BattleTanx: Global Assault

This was the first (and 2nd) game I worked on at 3DO. Its a N64/PS1 sequel to 3DO's first BattleTanx game. This new version includes improved graphics, 3D physics, new weapons, and a ton of new tanks. Its also the only game I ever worked on that had its own TV commercial! You can find video of both Battletanx ads below....

On the N64 version of the game, I started out working on the menus... not the most fun thing to work on, but as a recent hire at 3DO, I was the junior programmer on the team. I then moved on to improving the collision system, and then the tank physics (one of my best days on the project was when I first jumped a tank off a mound, and realized that the algorithm I had come up with actually worked).

I also built a cinematic tool for 3D Studio MAX, which allowed the artists to use the animation tools in MAX to create cinematic sequences... the tool could then pull together the movements of all the objects, and output it in a form the game could use to recreate the sequences using the N64 game engine and models.

For the PS1 version of the game, my primary work was in porting over physics and collision code I wrote for the N64 so it would work on the Playstation, as well as making some small improvements here and there.

As a side note, most of the code I wrote was later used in the PS1 WDL: Thundertanks game, and formed the basis of the physics for the PS2 Thundertanks.

Below, you can find a link to more details about the various tanks you can pilot in both versions of the game.

Battletanx: Global Assault Technical Files

Cheat Codes (N64 version): - here you can find a complete list of all the cheat codes in the N64 version of the game.

Here you can find both of the Battletanx television ads. The first one (for the first Battletanx game, which I didn't work on) got 3DO sued by the Snuggles fabric softener company... for fairly obvious reasons. It is a hillarious commercial, though!

Despite the lawsuit, 3DO went ahead and put together a second Treddy Bear ad for Battletanx: Global Assault. Not only was it great to see a game I worked on advertised on TV, but the commercial was yet another gut-buster....

Battletanx Ad (Quicktime format, 2.98 MB)

Battletanx:Global Assault Ad (Quicktime format, 2.81 MB, originally grabbed from IGN.com)

You can send me mail at opus@opusgames.com

BattleTanx, BattleTanx: Global Assault, and the 3DO logo are copyright and trademark © The 3DO Company.

Nintendo, N64, and the Nintendo 64 logo are copyright and trademark © Nintendo.

Sony, PS1, PS2, Playstation, and the Playstation logo are copyright and trademark © Sony.