Vangers
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
Earlier this year, some of my colleagues were launching literary confetti bombs after getting a glimpse of Vangers: "It's a new kind of game, indescribable, revolutionary." Let me state right off that Vangers is a very attractive but hardly remarkable combination of the racing-sim and action/adventure genres-a creative platform game.
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The setting is a series of 10 planets occupied by a humanoid species that has mutated so strangely that it doesn't even resemble Casey Kasem. You play a member of the Vangers, a clan that drives mechos (souped-up, armed jalopies) over weird and perilous landscapes. With time you'll buy better vehicles (37 types in all) and equipment, trade for profit, run more spectacular missions, and, of course, destroy your Vanger rivals.
Vangers achieves its alien feel in part by maintaining a self-referential terminology. The extensive documentation deliberately befuddles: "When on Glorx, the number of pipetkas or kernoboos available for harvesting�are displayed, during the Pip Show or KernoWar, as appropriate." It's necessary to master the lingo as you discover new escaves (translation: enclaves) and question their leaders.
These leaders are the mighty counselors, and they offer important missions usually involving the delivery of goods. By running these, winning ritual races, and trading at escaves, you raise your local reputation. This in turn brings a number of rewards, including freebie items that range from weapons to keys that unlock new worlds. You also get credits by completing missions, and you get additional credits if you dominate adversaries in battle or races. Run away, and you'll get few credits.
Over time, you'll locate strange artifacts necessary for completing the game and that grant you curious powers. My favorite of these is the "Circus" ability, which comes with the Mechanic Messiah. When invoked, Circus draws a huge smiley face on the turf, causing all mechos above it to rise and float, helpless, in the air-except yours, which can fly away.
Vangers' graphics are a visual metaphor for the text, substituting third-person complexity for the verbally unknown. There are multilayered, twisting pathways and lakes, odd, undulating amoeba-like areas, and small creatures scuttling around. You'll discover other new escaves, and secret hideouts that may conceal treasures. You can tilt, rotate, and zoom the environment, too.
With its 10 worlds to conquer, Vangers could've easily grown tedious. But its developers provided new tactile elements and physics to confuse players as they advance. On one planet, the roads are mostly obstructed by huge branches; on another, the ground is so hot that if your mechos can't fly, it'll explode. Relearning the environment thus becomes a major gameplay component. Control options are excellent with a gamepad, though the keyboard is quite sufficient.
On the negative side, the multiplay reduces the game to a series of races and attacks, without much of the storyline and planet-hopping featured in the standalone. And Vanger's conclusion is an undeniable letdown. Its several pages of visual narration are wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, but I expected more-at least a series of scores for each world, along with a final rating.
That aside, I enjoyed Vangers greatly. It's a nice change of pace from the standard C&C clone or first-person shooter. Cleverly designed, filled with puzzles, and implemented with painstaking detail, it's a good play.
