Publisher: Core Design
Developer: Core Design
Released: 1994
Nowadays, I don’t know that anyone really knows who Core Design was. Though if you’re old enough to remember the original Tomb Raider, chances are you’ve at least heard the name. Hard as it is to believe now, there was a time that Lara Croft was the hottest video game character in the world.
But for me, Core’s reputation as a creator of quality games was well established by the time Tomb Raider came about, thanks to their impressive titles on the Sega CD.
If you’ve been reading this series since the beginning (and who hasn’t?) you know that one of the biggest perks to the CD upgrade was the inclusion of hardware scaling and rotation. And Core Design was one of the first and best studios to take advantage of the Sega CD’s pseudo 3D capabilities. They constantly released games that pushed the hardware – starting with Jaguar XJ220 and AH-3 Thunderstrike.
In fact, the Thunderstrike format is one they stuck with through the life of the system, with follow-ups Soulstar and Battlecorps feeling very similar.
And even though I count those first two Core games as some of my faves on the Sega CD, I’m kind of sad to admit that I didn’t spend much time at all with the latter two. Now that I have spent a bit of time with Battlecorps, though, I have to say I’m both impressed and underwhelmed.
Impressed because – as mentioned before – this game looks fantastic in motion (at least in comparison to other console games from the early ’90s). The explosion animation in particular is really sweet.
I’m underwhelmed in that these games just don’t age that well. 3D movement and control was clunky at best back in the day. Now, in the era of dual analog sticks and true 3D worlds, the 16-bit stuff generally doesn’t hold up at all. Compensating for the limited controller tends to lend an added layer of difficulty to what was already a pretty hardcore game to begin with.
Anyhoo, this is a mech shooter in the vein of MechWarrior, where you’re piloting a giant bipedal war machine across 12 missions in order to take out an insane super-computer and save the world. How ’90s!
I don’t have much more to say about this game, to be honest. I just didn’t really experience it back in the day, and thus don’t have any strong memories about it.
By the way: Core Design went on to release (and be cursed by) the mega-hit Tomb Raider games. After years of being forced to push out a new title in the franchise annually, the series was finally taken away and given to Crystal Dynamics. This lead to a mass exodus of talent, and sale of the remnants of the company to Rebellion. The last I heard of what Core became – Rebellion Derby Studio – they were finally shut down. Sad.
