Wild Metal

by Rockstar

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000035YC3
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: January 28, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #28,818 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Editorial Review

Perhaps a better name for this game would be Mild Metal, because playing it won't likely raise your temperature. Playing this enjoyable mission-based tank game is rather meditative, in that players are required to think tactically in order to reach their goals. Don't expect to be wowed by graphics or sound effects, but do bring your brain for this old-school treasure hunt that looks and feels much more like a PC game than a Dreamcast title.

To beat each level, players must drive a tank around large, hilly, desolate areas while scooping up precious containers of glowing energy capsules before dropping them off at your home base. This game challenges the player with a wildly varying elevation and drab-colored terrain. The control scheme for shooting is also tough to tackle. Players fire their tank's cannon by pressing a button, but holding the button down will increase the angle of trajectory. Not only that, the energy capsules are often obstructed, requiring all sorts of physical puzzle solving to get at them. While not exactly thrill-a-minute, this game has plenty of depth and challenge to keep thoughtful gamers happy for quite some time. --Jeff Young

Pros:

• New control scheme
• Impressive explosions
• Fun puzzle solving gameplay

Cons:

• Drab graphics and sound fail to excite the senses

GameSpot Review

There have been plenty of video games based on military combat, so why not a futuristic Dreamcast shooter that puts you behind the controls of a space-age tank on a search-and-destroy mission to save all mankind? While the concept might sound good on paper, Wild Metal fails to hit the mark and instead delivers an experience not worth repeating. While Wild Metal does have a storyline, the game doesn't bother to fill you in on it. There's no opening intro, no cutscenes, no mission briefings, and no real instructions on exactly why you're in a tank and on what you're supposed to do. This makes things confusing until you read the instruction manual, which tells you the backplot and informs you that your basic task is to pilot your tank through the levels, collect a bunch of multicolored power cores (one for each color of the rainbow, how nice!), and then bring them back to your ship. All the while you'll have to deal with a whole lot of terrain that tanks aren't exactly suited to, on top of destroying all the enemies contained within the level. Force fields, sentries, mines, and other tanks will all do their best to stop you from achieving this goal, but you'll find your main enemies are the terrain and the poor camera controls. Since Wild Metal features a wide range of elevations, it's often difficult to see exactly what you want to look at, and the camera controls aren't that much help since the camera only rotates on one elliptical axis. Why any military force would choose a tank for this type of search-and-destroy mission is an obvious question. The terrain would be more suited to a drop ship or helicopter, as power cores are usually hidden in tiny crevices between mountains, and there's usually only one path you can take. And since there's no real map and only an amazingly oversimplified radar to tell you where to go, you'll find that you will be spending most of the time wandering around the level until you happen to bump into where you want to be going. On top of that, the terrain is so bland and repetitive that it's difficult to tell exactly where you've been, which makes it all that more difficult to complete your objective. Wild Metal does feature a fairly nice turret system that, in theory, lets you move and fire in a manner similar to that of a real-life tank. Unfortunately, in execution the turret is always too slow, and without an actual aiming icon it's extremely inaccurate. The analog trigger buttons rotate the turret to and fro, and holding down the fire button controls the elevation of the turret. When you rotate, the camera follows the gun, leaving you to simply guess where you are driving. And since there are all sorts of pitfalls and mountains scattered about the level, you're sure to accidentally drive off the side of a cliff or up the side of an unscalable mountain in the middle of combat, leaving you incredibly frustrated. The overly complex control scheme is done so poorly that it's much easier to simply stop your tank altogether every time you want to take out an enemy. And since there's no sort of accurate way to judge the elevation of your barrel and the arc of your shots, you'll be forced to fire a series of shots that get increasingly closer to your target as you correct yourself. This pretty much ruins any sort of stealth that you may have had, and it's such a tedious process that it ruins combat altogether, and you end up trying your best to simply avoid any sort of hostile situation. While the tank models themselves appear pretty sharp, the rest of the graphics look horrible. The terrain is a smattering of yellows and browns, making you wonder exactly what sort of planet you're actually on. With the exception of the occasional purple pipes or gray mesas, each level looks pretty much the same as the one before it - incredibly bland. Since the levels carry the same overall appearance, they start to blur together, and after a while it seems as if you've been driving through the same few mountains for the last couple of hours. In fact, the only thing that seems to separate the levels is the occasional night mission, which gives the graphics a slightly different spin, but on closer inspection you'll notice that the textures are still the same. The sound is extremely average, aside from a nice crunching sound every time you run over the scraps of recently destroyed enemies. What really kills the whole audio experience is the absolute lack of any background music. Iinstead of suspenseful music edging you on, you get to listen to the drone of the helicopter's rotors while you play. The game does feature a multiplayer mode but doesn't take advantage of all four of the Dreamcast's controller ports. Still, you and a friend can have at each other in one of four different multiplayer arenas. If you want to make things more interesting, you can even change the session from straight fragging to scrambling to collecting all the power cores. Still, the multiplayer mode suffers from the same problems that plague the single-player mode, and it keeps Wild Metal from being any sort of game you'd want to invite friends over to play. If it weren't for the terrible control scheme, horribly accurate AI, and confusing terrain, this game would still be overly simple. There are no difficult tasks set ahead of you - simply collect the cores and return to the starting point. It's unfortunate that the only difficulty found in the game is a direct result of the game's numerous flaws. With the Dreamcast's muscle, this game had plenty of potential, but it turned out to be a boring shooter so frustrating that it's hardly worth a rental.--Ben Stahl--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great game, but shooting on the move is difficult to master, June 11, 2001

