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Title Armour-Geddon
Game Type 3D Combat Sim
Players 1
Compatibility All
Submission Andy Thomas (andy@adamantium.demon.co.uk)

Review
This was a mutlti-vehicle sim that I kept on coming back to. Your aim
was to put together a fighting force of various vehicles with which to
retrieve pieces of technology, necessary to build a large bomb for use on
a heavily shielded laser weapon. If you failed to get the components in
time, this laser would fire, bouncing the beam off a satellite and then
back to earth. Game over.
This was a Psygnosis game, and as always, the "video" sequences were very
impressive. The game engine itself was no frills 3D on a limited map, but
the actual game play was great. The vehicles available were the
hovercraft, light tank, heavy tank, helicopter, fighter and bomber. All
handled very authentically, the helicopter and hovercraft being an
acquired taste. Waypoints could be set and autopilot was an option. All
your vehicles launched from your underground base, much like the Eagles
out of Space 1999. In order to get the components you had to blast your
way through perimeter defences, drive out on a very thin strip of land in
a lake, teleport into an area surrounded by mountains, or if you felt
cocky, actually take an aircraft down between two mountains and put it
down hard.
Although you started with a few vehicles and some ammunition, it was
vital to kill the automated enemy forces as you could then collect
wreckage to increase your own resources. Attacking energy nodes also
bought you more time, as the laser weapon took longer to power up.
Although the play area was limited, it was big enough that you could play
things very free and easy, and there were some interesting land features
to fly through and around. Certainly, though, this was a game where
planning was important. You could drop teleportation pods using the
bomber, but could only afford to make a few so their placement was vital.
The bomber, although heavily armoured, was vulnerable to ground AA fire
and enemy fighters, so you had to stick it on autopilot and manually fly a
fighter as escort. All these details made it a very compelling game.
This was also one of those rare Amiga games I actually had the
opportunity to play head to head with someone, way before the Internet was
a viable option. This added another dimension to it. It was very amusing
trying to take out a lumbering heavy tank with a skidding hovercraft!
All in all, this was a truly original game with great lastability, and
the sort of game which demonstrates that you've never needed a Pentium 999
for a truly involving strategy 3D-Sim with a twist. Some might consider
it basic, but I think they'd have to agree that Armour-Geddon's strength
of gameplay came from the fact that you didn't need to be a Sim expert to
get the most out of it.