers with
a tiny hammer and a tiny wrench inched together in a
neat plastic pouch. This I suppose is called imaginative
packaging, though the kind of cars AutoDuel deals
with are likely to need a somewhat larger maintenance
kit.
Apart
from the toolkit, the AutoDuel package offers
a substantial 32 page rulebook and a colourful fold-out
road map -- oh yes . . . and a disk. The game incorporates
an arcade element which is central to the gameplay.
Therefore strategy gamers who have no patience with
games which demand a degree of joystick-waggling will
not he enamoured of this release.
The
setting is the kind of arid, technological, aggressively
bleak future that Americans seem to anticipate. The
roads between the major 'fortress cities' have become
almost impassable unless you're driving an armoured
tank, and the favourite spectator sport is combat to
the death in the autoduelling arenas. Also, the only
way of transporting goods is to pay freelance couriers
to battle their way along the motorway. Into this environment
you arrive, with the open-ended ambition of earning
a lot of money, building up a nice car, and gaining
repute.
You
start out as a raw, untested candidate for greatness,
with a small amount of money and no vehicle to call
your own. The game opens in New York, with 15 other
cities to hit later on; you are first of all asked to
create a character for the driver by spending 50 paints
between the three skills of driving ability, marksmanship
and mechanical ability. The character of the driver
is therefore very simply defined, the real complexity
being reserved for the much more important creation
of the car.
A
poor driving ability means that the car can become impossible
to control properly with the joystick if tyres blow,
and low marksmanship makes it difficult to hit an opponent's
car. This is an uneasy interface between game reality
and physical reality. In an arcade game (and lots of
sequences in AutoDuel are clearly demanding an
arcade-style approach), the interaction between the
human player, the joystick and the movement on screen
is a real event. A strategy game exists much more in
the imagination, which is why strategy games can get
away with bad graphics. Character statistics relating
to ability very definitely belong to this imaginative
sphere, and when they get between the movement on screen
and the player's own, real developing ability at manipulating
the movement, it is irritating.
This
is the background to a more serious objection. The graphics
in the action sequences are not at all good. The car
you drive, no matter how complex on paper, always looks
like a very simple Mini viewed from above. The arenas
in each town are identical, consisting of stick-like
fencing and rocks with a lot of blank space. But when
you hit the mean hard motorways of the 21st century,
it's disappointing to find that the landscape looks
rather like a child's drawing. Nice white fences, little
cows by the roadside, well-kept homesteads and trees
conspire to ridicule the scenario.
As
the game's object is to build the best car you can and
win autoduelling championships, the immediate aim is
to make money. I found the easiest way to do this is
to bypass all that dangerous and uncertain autoduelling
and head by bus for Atlantic City, where you can take
part in a very lenient and generous game of Draw Poker!
But the proper way to make your first few thousand is
to take part in the amateur Night event at the arena.
The prize is £1500 dollars and a couple of points of
prestige. When you have your own armed and armoured
green Mini you can take part in the Division Combats
and the highly dangerous City Championships.
The
other main way of making money and gaming prestige is
to run courier tasks for the AADA. Visiting their buildings
offers the player a choice of four different tasks every
day. This seems to me one of the most interesting aspects
of the game. If your car isn't big enough and your prestige
isn't high enough, the AADA will have no hesitation
in refusing you for an important job.
Most
of the loving care in the design of this game has gone
into the car specifications. There are seven basic types
of body design, four chassis modifications, three kinds
of suspension and four grades of 'power plant' to choose
from. All of these affect how much the vehicle can carry,
how fast it can go, and how easy it will be to handle.
After that, there are tyres, weapons and armour to decide
on, and there are 12 weapon types to choose from. It's
just a pity that when your armoured tank rolls off the
efficient production lines it still looks like a green
Mini.
These
and other touches of variety (such as the ability to
salvage cars you've destroyed and sell the scrap) seem
to promise a substantial game. AutoDuel does
have a feeling of solidity and of things to do and places
to go, but there are objections which may be more than
superficial.
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