by Maurice Fitzgerald

  Novalogic has recently released the third installment in their Armored Fist series. Novalogic is a developer known for their melding of military simulations with hot gameplay to make fun, accessible games anyone can pick up with a minimal learning curve.

While many sim tankers may balk at such an endeavor (as some flight sim junkies have at their flight sims in the past) I for one have always been a fan of their style of development. I appreciate a game I can pick up and play pretty quickly as long as it’s fun and the gameplay isn’t inhibited by design flaws. Don’t get me wrong and think I don’t want a hard core tank sim; I sure do! But there is room for ‘survey’ style tank sims along with the serious ones.

Using their much discussed Voxel engine in its latest incarnation, Novalogic has once again created some of the best terrain for a gamer to play on. The best terrain to play on... if you have the horsepower for it. We all know what voxelspace demands in terms of hardware requirements and AFIII is no exception.

As much as you will enjoy the vast expanses filled with deep gullies, washes and real rolling terrain, AFIII will leave you scratching your head over some of its aspects. Like me you will be asking the question, “is this for real?”

Voxelspace and Graphics Resolution

For starters the biggest shock to me was the fact that the games max resolution is 640*480. At this resolution the voxel engine leaves a lot to be desired.

At 640x480 the pixels are plain for all to see, with enough jagged edges to bring you back to the old Atari days. Why Novalogic didn’t stick with the Voxel engine used in DF that could support resolutions up to 800*600 solidly is beyond me. It worked very well and increased the look of the game immensely. The new Voxel 32 engine is even more of a CPU hog than the last one; it bogged down my 550 MHz machine plenty of times.

The game can be played from third or first person perspective much like Delta Force yet the game takes on a total arcade feel when played from third person perspective. While this series has always been more about action than realism, this latest version left me with the feeling that the game was just thrown together with little thought or effort. Some of the missions are fun, but not fun enough to keep you coming back for more.

Gameplay Issues

Besides the lack of resolution depth the game has some other issues that detract from enjoyment. The gunnery model will give you fits, as you’ll find laying your main gun on target can become a lesson in frustration. Those small fine movements of the gun needed to place the reticule on target are not there. Instead your sight will jump around as you chase the enemy with your sights.

This is a serious issue with the game and quickly can lead to frustration as you’ll spend more time trying to sight in a target than you should. This in turn can spell your demise in some of these scripted missions.

Setting the tracking mode to fine will only exacerbate the situation further by making your turret movements all the much slower, again detrimental to your virtual survival. Not that the AI is very smart mind you, as we will discuss later on. Perhaps this is NL’s way of making up for this targeting drawback.

As I mentioned above the reticule movement is jerky at best when you try to lay on a target. It seems NL knows of this problem as you can still destroy a target if you’re not exactly on it. It’s almost as if they expanded the target bubble a couple of notches to allow for this poor targeting model. Not only is it annoying but it takes away from the fun because you are never really challenged to lay the tube exactly on target. I came away from this game feeling like I had just played a Quake tank mod instead of a tank simulation: all arcade and no simulation.

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There is an easy target lock mode to help you deal with the frustrations of the manual mode to some degree. In this mode the computer will pick the targets for you instead of having you search for them yourself. This keeps you busy putting steel on target, or at least you can close enough to the target for the game to score a kill for you.

The other stations on an M1 are modeled well. The CITV allows you to spot and designate targets for your gunner. Using the IVIS you can also spot enemy units and set new waypoints for your units, allowing you to head off the enemy and engage them, etcetera. The drivers position is modeled pretty much the same as always and is one station you won’t spend a lot of time in. Where you will want to spend that time will be the TC cupola using the .50.

Using the .50

While I found the .50 left almost as much to be desired as the main gun, I did get somewhat used to firing with it. Enough so that when frustration set in I could pop up there and unload ‘John Wayne’ style on the unsuspecting infantry which are modeled in the game, something everyone asks for in an armor sim. The only purpose the infantry seem to serve in this game is that of dismounted targets. While they can fire on you with AT weapons they rarely pose a threat. The best part (and most arcade) is the fact that you can run over them. It’s a nice ‘road rage’ feature to allow you to blow off some steam after a bad day.

Air and artillery assets are also modeled and are a mixed bag. I did like, however, the ease of calling a fire mission. It’s point and click simple. Just point your tube where you want the fire mission or CAS to hit and call it in. Very shortly you will see an aircraft inbound for the strike or you will hear the call of splash for artillery.

Funny thing is the delay of 20-30 seconds when “splash” has been called for the rounds to hit the deck. The proper method is “shot out” when the round leaves the tube and “splash” when it should hit the deck. It’s never dead on accurate in the real world, but it is close to within a second or two. In AFIII it’s way off. Just a little discrepancy but one I wanted to mention nonetheless.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is included and as is usual with NL’s MP games this one runs pretty stable on their much-vaunted NovaWorld service. But the big point they missed in both this and DFII is the exclusion of any other form of online play such as direct IP, which has become very popular with many games. You are forced to use NovaWorld and as much as I do love NovaWorld I feel NL may turn off some gamers by not including direct IP in these games. What is a gamer to do when the NovaWorld servers are down and they’re itching for some head to head play?

Multiplayer allows you to play with up to 32 players in several different modes, standard deathmatch, CTF, team deathmatch and force on force where you must satisfy mission objectives while stopping your opponents from achieving theirs. You can also play in co-op mode and run through the missions with your buddies online. Five other fellow tankers can join you in running through the mission.

SUMMARY

Overall, AFIII is the same fast action arcade game as the first two versions. The only exception is the new (slow) voxel 32 engine. While I have been a supporter of the voxel engine due to its ability to create some of the greatest outdoor environments, the 32 bit frame crawler has really turned me off. The new engine is the biggest detractor to enjoyment, and the action in AF3, while fast and furious, is totally arcade and not very involving.

Ed. Note: this review is based on the boxed version without the update released by Novalogic in late October.

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