Picture this. In the near future, while drilling for oil, mankind accidentally discovers an underground civilization that has evolved parallel to us, but beneath the crust of the earth. War ensues (of course), and in the face of overwhelming odds, mankind uses genetic research to engineer super soldiers, and eventually win the war. Now, a century later, these super soldiers and their descendants are shunned and rejected by society, and forced to live their lives in the military research labs that created them. In an effort to stay in tip-top shape, and perhaps to win a chance at escape or revenge, these super people begin vehicular warfare tournaments and Motor Mayhem is born. This is where you come in. The Vehicular Combat League is an attempt to create a WWF style tournament, and you must win each round to eventually be crowned the Motor Mayhem champion.

First off, kudos to Beyond Games for attempting to create an interesting back story to what is essentially a tournament style vehicular fighting game. Instead of the standard "mankind is on the brink of/survived a disaster so we created a tournament to entertain us" drivel, the included story gives some background to the fighting, introducing interesting character profiles and rivals in order to draw us into the game. Unfortunately, the game itself does not live up to the promise.

First off, the level design is pretty mediocre. The majority of the levels consist of wide open spaces, with a few boxes/barrels/rocks scattered about to make some pretty explosions and hide a few weapons, and some "hidden" areas that are little more than tunnels or just more wide open spaces. Most of the level textures are bright and colorful, giving you the feeling of actually being in an "extreme" contest of some sort, but, unfortunately, this also makes it very hard to see the enemies. Graphically, this game does have its moments, some of the weapon effects are spectacular, and the vehicles are very detailed and highly articulated. Also, the controls don't feel quite as tight as they should, especially when your vehicle is in hover mode. This game does have a few interesting innovations, though. Aside from the standard tournament modes (Eliminator - last man standing, Deathmatch - most kills, and Endurance - last as long as possible against a continuous barrage of enemies), there is also a two person deathmatch mode. When preparing to beat the snot out of a friend, you can not only select other enemies to battle as well, you also have complete control over which weapons are available, and how many of each. In addition to the many weapon pick-ups, each character also has their own button press combos for various special attacks (mine, short-range, long-range, and hover) taking the Twisted Metal/fighting game combos a step further.

Unfortunately, I really can't recommend this game unless you are a serious fan of this genre, or maybe you aren't old enough to buy Twisted Metal: Black (which it seems is the audience they were aiming for). Its not that there is any one problem area, it just seems that even with the unique ideas and pretty graphics, they never quite managed to pull it all together, and its just not all that much fun. Perhaps if this game had come out 6 months ago and was the only contender in this genre, I could have rated it a little higher. But when compared to the competition, this game falls flat. Save your money.

Install: None

Gameplay: 6.9
Floaty controls, mediocre arenas, standard deathmatch/endurance/elimination gameplay styles - nothing that rocks the boat too much here. Enough innovations to be interesting, but not quite enough to make this game stand out.

Graphics: 7.8
A few interesting weapon effects, some pretty explosions, very cool animations for your vehicles. Nothing to make you really sit back and catch your breath, but there is enough here that it won't bore you.

Sound: 7.5
The background sounds are nice, with very good sound effects in places. The sounds of jets flying over the aircraft carrier, or the roar of the crowd as you smite your enemies do a good job of trying to pull you in, but otherwise its just your standard video game techno soundtrack, with a couple of licensed songs from Methods of Mayhem and The Crystal Method.

Difficulty: 7.6
The AI is a little spotty, your opponents spend most of their time pounding on you, and ignoring each other (this is a tournament, right?). If you can get past this problem, the learning curve is fairly even, and you will rarely find yourself overwhelmed and not able to deal with it.

Concept: 6
C'mon, this is nothing new. The few unique gameplay ideas make it a little more interesting, but with fairly standard gameplay styles, there are few surprises here.

Multiplayer: 8
Although your only option is two player (where is the four player?), the amount of customization you can do makes the multiplayer interesting, if nothing else. You only get the standard deathmatch option, though, and this area certainly could have been expanded.

Overall: 7.5
There is nothing new here that would make me recommend this game to any but the diehard. A few unique twists on the vehicular combat genre, but not enough to make this game stand out of the (very small) crowd, because the competition is too stiff. If you must, rent it, then spend your hard earned cash on TM:B.