Hardware: Rivals brings tank battles to PS4

By Gabe Gurwin Published September 10, 2015

There are plenty of shooters on PlayStation 4, letting you play as a burly man holding a machine gun or even a less-burly man holding a machine gun, but if you’ve been itching for something a little lighter — perhaps with laser-armed tanks — then Hardware: Rivals might be the cartoony, vaguely ’90s Nickelodeon shooter you need.

Developed by a “new internal development group” at Sony, Hardware: Rivals acts as a spiritual successor to the similar Hardware: Online Arena for the PlayStation 2, a game several members of the Rivals team worked on, according to producer Daniel Durnin.

Recommended Videos

As you can see from the announcement trailer, Hardware: Rivals features a bright color scheme and architecture straight out of Legends of the Hidden Temple. Whether or not the Green Monkeys and Purple Parrots make an appearance is still up in the air, but the art direction is in stark contrast to the realistic (at least for the time) visuals of Online Arena. The original release featured similar level design, but with vehicle designs that would have fit right at home in a Battlefield game.

Rivals, meanwhile, lets you launch a tank off of a giant ramp and land it on an enemy buggy as lasers zip through the air and a giant volcano-like structure erupts: the pinnacle of authenticity.

“We’ve taken the opportunity to introduce a truckload of upgrades and new features, but the spirit of the original gameplay remains the same,” Durnin says in the official announcement. “Bringing back the explosive mayhem and online rivalry of vehicle combat has been an absolute pleasure, and we can’t wait for you to get behind the wheel.

Hardware: Rivals will be released exclusively for the PlayStation 4, with a beta test beginning “in the near future.” If you can’t wait to blow up some vehicles, Twisted Metal is also free on PlayStation 3 for PS Plus members this month.

Former Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Topics

Gaming

Sony’s new PS5 Prism Collection gives a beautiful retro makeover to your console and controller

The new collection lets you peek inside your PS5 and DualSense controller with a glossy transparent design.

sony-prism-collection-ps5

Remember when transparent gadgets were the coolest things you could own? Sony is bringing that late '90s aesthetic back with its new PS5 Prism Collection. The gorgeous lineup gives your DualSense controller and PS5 console a glossy, see-through makeover in three eye-catching colors.

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/2115459064981512662?s=19

Gaming

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s Stranded mission had me hooked for hours, yet left me wanting more

I spent hours sneaking through North Korea, scavenging supplies, and clearing outposts, and I’d happily do it all again.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Stranded mission gameplay

For years, Call of Duty’s campaign mode has used big, scripted set pieces to tell the overarching story amid all the adrenaline-pumping action. The 2023 Modern Warfare 3 tried to shake up the established formula by introducing a handful of short open combat missions, and I genuinely liked the idea, but the game's overall negative reception seeped into how those missions were received.

I feared the next iteration might abandon the idea because of the backlash, but I am glad it didn't. MW4’s “Stranded” mission uses the same approach, but instead of fragmenting it across the campaign, it puts it all in a single large-scale open-world mission.

Computing

The $1300 Acer Predator Atlas 8 handheld is finally US-bound, and its pre-orders are already sold out

Acer’s first gaming handheld to launch in the US arrives November 1 with Intel Arc G3 Extreme hardware.

Intel Arc G3 Extreme Hands On with Acer Predator Atlas 8

Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.

Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.