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Review  Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M
- By Mike Schneider
Take the Turok 2 engine, throw in large bugs instead of dinosaurs, and call it Armorines. That is a short summary of what to expect from the game; except, that the game has many more deficiencies within it.
A mysterious army of mutant insects has landed in Siberia. Without mercy, this army of man-eating bugs destroys any human life it comes into contact with. It's not interested in bargaining.
The military has only one defense against the alien monstrosities -- an experimental protective armor. Two of the world's greatest scientists are equipped with the defensive suits and deployed to infiltrate the bases of the bugs and kill them. They've got 128 hours to save the world.
Gameplay:
You'll span five environments, each consisting of many separate missions. Repetitive missions. There is some variety within the missions, however, all in all, you won't be coming back to play them, for many reasons. Alien enemies are far too infrequent, and you'll spend a lot of time wondering levels searching for that one vital thing to complete the mission.
When you encounter enemies, you'll be extremely frustrated, because, if you let them out of your site for a second, you'll wind up with them biting you MANY times because they're rather small, and move at an incredibly fast speed.
One way Armorines tries to separate itself from other first-person shooters on the system is by having some missions (or parts of them...) being on-rail. While this aspect of the game initially appealed to me, there are far too many quirks to make it more than an exercise of tedium. For example, enemies move really fast, but, your aimer scrolls at a turtle's pace across the screen. So, if you miss the enemy in your first shot, and the enemy decides to come at you from the back side, you'll spend 2-3 seconds just turning yourself around to take on this enemy, while at the same time, other enemies come up.
Control:
Controlling your aimer, however, is a difficult task. You'll move the aimer up, and stop pressing the joystick, but the aimer will continue to float upwards or downwards. And on top of that, the weaponry in Armorines lacks the originality that weapons in Turok games possess. Finally, Armorines offers the Turok style play control; but only that. There are several controller schemes that are similar to that of Turok, but not one like Goldeneye.
Aesthetics:
On the whole, levels are about the size you'd like them to be; meaning they don't span for miles like Turok 2, thankfully. However, unlike Turok 2, Armorines possesses fairly foggy environments, in most situations. Looking at the still screenshots, Armorines looks like a step up from Turok 2; however, in reality there is no improvement.
Sound:
Rounding out the list of average features is the audio in the game. Guns make noises, and enemies grunt and groan, as you'd expect, and there is background music. All the music is what you'd expect, but nothing more.
Multiplayer:
Also, Armorines has a multiplayer mode, in which up to 4 people can play in, however, because of the control gripes, you might as well play Goldeneye, Turok Rage Wars, or Quake II instead. 2 player co-opp is the best aspect of the multiplayer, but, as soon as there are a lot of enemies on the screen, the frame rate suffers. However, I will give Acclaim credit for trying to implement a co-opp mode, something that more games need.
OVERALL:
When I first read about and saw the screens of Armorines, I was very excited about the game. Unfortunately, Acclaim took a step backwards from Turok 2, and ended up offering a bland game. For die-hard fans of Turok 1 and 2, you may want to check out Armorines with a rental. For most others, you need not rent this game, there is no reason to, especially with Perfect Dark in the near-future.
The Lowdown on  Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M
| Aesthetics: Below Average |
Control: Terrible |
| Gameplay: Below Average |
Multiplayer: Below Average |
| Sound: Below Average |
Innovation: 2/6 |
| Lasting Appeal: 2/6 |
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Overall: Below Average!
"Has Some Detrimental Problems"
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This game is:
Below Average
gory
Big bugs
The targetting system, shown in a dark room
Nice lighting effect
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IN A
NUTSHELL: |
| Most FPS game fans should avoid this game at all cost. |
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