Hardware Rivals Review

"Cartoon Rival Driving"

Multiplayer

Hardware Rivals is a simple online vehicular combat game that takes place on a couple of interesting levels. It's entirely based around destruction of a few vehicles as they battle it out in a set number of modes. These modes include the traditional deathmatches; team and free for all, elimination where you get one life and a control the hills mode under the label of team domination. Aside from these playlists they also have a private match area if you want to just battle it out with friends, but that's it as far as sections to play. It really is just a simple vehicle based combat game on a couple maps with a real old arcade style which is mostly fine. The environments and graphics look great with cartoon art present that still looks real yet gives the game an unique look. Across the few battlefields present there are also a wide variety of power-ups to be found as each team battles it out and a singular event on each map which basically kills everyone that's not underground or high above on buildings depending on the level. This is done through an apocalyptic event, air strike or frost bitten ground to name a few. The action is largely intense in the game though it quickly got boring with the lack of content present. Considering the price it seemed like there was a lack of variety in the game and things to do. I also had issues with the servers putting me into empty maps about half the time where it was just 1v1 or 2v1 and they never seemed to fill even after a few minutes. This is in comparison to the other times where matches were full and constantly were kept that way so the game needs some better server management.

Gameplay

The controls are actually really well done for driving and aside from some odd yet hilarious bumps with other vehicles run smooth. The shooting system is quite awful in the game with very little indication of successful hits and no visible detection of if an enemy is damaged. Poor shooting is most likely a cause of how fast every car is zooming about, but it really needs a better system of detection or feedback for players. I loved the power-ups system and thought that was really well done, not a fan of the weird in-game interruptions that cause players to have to hide for a minute as it makes no sense. The environments look beautiful and I loved the artistic cartoon style which really makes the game feel unique. There was also a fairly decent number of customization options for the vehicles, but nothing too in-depth.

The Conclusion

Despite looking great visually and having some fun in-game announcing the game feels quite average with a definite lack of content. There are really only a couple maps and a few vehicle which doesn't amount to much when comparing it to the price tag. The arenas look great as well with many details, but there just isn't enough of them present. It does get boring quite quickly, but when you're playing it can be great fun. It's crazy seeing the various explosions and madness of vehicles going at it in the battlefield which was rather intense. As a side note I honestly felt like this game might have been better of with a free to play model instead of the paid one as it just doesn't have enough content present and makes more sesne to me.

Hardware Rivals for Playstation 4

Rating Overall: 6.2