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"AS PAVLOVIAN AS SHOOTERS GET"

There are many things to like and dislike about "Mass Destruction", a land-based tank shooter developed by NMS Software and released in the States by ASC Software (from "Perfect Weapon" and "Ten Pin Alley" fame). But the one thing that I really like about this game is the plot, torn from today's headlines to spike lackluster sales. Here is the text from the back of the box:

"Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady of the United States, is thrown into prison by her husband, the filandering President of the United States: William Jefferson Clinton. With the Judge presiding over her case a Clinton appointee (the honorable Paula Corbin Jones), Hillary loses her case on appeal and is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. President Clinton, in a celebratory mood, comes out of his closet and admits his womanizing tendencies; hundreds of women, former/current/future girlfriends of Bill, start openly revealing their ޭidentities all over the United States. When President Clinton's approval rating reaches an all-time high of 95%, the guardians of morality and decency in the US (Rush Limbaugh, William Bennett, Newt Gingrich, Trix the rabbit, Pipsy the mouse, etc.) decide that, for the sake of the country, this President isn't fit to be the moral leader of the country. With the help of members of the right-wing conspiracy (who'd rather see Clinton dead than the US experiencing its best economy in decades...their hatred of the man is that intense), Hillary gets released from prison and given access to a powerful tank and given enough firepower and fuel to level a continent. With the rage and jealousy only a scorned woman could fathom, the First Lady sets her sights on Bill and his bitches. When the FBI and the Secret Service brief the President on the situation, he concludes there is only one practical solution to the armed Hillary threat: give his girlfriends total access to the best and most lethal weaponery the Pentagon has ever conceived! Now its Hillary versus Clinton's bitches, in a knock-down, drag-to-the-ground, all-out war (literally), and the whole country is watching with delight. Can Hillary survive the best the Pentagon has, and take the President down with her? As the last boss in the game (literally!), Bill awaits with a grin in his mouth and a loaded gun cocked in his pants (or could he just be glad to see Hillary again?)"

OK, so it is all made-up and isn't in the back of the game's box (that would be one huge box!), but the Saturn version of "Mass Destruction" lives up to its namesake and gives the player the feel that he/she is truly alone against the world and trying to level buildings and armed vehicles down to the ground. There is no plot, no characters to relate to, no need to read the instruction manual; just choose from three tanks, pick a level (out of 24, including bonus levels), and start blasting away. Who needs a stinking plot? I do (hence the Hillary versus Bill's bitches plot), because the repetitious nature of the gameplay starts wearing thin after a handful of levels. By the half-way point, "Mass Destruction" can get really dull and tedious if you have managed to play up to that point in a single sitting (took me quite a few hours); should you decide to go easy on the game and have your fun in small doses (a couple of levels a day will keep the boredom away), then the game will be enjoyed more thoroughly. Replay value is suspect, and some of the aspects in the Audio and Gameplay could be dramatically improved. But overall the game, one of a handful of third-party Saturn releases for the Christmas season, is a solid and strong buy if you can find it cheap (ranging from $9 to $25). Besides, what other Saturn game lets you drive a tank and destroy buildings while the entire cast of "Apocalypse Now" is trying to knock you down? Oops, I forgot: "Return Fire" (also available for PSX and 3DO). Bad example.

GRAPHICS / VISUALS: A-
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I've anticipated this one since I saw a Tronix videotape of the 1996 E3 show back in June of '96, and it has taken a long time to finally hit the shelves (almost two years). But what caught my eyes on the tape is present in the final game, and I couldn't be happier: 60 frames-per-second speed and a sharp hi-resolution (that's "Virtua Fighter 2" and "Last Bronx" quality we're talking about, minus the flickering). There is almost no light-sourcing or fancy lighting effects, but the explosive weaponery looks awesome and the buildings crumble to the ground, leaving behind what looks like New York City after the alien ships from "Independence Day" have leveled it all. The radar screen shows your surrounding terrain, and the levels have an appropriate size that is neither too small or too large. Shame that the game doesn't have a Two-player mode, since a head-to-head match or a race to destroy everything would have been sweet. It was probably a technical and legal decision (technical because of the frame-rate and split-screen difficulties, and legal because Prolific Software could sue for infringement of their copyrighted intellectual property, "Return Fire").

