Thoughts on Hardware Rivals (beta)

There are actually quite a lot of betas lately. One I tried to get into even before Battlefront was one in the "spotlight" area of PSN called Hardware Rivals. It was clearly a vehicle game, but its competitive combat edge and bright sunset-overdrive type art style made me want to give it a try. Unfortunately it was locked for a few days, and only just recently did I decide to give it another try and get in. The result thought was pretty great.

Old school car combat

I've had the growing suspicion on my mind that, AAA issues aside, we're looking at a very PS2-like sort of era with our consoles. Weird niche stuff has been popping up everywhere, and even the AAA industry doesn't know what it wants to copy and past yet aside from last gen staples, so we're sort of in a state where obscure fun stuff gets more attention. This game just proves my point. Its apparently based on a flopped PS2 era online game by the same name of Hardware, and it certainly feels like a PS2 era game. You have a choice between choosing a tank or a smaller off-road jeep type of vehicle, and then go at it with a bunch of online players in an arena style shooter. You've got super charged weapon pick-ups, an announcer with a deep voice, deadly wipe-out type map hazards, and very simple controls. If it weren't for a slight progression system and common online interfaces, I'd accuse this game of just being dug up out of a time capsule and ported over. Not only is this all a bit old school in design, but to see it in vehicle form as well makes it a double rarity since nothing like it has been done since......... well Twisted Metal is the closest comparison, and its still not quite the same.

Unlike twisted metal, or ironically even unlike Hardware's past PS2 entry, Hardware Rivals sports a very nice cartoon style that feels like it decided to put the colorful punk teens of Sunset Overdrive in tanks. This is backed by an electronic funk style music choice, some colorful camo color schemes for users, and occasional automated trash talk from the silly character voices. Its a generally up-beat romp that really captures the spirit of the game perfectly. Its a simple summer-time sort of blast good to have for an hour, or for a day with some friends. Its fun, its over-the-top, and its kind of innocent and nostalgic of simpler times in gaming. Of course that may turn some people off, because I can see where some may find it too simple.

The game is set up to be really arcade and better suited to small sessions. You've got one weapon, can only aim from side-to-side (its about leading the shots and the auto-targeting), and bare bone controls that move and shoot. Even the progression system is simple and kind of tossed in, with it just being about setting one perk to a row of different elements, and they all unlock in a stern order. So you'll have to unlock all your engine parts before you can unlock your first targeting for example. Its kind of a dumb system, and I also have to question if its out of balance since it quite literally rewards top tier players with additional support on all specs where as a guy on even level 10 just has 2/5ths or so of that same power. We're talking about things like speed, extra health, extra damage (you can do both at once too), etc. Of course I wont say I've noticed anything like this out in the field, so maybe whatever improvements occur are super subtle, but then that begs the question of why its there. I was dominating my first matches before I even knew of an upgrade system, and after applying better top speed and better lock-ons... well I feel nearly the same. Whatever the case, its at least kept to a 25 level area, so if you're decent it'll be somewhere within 50-100 matches of play rather than the absurd 1000 you may have to do in other games. However outside of the questionable XP system, everything works fine, its just all so PS2-era simple. You shoot enemies that move, and get power-ups to shoot them even harder. You collect armor + health to stay alive, and occasionally an apocalyptic event is triggered that you have to hide from. That's about it to the core game experience. Its got a strange skill ceiling as a result since you've got to worry about map skill for a change, get used to the driving controls, weapon priority, and can mess people up with a well timed ram, but everything else is pretty loose and up to luck.

Sure I can talk about how simple it is, but I want to also talk about how fun it is. Now a game is never about winning, but that does enhance the experience when your having an ego hype trip during a match where you win 20-4. I'll admit full bias for that before I proceed, because I truly found a game where I'm capable of dominating. Not perfect, not always on the top, but close enough to say I feel good about doing well in this game, and that's weird for me. I'm more of a jack of all trades, master of none kinda guy. I adapt fast to anything, but peak early, and yet I manage to stay near or on the top consistently with this game a lot. It was a blast though strolling through this game, blasting others, and getting into cross-fire fights. Then there's just that urgency when you see a power-up in a crowded area, and damn do I miss that feeling of old school pick-up races. It was a great feeling to have that occur again where I beat someone, or someone snatches something from right in front of me. Even more fulfilling if you beat the guy that got it despite his edge over you. That's the sort of thing I miss out of older shooters, and something online these days really lacks. Even Battlefront, which reintroduced them, did it wrong because games have forgot how to be arcade in the fun ways. This one has that in addition to style, crazy crashing car physics (its so fun to ram someone!), a cool announcer, and colorful explosions. Playing this beta was a ton of fun, and a good return to form. Its hard to imagine just how long it would hold my attention, or that of anyone else's, but I think they've got something good enough here worth buying at the right price and playing on those occasional days where you just want a good rush of online competition.

Problems for the mechanics to repair...

