Original Release: Codemasters, 1996, Genesis
This release was the last of the 16-bit Micro Machines titles and was an oddity in that it was never released in the US or Japan.
Micro Machines Military (Genesis, Codemasters, 1996)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Micro Machines Military is basically a straight clone of the several Micro Machines console and computer games that came before it. Instead of sports cars and such, however, you’ve got tanks and jeeps armed with guns that can spin out the other drivers. The earlier games in this series were generally pretty solid, and when firing it up there appear to be a shit ton of modes of play … let’s check out Challenge since that’s the first option on the list.
Challenge Mode features regular races around household settings in the style of the previous games, but with a series of military vehicles that fire and can pwn each other in the butt. The races here are way the hell too hard for some reason, however, and you have to be absolutely perfect just to not get 4th place. Then there’s Time Trial Challenge, which lets you run the Challenge courses solo – but you still do them in a fixed linear series and the time limits are so stringent, it’s just about as hard as winning a race against the CPU racers.
On the flip side, Battle Arena’s problem is that it’s ridiculously easy. It’s basically Micro Machines Sumo as you simply have to survive 30 seconds in a tiny one-screen arena without being shoved off the edges by enemy fire. It’s lame because the enemy doesn’t lead you at all making it ridiculously easy to just drive circles around them all day.
And then there are Pro versions of all the aforementioned modes, in case they weren’t headbangingly frustrating enough for you the first time around.
Aside from the severely jagging difficulty, the game also suffers from being completely linear – if you want to race jeeps or boats, for example, you absolutely have to beat the tank level with first place first. There’s really little difference between the vehicles as all steer/fire the same, though, the boats are the only ones that handle slightly differently.
Add to this the fact that you can’t seem to back up on the menu screen without resetting the game, and the incredibly obnoxious music, and this one is just a total loser. The whole time you’re playing it it’s either being obnoxious, frustrating, or both at the same time. Poorly thought out, and clearly knocked out quickly just to grab some cash off the Micro Machines name while the grabbin’ was still good.
Links
SegaRetro page w/ advertisements
Videos