FULL GAME

Wild Metal

Wild Metal is a tank game where you drive around a large, mountainous level looking for different colored ''Power Cores''. Once you've collected all eight power cores, you must return them to one of the ''stores'' in the level. Each core can be returned individually, and if you die, any cores that have not yet been returned to the ''stores'' scatter around the area where you died, and you must retrieve them again.

Your tank handles unlike most video games... press and hold the A button, and your turret slowly starts to rise.. release, and your tank will fire. The higher your turret is, the farther and higher your shot will go. This means that you can usually sit back pretty far away from your target and try to take pot shots at it. You can also swivel your turret 360 degrees completely around. This allows you to drive away from enemies while you shoot them, or drive circles around a stationary enemy to avoid their shots and still fire at them. It's worth pointing out that there's only one viewpoint, which is a behind-the-tank view. You can alter the angle of the view, but not the distance. The view follows the turret too, so if you're pointed to the left, pressing up will cause your tank to move forward, which will actually be to the right on your screen. It's a little tricky, but not too difficult after a little practice. There's also a variety of weapons to pick up that fall into two categories: missiles (8) and mines (4). Missile weapons fire from the front of your turret, and include (Among others) bouncing shots, magnetons (which you can use to throw your enemies off balance), and heat seeking missiles (which unfortunately, aren't terribly accurate). There are four types of mines... canister mines which simply roll away and blow up, magnetic mines (which attract tanks to them rather than the other way around), jumping jacks (which follow you), and beacons, which aren't really a mine at all but a marker that you can drop. Mines are dropped from the back of your tank, and CAN damage you if you're not careful (Ditto for your missiles, if you fire in close quarters). All weapons have limited amounts of ammo except for your basic cannon, which you have an unlimited amount of. There are five different tanks to choose from, each with their own strengths: the Manta has a very low profile, making it easier to avoid enemy fire, but making roll-overs a problem. The Rhino is sturdy, but slower than the Manta, and has spikes on the front that you can use to ram enemies. The Cheetah is very fast, but is easily knocked around. The Bulldog is similar to the Rhino, but it somewhat unstable with it's three wheels. And finally, the Roadrunner is a very unique tank that rides on top of a giant sphere. This makes it impossible to knock over, but gives it a high profile, and making it a little difficult to steer.

One of the first oddities you'll notice about the game is that instead of having a tidy little radar in the corner of the screen, there is a LARGE radar permanently overlaid over the entire screen. This seems weird at first, but it actually works fairly well, as there's not a huge number of enemies on it at once, and the blips are small enough that they don't get in the way. To find the power cores, there's also a little purple light that lights up when you're pointed at a core, and if you park your tank underneath one of the stores on a level, it'll show the power cores on your radar (otherwise, they'll only show if they are within visible range).

The physics of the game are surprisingly complex. Often you'll be able to knock enemies upside down, and knock power cores off high cliffs instead of driving all the way up there. Unfortunately, you can get knocked over too. Getting back up can be accomplished by pushing yourself up with your own turret, firing at the ground, requesting a helicopter to pick you up, or of course to let your enemy knock you again with an attack. There are also many uses of magnetism in the game, usually to throw you off balance and possibly off ledges. My main complaint about the physics though is that your tank ''feels'' tiny. Though the game play seems pretty slow, your tank can often catch air when going over rather small bumps, and is sometimes very easily overturned. This seems pretty unrealistic to me, but I have to admit that free games to download would be a lot more boring if the tanks were realistically slow and plodding. Plus, enemies are equally afflicted by these problems, so you can use it to your advantage.

Wild Metal has very nice levels as well. They're nicely designed, and are not overly difficult or easy to make your way through. Be warned though, that you can easily end up spending 30-40 minutes searching through a level before you'll find all the power cores... especially on the later levels. Luckily though, you have an infinite supply of tanks, and you'll always restart from the last store you visited.