About A Game: Slamscape (PSX)
Slamscape is a weird and obtuse vehicle action game, developed and published by Viacom New Media. It is very much a product of the 90’s, with plenty of attitude and edgyness in its presentation, story, and my favorite part, the naming of enemies and other game elements. The game is quite clunky and often even mean, but it also does a few interesting things with its gameplay and presentation. This is also one of those releases that did not come out in Japan, which feels like a bad omen for a game.
The front cover says that it is “An MTV / Viacom Production”, and proudly exlaims that it is “featuring the music of GOD LIVES UNDERWATER as seen on MTV”. The band recorded new material for this game, and they’re not just regular songs, but more about that later.
The opening video shows us having a car accident, the ambulance abducting and dragging us off to some kind of modern medical experimentation dungeon, where we’re strapped into a VR torture rig (it has big spikes where your eyes go), and that’s all the introduction we get. The game itself does not explain any more about what’s going on or what we’re supposed to do. For that we have to consult the manual, which tells us that we’ve been hooked up to the “Slamscape Remulator”, which is supposed to be a VR entertainment device but “for now it’s 100% hell on Earth”. It’s in beta testing, and the psyches of the 16 volunteers that were testing it somehow got lost and “interlaced” in it, producing nightmare environments and creatures. We have to free the four “Orb-Ids” in each region to shut it down.
The interesting naming choices continue with our vehicle, the Slamjet, equipped with weapons like the Shockaball or Ripstar, and a turbo booster called the Fastblaster. The stages are named Carnivalhalla, Uraniumania, Repsychler (my favorite name), and Endless Bummer (like Summer, ‘cause it’s a beach). Some of the enemies and obstacles we face are the Danger Ranger, Shreddy Bear, the Scary-Go-Round, the Furious Wheel (like Ferris Wheel), and Swarmongers.
After starting the game, we’re dropped into a big arena with lots of things attacking us or just going their ways. Back to the manual for some explanations; it has a short chapter titled “Game Goal in Plain English”, which is funny because it introduces some new made-up terms. I’m quoting the first paragraph:
“In each Region, there are four glittering Orb-Ids. Blast, jump, smash and shoot into anything and everything to somehow find and then touch the Orb-Id to set it free from the Regeneral so it can go back to the Orbhead in the center of the Region.”
There you have it, plain and simple. What it actually entails is this: Each stage has four of these special orbs to collect. Each orb also has its own “attraction”, some kind of obstacle or big enemy that has to be overcome to collect it. Sometimes the obstacle just makes the orb hard to reach, requiring timing or a good jump angle, other times it’s an enemy that can be destroyed normally, or requires special strategies. Often it is not particularly obvious how to get the orb, and the manual only offers very few hints for it.
The stages are also filled with other enemies that are for the most part constantly trying to attack and harass you. The Danger Ranger is a vehicle similar to yours, who is constantly trying to ram into you and cannot be destroyed. There is a common enemy that tries to pick you up and carry you away. Other enemies try to steal your items. Especially in the later stages, the attacks come in constantly from everywhere, and part of the challenge of the game is just to survive that and not get too tilted, while trying to accomplish the actual goals of the stage.
Every stage has a different theme, and they’re pretty distinctive. The first stage, Carnivalhalla, is a kind of nightmare circus, with a big ferris wheel, two kinds of carousel, and some kind of big katamari that’s supposedly composed of elephant feet.
Stage 2 is Uraniumania, themed after the Nuclear Age, with The Mighty Atom (a collection of floating blobs), some nuclear reactor cooling towers, and a big spaceship. The spaceship has to be defeated in a special way: it drops small enemies that fly straight up like a rocket when hit, and you have to hit the spaceship with those, which isn’t easy when it moves around all the time.
Stage 3 is the Repsychler, some kind of Mad Max wasteland junkyard. A very annoying obstacle here is a collection of magnetic cranes that strongly pull you around while you have to make a very high jump to get their orb. Another difficult obstacle here is “Beyond Toasterdome”, a dome that you shouldn’t touch directly, and instead have to ram the guard that rotates around it into the dome (at least I think that’s how it works).
The fourth and supposedly last stage is Endless Bummer, a sandy beach where the game’s difficulty reaches its peak. The obstacles are more difficult than ever, and you’re constantly assaulted by everything else. There is a giant heavily-armed crab boss and a dark cloud that will bombard you if you move into its territory.
After beating these four stages, you will most likely encounter the bad ending, with a text screen explaining that you didn’t get enough Power Nodes. These Power Nodes are their own obtuse mechanic, and you need to finish each stage with a full set of four to unlock the final stage. The Power Nodes are colored crystals that can be collected and attach to the back of your vehicle, but you can only combine crystals in a certain order, first the four-prong, then the three-prong, and so on. These items also regulate your health bar. You start out with very little health, and every attached node increases it. Some enemies specifically go after these items, either just picking them up and moving them around, or even stealing them from you.
Fulfilling the criteria for the good ending isn’t particularly difficult once you know what to do. You don’t have to care too much about the power nodes for most of a stage, only collecting some for health, and only when you’re done with the orbs you have to find a full set of nodes before leaving the stage. The fifth stage, Viva Los Vagrantes, is not particularly interesting, featuring a greatest hits selection of obstacles from earlier stages in a pulsating purple environment.
As mentioned in the beginning, this game was advertised as featuring music by God Lives Unterwater. It has an interesting dynamic soundtrack, where elements of the music change depending on your proximity to certain objects, or the number of power nodes currently collected. I’d describe the music as industrial or prog rock, and it can be kinda noisy, with clanking sounds and hammering beats. It’s definitely a noteworthy part of the game.
Playing through this game was quite a struggle, partially because of its obtuse design, but mostly because of the permanent aggression and annoyances from all kinds of enemies. I don’t think I would recommend it to most people, but I do appreciate it for its unusual gameplay and presentation.
If you want to see more, here’s my VOD of the game, with two playthroughs for the bad and good ending:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krFih7lamCQ