''Armored Fist'' is a video game developed and published by

Novalogic NovaLogic, Inc. was an American software developer and publisher established in 1985 and based in Calabasas, California. The company was founded by CEO John A. Garcia. Garcia's background in computer software started in Southern California in th ...

for the PC. It was followed by '' Armored Fist 2 and Armored Fist 3.''

Gameplay

''Armored Fist'' is a tank simulation and strategy game involving the armed forces of both the United States and the Soviet Union.

Development and release

''Armored Fist'' was developed by American studio

NovaLogic NovaLogic, Inc. was an American software developer and publisher established in 1985 and based in Calabasas, California. The company was founded by CEO John A. Garcia. Garcia's background in computer software started in Southern California in th ...

. Produced and designed by the company's head John A. Garcia, development began in 1990. Garcia found that the state of computer technology at the time allowed for more realistic tank warfare such as strategic terrain masking. He explained that the whole team was "keyed into the process" of researching tanks in books, television, and other popular media. "It’s not uncommon to come into work at NovaLogic and have an artist run in with a tape from ''

The Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It initi ...

'' with the first ever recording of a certain tank firing," he said. "The entire staff will analyze it over and over for art perspectives, design ideas, and so forth." The developers even spent a day learning about tanks at

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms The Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), also known as 29 Palms, is the largest United States Marine Corps base. The base covers a total area of 1,102 square miles. It was a census-designated place (CDP) officially known as Twentynin ...

. The game originally went by the working title ''Battlefield 2000'' with development overlapping with other NovaLogic projects including the combat helicopter simulator '' Comanche: Maximum Overkill'' and the science fiction mech shooter '' Ultrabots''. The company had planned to release the ''Armored Fist'' in mid‐1993 using

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

graphics, but it was delayed when this was substituted with the company's Voxel Space, a

raster graphics upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

engine designed by Kyle Freeman. Garcia considered it to the most complex product the team had worked on up to that point, consisting of eight man-years of programming and a quarter million lines of hand-assembled

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

. He recounted that nearly one man-year of work went into the game's construction set alone, which he opined was as much time as some people spend creating an entire game.

Reception

'' Next Generation'' reviewed the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that the game was "Charming cold war fun." Power Play was disappointed by the game's weak overall visual design.

Reviews

*''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

'' (Jan, 1995) *''Coming Soon Magazine'' (1995-02) *''

MikroBitti ''Mikrobitti'' (formerly called ''MB'', ''MikroBitti'' and ''MikroBITTI'') is a monthly Finnish computer magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. History and profile ''MikroBITTI'' was first published in May 1984. The original publisher was Tec ...

'' - Dec, 1994 *''

PC Games ''PC Games'' is a monthly-released PC gaming magazine published by the Computec Media GmbH in Germany. History ''PC Games'' was founded in 1992 and included a 3½-in floppy disk, which was changed to a CD-ROM in 1995. By 1999 it became the ...

'' - Dec, 1994 *''PC Fun'' (French) (1994-11) *''Power Play'' (1994-11)

References

External links

''Armored Fist''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

1994 video games DOS games DOS-only games Embracer Group franchises NovaLogic games Single-player video games Tank simulation video games Video games developed in the United States Video games with voxel graphics {{Videogame-stub