Bandits: Phoenix Rising PC-CDROM
Bandits: Phoenix Rising isn’t new, but it was so enjoyable that I thought it warranted a review on the Jitty. For fans of games such as Interstate 76 (which still has a cult following) and films such as Mad Max you may want to pay more attention to this game. For fans of Need for Speed Underground, ever get really tired of getting bumped off the road by a computer AI and just wanted to have a set of machine guns bolted to your car to put things right? Now you can!!
You take control of the Wolfpack gang as Fennec, along with his vertically challenged sidekick, Rewdalf, driving your vehicle over all sorts of terrain (desert canyons, deep snow drifts etc) in 22 missions ranging from car duels, train robberies to the storming of trade outposts and more. Your vehicle can be upgraded or even changed as you fight for survival is dictated by the size of your gang and how great your boomstick is.
In the midst of this is the formidable fortress that nobody dares raid, Jericho City, where the powerful elite and fortunate few reside. Behind the thick concrete walls, oil and gasoline are produced, two resources that are more valuable then life itself.
The game acts in many way as a first person shooter, but set on wheels, with a choice of three vehicles and a concise selection of weapons, although truthfully you have to earn the upgrade choices, much in the same vein as many other games (Freelancer, Guildwars etc etc). The action is fairly pacey, with relatively easy controls given the complexity of what the game developers were trying to do. In fact there are two methods of controlling your vehicle. There’s the simple press forward on the keyboard and aim with the mouse controlling where you go and where your weapons fire, or there is the more intricate method of steering/driving your vehicle with the keyboard, and controlling your weapon turret with the mouse independently of each other.
Because the action is so fast paced, at first you don’t notice that there aren’t more upgrades or vehicles to choose from, but after a while you do begin wishing that there were some other configurations available. It’s a minor gripe and just goes to show that you can’t keep everybody satisfied all of the time. The single player missions start of fairly sedately, but about mid way through the game they do ramp up the difficulty level, with one mission in particular (escort the train) being a real test, but after that some of the other levels seem fairly calm again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a tutorial, so for new gamers it can be quite hard to get to grips with some of the gaming controls/concepts.
Fennec and Rewdalf, as far as characters go, are kind of likeable, especially Rewdalf with some of his one-liners delivered with a stereotypical Scottish accent and sharp delivery, and there is a fairly decent storyline to carry the gaming action along. You even learn more about the characters as you progress, with the cut-screens allowing the bulk of the next mission to load in the background.
The graphics certainly aren’t ground breaking such as the forthcoming “Crysis”, but they’re certainly very good with detail being used in just the right amounts. The landscapes are clean, which is just as well as the action is so frenetic that chances of you having time to admire the graphical horizon are slim, and why waste processing time on something you won’t really pay attention to any way? The same goes for the vehicles, but nice touches such as spent shells pumping out of your machine gun’s chamber at alarming rates hides the real simplicity running in the background. Which leads me onto the design of the vehicles themselves, Mad Max never had toys like these!! Your initial “car” is light (read as, “cannon fodder”), with the larger vehicles looking menacing and “handy”, but the designs are pretty distinctive, avoiding the “Beach Buggy” syndrome of futuristic cars that seem to prevail at times.
The music selection is pretty small, but what there is varies from Hip-Hop to pseudo Metal tracks, providing a background for most gamers to take on the trigger happy computer players, who make up for their intelligence by being totally psychotic.
Starforce. Yup, that hideous bit of anti-piracy is also installed along with the game. Largely speaking, most users don’t notice it’s effects, but some have had issues with it. Before you install any game with Starforce bundled within, I would suggest you try googling it and read up on it’s effects.
One last gripe, the save game feature. You can only save a game once you’ve completed a mission. Now in theory that’s fine for the short missions that may last only a few minutes, but wow is it hugely annoying when you’ve been playing that damned hard mission (the infamous “escorting the train”) for 10/15 minutes, and then fail at the last hurdle.
All in all, Bandits is an enjoyable game with single player and multiplayer functionality. It’s fast paced and slick, with details shown where they need to be. If you see it going cheap, it may well be worth your attention.
