Release date: 2001 Genre: Arcade Publisher: None (Open Source) Developer: Dave Fancella ("Lucifer"), "epsy", Fred ("Tank Program"), Jochen Darley
("joda.bot"), Luke Dashjr, Daniel Harple ("dlh"), Mathias Plichta
("wrtlprnft"), Manuel Moos ("Z-Man") Platforms:Linux, OS X, Microsoft
Windows Players: 1 and Online
They say that games based on movies are never good, though
there are exceptions the obvious being Goldeneye
007 on the N64 of course. The tagline of Armagetron quite simply is "A Tron
clone in 3D." though it was never meant to be a full story-driven gaming
representation of the famous movie Tron.
It was actually based on section of the 1982 arcade game of the
same name by Disney Interactive Studios, which
consisted of 4 subgames one of which being a representation of the ‘Light
Cycle’ sequence from
the film albeit in a format akin to the snake concept which the original Armagetron game
was based back in 2001. The game has now evolved into Armagetron Advanced or
simply Armagetronad which now
features 16 player mayhem, with highly advanced AI, network game play, and of
course all in a 3D environment and is available on a multitude of platforms
including Linux, OS X, Microsoft
Windows, AmigaOS
4[2]
and OpenBSD
as free and open-source software. The
game also has a decent online community with a Wiki Site and
Forum.
A classic game with bots
Armagetron works in a similar way to the original Tron Light
Cycle match that was in the original movie, let me point out right now that
this has no relation to the recent sequel whatsoever as there is definitely only
one flat surface with walls, no lower levels no inclines, no spiral no jumps or
anything like that. You basically just use a and d to turn left and right and
use v for braking (which makes you slower but you cannot stop completely) you
can also use the numerical keys for looking to the left and right and behind
you. Jumping in for a quick match against computer controlled opponents is
fairly daunting as you start facing each other on opposite sides of the map and
after a brief 5 second timer you’re off and hurtling toward each other at
speed. If you’ve seen the film you’ll know the only way to eliminate an
opponent is to somehow get them to crash into your, theirs or anyone elses
‘energy wall’ or simply just ‘wall’ that is generated by your light cycle
eliminating them from the game, this is most often accomplished by just staying
alive but there are many tricks including ‘boxing’ an opponent in with your
walls or just dueling by traveling next to each other and trying to overtake.
A basic way of "boxing" or "speed killing" an opponent
The basics of
the game are this: in classic mode the ‘arena’ is a square box The ‘Light
Cycles’ generate a ‘wall’ behind you that anyone can crash into including
yourself, the cycle speed is fixed at first but works on a unique concept that
a cycle can only accelerate by riding on another player's wall. The closer you
are to a player's wall, the faster your cycle will accelerate. Brakes are
provided, but they are disabled on many servers. Your cycle turns in right
angles, typically, and leaves a long wall behind it wherever it goes. By
default, movement keys are z and x, where z turns left and x turns right. v is
your brake control. This stuff is fairly self-explanatory, but there are a few
things to keep in mind. Turning slows your cycle down. This is a useful fact on
servers that disable braking because you can use a series of rapid turns to
slow your cycle down if needed. As already mentioned, you make your cycle go
faster by getting close to another player's wall, or your own wall. The closer
you can grind the wall, the more speed you will gain.There are of course more Advanced Tactics but I won’t go into those, you’ll
find yourself creating your own tactics whether it be ways of avoiding players
or taking them out.
I accidentally crash into myself :(
I’ll talk now about customization, almost anything in the
game can be customized
though I usually just stick with customizing the area and my cycle. There is a
few things abound the arena that can be changed, you can add effects
such as digital clouds and mirror effects which are a nice touch or you can
make the game look as basic as possible to reduce your fps. The only thing you can change about your
cycle is it’s colour which includes the colour of the wall you generate and of
the cycle itself, I liked to choose a colour that is not currently being used
by anyone else to make the match nice and colourful hah. The graphics in the
game are fairly simple as you can see, you can run the game in your desktop
resolution which is good, there is no music only the humming of the Light
cycles and sound effects for turning, grinding and crashing. I had some fun
with changing the size of the area and the speed of the game, it seems that the
faster you go the more the game zooms out I guess so you can see where you are going.
A tiny arena
A very large arena :D
Historically I’ve only really played Armagetronad at LAN
parties and only recently got into some multiplayer purely to grab some footage
as I always forget to get any footage while at the lan. It’s a hit at parties
as it’s easy to pick up, simple to play but challenging to master, and requires
almost no hard drive space and graphical and processing power. We usually play
just the basic Free-for-all classic
mode where you try to speed kill other players and box them in with the only
modifier being the “win” and “death” that appear late in the game in order to
speed up the end of the match if it has become a stalemate. When a player
drives into the ‘win’ they instantly win the match and the ‘death’ zone kills
any player that enters it, these zones grow bigger until there is a decisive
winner of the match though they are not often used at the same time.
I had no idea what I was doing in this multiplayer match XD
There are now many more modes of play or ‘gametypes’
including ‘Sumo’ where you have to stay in a circle and force your opponents
out and Fortress: a complicated new game where you need to capture
the enemy base. There is also some non-combat types I really want to try
including racing, Labyrinth:
where you navigate through a maze to get to the middle and Roulette:
where multiple players create a "maze" Then try to navigate out.
This is supposedly a Labyrinth server but it was bloody impossible
There are of course many things I have not tried in
Armagetronad Advanced but nonetheless it is a great game to play at Lan parties
or even when you just want a bit of simple fun. The sheer level of
customization, complexity for the experienced players and reasonably strong
online community add to the longevity making this game well worth putting some
time into.
JD
Some footage of me playing multiplayer and singleplayer Armagetronad including what I think is Fortress mode.
Release date: 2001