The game ain't perfect. Actually its got a few really prominent flaws within the beta, and some things to be desired in case this really is the bulk of the game. They weren't exactly tight on what content got through out of what we know, and its so hard to figure out information on the game. That's really the first issue, this game doesn't even have its own wiki page and is pretty much ghosting around aside from the poorly timed PS+ ad its getting for this month. That's also where that statement comes back to the center. It was kind of messed up for them to advertise this in with the PS+ give-aways like a free game, only to then introduce people with a "sorry we're closed. Please come back later" message. It had just finished on its closed beta, and was going to start its open one about 4 days or so later... when the much more advertised and ambitious Battlefront was about to do their own open beta run. Meanwhile we sit here knowing almost nothing about this game. Will there be bots? A single player of some kind? A more dedicated time trial system? How many maps? What modes other than deathmatch types? What price will it even be, or is this supposed to be a retail launch? A lot of issues arise from this lack of information and obscurity alone. Heck when does this beta even end!? Has it already, or is it going for another day, or two, or three? I just don't know anything about this stuff.

However lets talk about improvements within what can be stated in the list. Ironically unlike Battlefront, there's some clear beta bugs that need to be worked out. The follow are precise beta bugs that need to be fixed:

• The scoring system is messed up. It'll tell you kills and deaths on the scoreboard, but your total in-game tally will give you a completely different number.
• The matchmaking system can break at times and leaves you sitting in a frozen lobby on a timer of 00... meaning the match should have started.
• I've had one case where the matchmaking just failed on itself.
• Why is there sometimes a waiting time on the server? Is this just a beta limitation, or is there really some kind of awful server stress limitation? That needs to be worked out I'm sure. It also went from telling me to wait for 3 minutes to giving me 5 more.
• The temple's lava trap seems to kill players twice over. I think this is somehow a glitch with the kill cam or respawning, because its a delayed thing almost as if switching the camera triggers the second death.
• Okay so this might actually be intentional, but the 3 round playlist mode doesn't consistently keep its match together. You may end up joining an on-going game somewhere, and that sort of screws with the vibe of trying to blast through a marathon of deathmatches.

Next up are some desires or wishes to improve the general game. Some of these work off of assumptions or blind guesses since there's really nothing to go off of for much information. So some of this is probably already in or is finalized as either existing or not, but just didn't show for the beta.

1. Bots support: Look I really can't trust this game to stay active by the way its being managed. Even if I could though, its just a crummy idea to make an online only game that could easily have bot support. The game is very simple and all you really need is some path finder AI programming skills to make it happen. Of course customizable bot matches is ideal, so some menu and rule set tweaking would be nice to.
2. Server lists: Again, rule sets and tweaking would be appreciated. There was already a hint that this was in the game, as a wait in the lobby has a special menu you can go to specifically laying out all the rules and settings with locked in arrows as though you could change it. Now why would that be in there if there wasn't someone who could set it up and have other players check it over to see if they like it? The sad answer would be that its just residue from private match options, but I'm hoping they're going full on server browser and customization support. This would help benefit an online arena game greatly.
3. More modes: Seriously there's the training grounds, deathmatch, and team deathmatch. Considering training isn't even a real mode, we've been stuck with the two most pure and ancient barebone modes ever. Considering the game itself is also very simple, that's a sign for quick fatigue and death in the community. Please let there be more modes. King of the hill would be amazing in this game, then there should be a CTF mode, and assuming server lists don't happen there should be a shorter round of deathmatch since some players (and even sometimes I myself) have felt the standard is a bit too long. Heck personally I would love it if the 3 match playlist was a special mode where you're playing 3 rounds of smaller deathmatches. Put us all in an arena for like half the time and see who can rush to the top first, then do it again, and a final time. That would be great.
4. More personal customization: Simple, I just want more than 4 colors to choose from. I think I've seen more while browsing for screenshots for this article than what I have through the beta so I bet this is already done, but just putting it out there in case.
5. Some extra clarity: Challenges could be shown a bit better, there could be a "How to Play" in-game manual with visual keys for all the power-ups and a small bit of info, and then the most important one is an indicator for opponent's health. As it is now, fighting is a bit random in how much of a chance you have against someone. Sometimes if you're really close, you can see that their vehicle model is damaged which may put them anywhere between 5hp to 30-ish. Even then though, you usually can't see that. Your taking a chance of luck against picking your fight, and you never know who has been damaged, who is way stronger than you, or if they have armor. A part of me kind of likes this mystery, but in the end I think it'll do a lot more good if you had more tell signs. I think they could do a nice compromise by giving you a 3 bar indicator and a hit confirmation tick in the crosshair. Armor can stay invisible, and you still wont quite have a certain fix on their situation, but you'd still have a better idea of who you could afford to pick fights with and more to calculate on the field.

Concluding...

Hardware Rivals is a lot of fun, but it has a few issues to sort out first, and for its own sake it should start with its marketing. However its got promising potential to fill a missing niche for fun arcade vehicular combat. Its also one I can really get into, and under the right conditions I'd love to own this game. Its got a strangely simple skill ceiling, bare gameplay, and yet it was a blast. I think its really refreshing to see a game in this style again. Back in the PS2 era we saw games with this arena format all over the place, and now its practically non-existent... especially with vehicles. Now comes along this colorful and fun new one in the age of mainstream online access, and I want it to shine in this time. However lets hope it does allow for more than just online, because I fear it may not last long in its current condition, and if that fear goes deep enough I can't promise I'll spend money on it. I hope Hardware Rivals turns out well.