By	Tony Calder (Dallas, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

As a afficianado of the old arcade Battlezone game (I guess that gives my age away), I find Wild Metal to be a lot of fun. Oddly, I like some of the things that other(s) (...) seem to feel are negative about the game.

Okay, so there's no big emphasis on some hokey "storyline" gag, no pre-mission briefing, etcetera. (...)It's a freakin' TANK GAME! (....) Select your tank, rumble out into the hills and mountains to find and store your power cores, and try to blow away everything that moves before it blows you away. Yeah, it takes some thinking, some strategy, but it's not rocket science with a need for some in-depth, hokey storyline in order for you to grasp the concept, and the essence of your mission.

And, okay, so there's not any obnoxious, loud, thumping music blaring at you while you play. Just the realistic rumble of your tank, the rattle of the tracks, the explosion of artillery fire. The absence of a bunch of stupid theme music cluttering up the game is a plus, not a minus. You'll learn to love the ambient sounds of the game, and will begin to concentrate on them. It's nice to be able to hear the shots coming in at you.

Some (...) have trashed the graphics, too. I actually think they're pretty good, in a desolate, otherworldly sort of way. And I love the less than 1G gravity effect. Yes, (...), a tank CAN sometimes fly!

My biggest criticism would be this: In order to ever get REALLY good at this game, you MUST be able to shoot on the move, steering the tank in one direction, rotating the turret in another while selecting weapons, shooting, adjusting trajectory and delivering your ordinance on target -- all on the fly. I haven't mastered it yet. I mostly still just pick my ground carefully, try to ambush them, strike first, strike hard, hurt them before they even get their turret turned in my direction, and, when the steel starts flying, stand toe-to-toe and just outshoot them. Doesn't always prove successful, though, and any tips on shooting on the move would be appreciated.

In short, Wild Metal is a very cool game! Buy it!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars rock solid gameplay, March 21, 2001

By	punkviper (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Coming from Rockstar, you would think this would be a "wild, crazy, in-your-face extreme" title, which it isn't. But it's also a lot better than most titles affixed with such labels. You pick your choice of futuristic tank-type vehicles, then get dropped in the middle of a landscape with the mission of collecting all of the power-cores. Each has it's own color, and once you pick one up, you have to then deposit it in any of the hovering recovery rings. That's about the gist of the entire game right there.

There is no music, just the satisfying hum of your tank as it revs around the terrain. And that's really the main goal here. Survey your surroundings, explore, eliminate the few guardian tanks and gun-turrets, and get all of the cores in the least amount of time possible. Granted, that time might be as long as an hour since the boards are so huge, but that's the sort of game this is. Perhaps "Pensive Metal" might have been a better title for this game, as there is very little "wild" activity to be found.

But the gameplay is rock solid, control is responsive, difficulty isn't too hard, levels are a bit boring but you really won't notice after a while. It's just a very engrossing, concentrated type of game. No thumping rap music, no blaring cheese metal guitars, no "extreeeeme" qualities whatsoever. Perhaps a game better suited to adults, and those who can remember when solid gameplay beat flashy graphics and a licensed soundtrack every time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great gameplay. ..., September 1, 2000

By	Elizabeth R. Powell (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This is a straightforward action/strategy game, but this time it's done right. Sure, the graphics kinda suck. But the gameplay is actually really good if you give it a chance. Using the terrain to your advantage in an attack successfully is strangely satisfying. The thing is that if you DONT use the terrain or thinking about which weapon is best, you'll be ripped to shreds by the very hard AI. Do it right though, and you can wipe out five double-cannoned tanks in seconds. The other trick is not to be seen. Launching well-placed surprise attacks is key, and it really adds a lot to the game. It's recommended if you want strategy in your game. If you want to just blow stuff up, you can do that to ( there's plenty to destroy ) just remember that if you just go charging into an enemy base without thinking twice, you'll be swarmed and you shouldn't expect to last long. But overall, a good game for the people that can appreciate it.