Title: Hardware: Rivals
Developer: SCE Connected Content Group
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Price Tag: $19.99 on Playstation Store (Free of January 2016 for PS+ users)
Release Date: January 5th, 2015
Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Number of Players: Multiplayer
Genre: 3rd player Vehicular Combat
Youtube Game Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lheZ_Qr548
This is the first game I attempted to review… while being shot at by other players and losing badly. I feel I did a horrible job at it. :/
Because of this, it’s best you read my written review as it’s much more detailed.
To explain this game is to explain how ice forms, or how we breath. In other words, it’s self-explanatory. Basically, the game is simply about killing other player-driven vehicles on each map.
The player is able to control one of four vehicles. Two of them are called Fast Attack Vehicles(F.A.V. for short), and the other two are tanks. Similar to an RPG, each vehicle has their strengths and weaknesses. FAVs are more nimble, but have a weaker primary weapon. Tanks are slower and bulky, but have a powerful primary weapon.
The player can choose one of these four vehicles at either the main menu, or after a round is complete and a new round is about to start.
They can also customize their vehicle’s paint job with unlockables, and also change the look of their weapons. They can do the same thing with their player character. Both ‘upgrades’ are purely cosmetic and don’t affect the gameplay.
What can are two things. The first is level up rewards, and the second is the secondary weapon pickups that are scattered on every level. It’s similar to games like Mario Cart. But instead of slowing down the player’s opponent, they can seriously cripple them (if done right) for an easy (yet also slow and painful (not to mention rage-inducing) to the enemy) kill.
The more of the same secondary weapon the player has, the more ammo of that weapon they’ll have to use against their enemies.
Some secondary weapons have an enemy lock on feature(such as the ‘Rockets’ one), which the player can attack their target from a safe distance.
Let’s go over the game modes. There are several for the player to pick, such as team deathmatch, regular deathmatch, last player standing.. things like this. There’s even one that only unlocks after a certain time.
Though it’s highly recommended (and I can’t stress this enough) that the player (when starting out) picks the ‘Combat Driver Training’ one, to understand the basics of the controls and combat of their vehicles.
And that’s all there is to it. If you’re interested in this game, then hopefully you’ll have better luck than I am. Time for my final review.
Good;
-The game thankfully doesn’t use microtransactions to unlock locked upgrades and addons.
-The player cannot hear what other players say when they fail… a lot.
Bad;
-Nothing… except my awesome skills of epicly failing. :/
Neutral;
-The unlockable ‘upgrades’ and ‘addons’ that the player can acquire are cosmetic, and don’t change the gameplay (such as a new weapon). However, XP upgrades can make the game a tad bit easier for them.
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Final Verdict: If you like fast-paced vehicular combat (and not hearing other players screaming racist comments into your ear), download this game right now before January is over. You will not be disappointed.