0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M.

        

Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. is a first person shooter set in a futuristic world, based on the Armorines comic book from Valiant Comics. The game was developed by Acclaim Studios London who developed bother the Nintendo 64 and Playstation versions of the game, Neon Software developed the Game Boy Color version of the game. Acclaim Entertainment published the North American and PAL releases while Acclaim Japan handled the Japanese release. The game was released first in North America in May of 2000 and a couple of months later in Japan.

When starting the main campaign you have the choice of playing as either Tony Lewis of Myra Lane, each of the two main characters starts with a different weapon with Tony using stronger but slower weapons, while Myra prefers a faster firing weapons, she uses a machine gun type weapon while being faster firing it does do less damage than Tony’s weapon of choice.

The alien force that is invading the earth is a varied bunch with 30 different types of insectoid alien for the player to blast into oblivion. In addition to the single player campaign the game has a mission based co-op mode as well as a multiplayer mode which includes modes like Deathmatch, Racewars, Capture the Flag, and King of the Hill.

An alien race in search of a new home find the earth, launching an advanced wave of egg pods to begin their infestation of the Earth, landing in Siberia they soon hatch unleashing the swarm of alien insectoids and beginning the eradication of the human race.

The Armorines the ultimate fighting force are dispatched to Siberia either playing as marines Tony Lewis or Myra Lane who are part of a special unit of marines outfitted with advanced suits of armour tasked with protecting the Earth from an invasion of insectoid like aliens who are hell bent on destroying the human race. Time is limited through with only 120 hours to stop the invasion and save humanity.

Critically the game was panned of the nine available reviews I have been able to find only one of them has scored the game about a 50/100 with the majority languishing at 35/100 or lower. But as usual we will start with the best which is a respectable 78/100 from French publication Consoles Plus. Who praised the N64 version saying, Armorines is a good little game the Playstation version was a little disappointing though.

Review scores take a big drop from here with the next highest coming from Gamezilla at just a 43/100, calling it a good effort but falling short in many areas, first calling out the Playstation for not really being designed for FPS games, with the amount of controls making the game a formidable task. Calling the controls of Armorines clunky, with abysmal graphics and levels that are incredible simple.

They were also critical of the lack of any soundtrack at all making the game almost painful to play concluding with, Ultimately, this game is going on my ‘give away’ list, as I don’t think I’d ever want to play it again. Completely unsuited for the PSX platform, perhaps they’ll think a bit longer before creating Armorines 2.

German pair of Video Games and Mega Fun were up next with both scoring the game at a lowly 35/100, with Video Games concluding with. Armorines is convincing neither in technical nor in play. Even dusty first person shooters like Alien Trilogy are even more fun than this, even years after their release. While Mega Fun were critical of the lack of innovation, limp enemies and lacklustre levels.

PSM did not hold back in their 30/100 review calling the game not just a bad game but a downright terrible one, recommending the game to only those who enjoy suffering mental anguish. All Game Guide called the game simplistic and dumb especially the bugs which put up little or no fight, they were also critical of the poor controls and the huge levels without any auto mapping feature in their also 30 rated review.

Gaming Age were the lowest scoring review at an abysmal 25/100, calling the game boring and just a rehash of the Turok series but with bugs instead of Dinosaurs. Only the cooperative mode adds something but overall it adds nothing to the genre except frustration.

GameSpot rated the game four points higher on a 29/100 raising the question of why Turok has not been ported to the N64 or Playstation with Armorines the clear answer to why, it just does not work on these consoles with the clunky controls and hardware that does not handle the 3D worlds well, made worse by Armorines doing everything that you dislike in Turok with very little of what you like from Turok.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude where the trade in price for this game is pretty poor with just 25 cents paid for a copy, on the plus side if you are looking for a fairly poor first person shooter then it can be picked up pretty cheaply from Gamedude for $3.

Heading over to Retrogames.co.uk where we find that they do not stock the Playstation version of the game, they do stock the N64 and Game Boy Color versions of the game priced up at £15 for a complete copy of the N64 version while a cart only copy is £9. A complete Game Boy Color copy of the game will set you back £7 from Retrogames.co.uk.

eStarland.com up next who do have a couple of copies of the Playstation version available, one a complete copy is priced at $11.50 while a disc only copy of the game will set you back $6.33, they also offer a trade in and will pay $2.25 for a copy of the game. They also have the N64 and Game Boy Color versions available priced at $6.02 and $3.38 respectively.

Finally on to Amazon.com where we find a good supply of the game available and cheaply even for a fully complete copy of the game with a good condition copy currently available for $5.14 once you have added the shipping costs in, a very good copy is available for around 80 cents more as well.

A like new copy can be picked up pretty cheaply as well for just short of the $9 mark, a couple of new copies are available for slightly less as well both of these however are fulfilled by Amazon so you need to spend $25 to get the free delivery, otherwise you will be looking at around the $12 mark for a new copy of the game.

Prices remain pretty reasonable for most copies with a new copy currently reaching a high of $24 the most expensive copy of this title is not on the Playstation that distinction is reserved for the N64 version of the game, with new copies starting at a very steep $149.89.

Written by

P J Gibbon