Although there are textures over all the enemy vehicles and buildings you're leveling, the graphics seem to be utilizing an awful lot of shaded flat polygons ("Tobal #1" anyone?). Also noticeable is the absence of complex and/or processor-intensive architecture designs in either the military vehicles or the buildings in the game; most of them have basic, squarish shapes with the occassional oval curve thrown in to give the shapes a less linear look. Trade-offs to maintain the resolution and speed high, but if you're not into specs you probably won't even notice. The only real negative is that, when running over soldiers with your tank, the result is not a "squirt" of blood and a scream of agony (like in "Return Fire", which this game's graphics resemble in more ways than one) but a pathetic yell. But overall, quite a feast to the eyes and an improvement in speed and performance over the PlayStation version, which doesn't look as sharp and takes about 45 seconds to load (compared to Saturn's 5 second loading time).

MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: C+
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The star of the game, without a doubt, is the sweet and loud "Boom!" when the building you have targeted gets leveled down to the ground in three steps (destroy building, then level the structure to ground level, and then REALLY leave nothing but ashes of what used to be a man-made structure). Also sweet is the sound of the helicopters and rival tanks getting on your tail, and the loud bang of your shells and flame-thrower brings back the "smell of napalm in the morning" memory from Robert Duvall's performance in "Apocalypse Now". Shame that, unlike "Return Fire", "Mass Destruction" doesn't share the outstanding and dramatic musical score with the Francis Ford Coppolla movie. It is poorly-composed keyboard tunes, with the occassional synthesizer effect thrown in for dramatic purposes; it doesn't work, and leaves the player aching for the tunes from "Return Fire" (classical music). You will stay for the loud bangs and resonant wreckage, but you are likely to leave because of the lousy tunes (sigh).

GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: B-
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With 24 levels, three different tanks (weak but strong, fast but weak and the eternal all-around average tank) and only the slightest element of strategy thrown in to add variety to the carnage, "Mass Destruction" is what I imagined the sequel to "Return Fire" would look like. It is fast, it is pretty, and it is the cure for the average schmuck returning home from work after a rough day at the office; I could see this game as a perfect combo with a session of "Virtua Cop" after the boss yelled at you for being incompetent (what does he/she know anyway?). It's also (in the day and age of "Warcraft II", "Uprising" and "Command & Conquer: Red Alert") extremely shallow and lacking in depth: some levels throw you an occassional bone of an objective (don't destroy the nuclear reactors? Duh!) or require you perform a specific mission (release all hostages). But those objectives are just an excuse to blow stuff out real good; fine by me, but those gamers looking to exercise their mind and nimble fingers should go back to "Dune II" or "Dragon Force". This game is for those who like to eat raw meat first thing in the morning, or for those who thought "Starship Troopers" was snubbed for a Best Picture nomination by the Academy Award. Alternative titles for this game could have been "Kill, Kill, Kill" (KKK? Yikes!), "Smells like Teen Spirit" (because of the ESRB rating) and "The Clinton Chronicles" (enough with that crap!). An average One-player exercise in numbing the senses, both moral (questionable subject matter) and physical (fingers aching, sleep desire increasing, eyes watery, etc.).

OVERALL: B
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You might want to rent the PSX version of "Mass Destruction" to sample a slightly inferior version of the game before putting down the cash for the Sega alternative (you do have a PSX sitting next to your Saturn, right?); the Saturn version might be superior, but guess which one is easier to find at rental stores? You know the answer :-(

This game joins a select elite of games that were initially developed for the Saturn and eventually got ported to PSX but retained their edge over the Sony machine: Lobotomy's "Powerslave", Playmate's "Skeleton Warriors", Radical's "NHL Powerplay '96" and Capcom's "Street Fighter Alpha 2". Add NMS Software's "Mass Destruction" to the short list of Saturn success stories from third-parties. Most third-party titles that started life as a Saturn project ended up as PSX success stories: Eidos' "Tomb Raider" and "Fighting Force", Fox Interactive's "Croc", etc. Better luck on another planet Sega; Saturn's atmosphere has proven quite a hazardous place to do business on Earth (???!!!).

NeXT!!!