The Grid
Reviewer: Gourry-san
System: Arcade
Developer: Midway
Year of Release: 2000
Genre: Deathmatch
Number of Players: 3
Save: Yes
ESRB Rating: N/A (Lifelike Violence-Strong)

What You Get!

This game is by far, one of the most pleasing arcade offerings I've ever managed to lay my hands on. It holds many of the traits that make an arcade game worth playing. Easy to learn controls, followed up by some pretty wild attacks make for an interesting, albeit somewhat short play. The music leaves something to be desired at times, but I'll get into that later.

I hope television looks like this in the future. Who wouldn't want to see a bunch of guys trying to kill each other with some pretty wild weapons of mass destruction? You get your share of grenade launchers, cannon balls, rail guns, machine guns, and energy rifles. What more could a deathmatch need?

Graphically, this game kicks some major booty. The characters are extremely well animated, with some pretty wild motion capturing. The animations are extremely smooth, and frame rate is never a problem. The only problem lies in the announcer's seemingly weakly done lip synching, which leaves an indescribable amount to be desired. All said an done though, the game features a great visual engine, and not much can be said about it negatively.

In the sound department, the music is pretty weak, but in all honesty, you'll be too busy watching your back for incoming rockets to listen to any music. While the tunes do seem to fit the game rather well, they just aren't up to par with Quake and Unreal music. The sound effects themselves are a mixed bag of old and new ones. I'm sure we've all heard the infamous "Toasty", but there are plenty of new ones to make it interesting to listen to, even when you're not playing.

The gameplay is a tried and true idea. Loosely based on the first-person shooter PC controls, you get a joystick with two buttons, one for shooting, and one for jumping. The joystick moves you in the desired direction, and a nice little trackball points you in the direction you want to go. Right near the trackball is the always fun, Super Move button, that gets repeated use by many a gamer. The learning curve is very gentle and anyone can be at least pretty good in a matter of games.

While this game seems to be the perfect representation of a deathmatch, there are a few things that make it not so. While some characters are inspired and lots of fun to use, others seem to be lacking a bit in both personality and moves. Each character gets a specific super move, and some range form very useful for causing pure carnage, to the downright pointless. Things like being able to level a playing area with a stomp, to becoming invisible until you take a shot. But this is generally not an issue, as the lousy moves belong to only a couple characters.

What would a game be without secret characters? When I hear the name, Midway, the first thing that comes to mind is...yep, you guessed it. Mortal Kombat. The same team designed this game, and as a tribute to the ever controversial series, they included Scorpion and Sub-Zero, and depending on the version of your game, even Noob Saibot, as hidden characters in the game. The unfortunate part, is that you have to rack up a total of about 1000 kills to be able to access them. Luckily, there's a function that you can save your character to the arcade boards' memory. Useful for getting up to those lofty numbers.

The one-player mode is set up like Mortal Kombat, in the fact that you climb a ladder. The stages consist of getting X amount of kills inside a certain time frame. Not overly difficult in the first tier, but they get considerably harder the second time around. While overall a great game by yourself, nothing beats the feeling of killing your friend right next to you with a cannon ball to the gut. The machines come as a 3 set unit, and are prime grounds for settling scores. The games don't last much more than three minutes each, but that's more than enough to cause some serious pain to your neighbor.

I can see this game coming to the next generation consoles in the near future, and when they do, they'd better be online compatible, because nothing beats the feeling of sending a message to a friend to rest in pieces with your trusty rail gun

If you have a machine in your area, get off your butt and go give this game a whirl with some friends. You'll thank me later.