BattleTanx: Global Assault was more than a worthy follow-up
destructoid.comBattleTanx was 3DO’s first N64 game and a pretty decent success for a company that was trying to pivot from their failed hardware endeavor. As 3DO would soon prove, they were crazy about franchises and sequels. It’s not surprising that BattleTanx would be up for a new entry the very year after it launched.
Creative director, Michael Mendheim, was nice enough to humor some of my questions about BattleTanx, so it seemed natural to also pivot to its sequel. Here’s the thing: even though he’s credited as creative director for BattleTanx: Global Assault, he wasn’t heavily involved in its design. According to him, “My involvement in BattleTanx: Global Assault was mostly just pre-production just to make sure nothing went off the rails.”
“BattleTanx was a very successful game for 3DO. It was a top #10 game on the N64 when it was released. After the success of BattleTanx, the company assigned me to the N64 version of Army Men which would become Sarge’s Heroes,” explains Mendheim.
“The BattleTanx sequel was put in Rob Zdybel’s capable hands with Amber Long as project director and the talented BattleTanx team. It was difficult for me to leave the team and the project.”
The goal for BattleTanx: Global Assault was bigger and better, and you can feel the right out of the gate. Tanks move even more unrealistically than they did in the first game, but they do so with style. There’s a tangible feeling of weight shifting on their treads, but maybe not the amount of weight you’d expect from all that armor. They still accelerate like a skateboarder from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. More enemies seem to zoom around in the single-player, and the framerate stays steadier.
It’s also visibly better looking; surprisingly so for a game released a year
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