Talking BattleTanx with creative director Michael Mendheim
After the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer failed to gain traction in the marketplace, Trip Hawkin’s company had to pivot pretty quickly into software to survive. While 3DO would be best known for polluting the video game landscape with poorly received Army Men games (and some legitimately good ones), the start they had was actually very promising. They scooped up a lot of talent and managed to land a few hits.
1998’s BattleTanx was one such game; their first on the N64. For the system, I still consider it to be top-shelf entertainment. I was happy to be able to talk to the game’s creative director, Michael Mendheim, about its creation, as it has long been a title I’ve kept close to my heart.
Michael Mendheim is perhaps best known for the Mutant League games on Sega Genesis: Mutant League Football and Mutant League Hockey. They were developed with EA, which is where Mendheim met Trip Hawkins. Or, as Mendheim puts it, “I knew Trip Hawkins from my EA days working on the Mutant League franchise. He left EA to start the 3DO Company. When the 3DO Company transitioned from a hardware company to software development, Trip extended me an offer and I came on board as a design director for an unnamed project.”
That unnamed project was being developed under the watch of programmer Robert Zdybel. Zdybel’s name might not immediately ring any bells, but he’s an industry veteran, having worked on ports of Missile Command and Space Raiders for Atari. He also helped design Bug Hunt, which was a pack-in title for the Atari XEGS.
“Rob Zdybel is an industry legend,” Mendheim said. “I felt very out of place reviewing his project. It’s like a kid out of film school telling Martin Scorsese how to direct a film.”
“I talked in detail to Rob and the
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