Rivet Preview

I like writing about games whose titles are extremely punny. It saves me valuable brain glucose and puts me into a sunshiny mood from the get-go. Of course, Rivet from Vicarious Visions has a lot more than its title going for it; if I were to make a big ordered list of this mech adventure game's cool features and ideas, its official appellation would be stranded someplace at the bottom.

Soon after firing up a preview copy of Rivet on a Motorola V300, I got sucked into the game's pastiche of violent conflict, towering assault robots, and cartoony NPCs who wear military caps at rakish angles. You play a mercenary who pilots a Rivet (mech) for the Good Guys, denoted as such by their blue-trimmed equipment and lack of facial scarring. After learning the basics in a quick tutorial, you're let loose into the mission menu, where you can pick from a wide variety of combat scenarios, including convoy protection, base defense, and seek-and-destroy. If you prove an effective Rivet jockey, you earn cash to purchase new mechs and trick them out with dozens of power-ups and weapons; if not, you have to go into hock just to stomp around in a cheap rental model.

I don't even like renting bowling shoes, so I resolved to fight my way into a deluxe Eddie Bauer edition of Rivet ASAP. This is easier said than done. I found that basic training barely prepared me for the hot-and-heavy kill zone that was right outside of my base. It took multiple shots with basic weapons to destroy even a lowly tank--and if you run into an enemy Rivet before you know what you're doing, you'll get trashed. I was impressed with Rivet's clever real-time/turn-based hybrid gameplay. The game's basically on pause until you take action, allowing you time to switch targets and use the right weapons. It takes a while for most of your guns to reload, which means you'd better plan your strategy carefully. Given time, you'll see the genius of this system, but at first it's pretty bizarre and inexplicable. More documentation and training would have probably helped.

Rivet's overhead-view graphics aren't the last word in mobile visuals, but its sprites are bright and detailed, rumbling through an environment that recalls Command & Conquer rendered with a Super Nintendo palette. The various war machines are well animated and show realistic damage, including a killer bullet-strafing effect that plays when you land a cannon hit on some poor schmuck. I also liked the crisp, clear sound effects, but the grating background music nearly ruptured my eardrums. Good thing you can have effects sans music.

Although Vicarious Visions still has a lot of fine-tuning to do in the gameplay department, Rivet's concept is engrossing and rock solid. Swapping your mech's old parts around for the latest in death-dealing using Garage mode is endlessly fun--and with promised extra content available for in-game download, Rivet could rule a patch of your phone's memory for a long time. Look for the final J2ME version in late March, and the BREW flavor a couple weeks past that.