Hovertank 3D Short Review

                                             Hovertank 3D

                                                  First DOS FPS Made in 1991

History

Hovertank 3D is a Vehicular Combat First Person Shooter developed by id Software and published by Softdisk in 1991. The game was made by a few persons, mainly John Carmack and John Romero.

Story

You are a hovertank driver working for a governmental institute called UFA. Your mission is to rescue all hostages in the designated area before a nuke will be dropped.

Gameplay

You control a hovertank which has a normal attack and a charged attack, which you can take out multiple targets. There are three enemy types in the game: two are monsters, one who floats in the air, dies when touches and damages you, and kills a hostage directly; another monster type which can hurt you multiple times but doesn't kill any hostage, and the enemy hovertank which has a range attack. When you rescue all live hostages, a yellow teleporter will appea and then you must reach it to finnish the mission. After completion, you get a fee depending on how many you saved and how fast you finished. 

There are only 20 Zones in the game, where difficulty progression will rise up. A zone has a glitch in which the teleportal cannot be reached, resulting in cheating to finish.

Soundtrack

Sadly, there is no music in the game, the only sounds which accompany you are when you speed up the tank, shoot a projectile, a monster/hostage dies and several others.

Conclusions and Score

In conclusion, despite the game being very lackluster in many aspects, it is an interesting concept and should remain in the annals of history as the first DOS FPS. Sadly it was forgotten and only a single mod was made for it. I recommend at least trying it out for curiosity. I give it a solid 6/10.

You can watch my playthrough Here: