Remember all the people in high-school you thought were morons who ended up model-beautiful? All of a sudden, your opinions changed, right? Well, as much as we all like to pretend we don't judge a book by its cover, 3DO's conversion of WDL Thunder Tanks pretty much bends a few fools over and spanks their little red tushies. I'm talking about the people who had nothing positive to say about this game because they couldn't get past the graphics. Even though WDL's gameplay barely changed for PS2, everybody seems to love it now. Hmmmm?

WDL Thunder Tanks for PS2 is in a whole new world of graphic sophistication. Things like destructable environments don't just break into smaller polygons now, but crumble and explode realistically. Weapon effects look better and move much faster; the slowdown present in some parts of WDL for PlayStation are gone. Tank models were pretty cool for PS, but seeing them in even more detail and having all the extra drone tanks and environments come to life in smooth detail is all part of that big PS2 powerhouse. More vroom means more music and voice-over time, some of which is almost too much. If you're playing, it's all part of the experience, but listening as a non-player is more pain than pleasure.

For the quick run-down, WDL Thunder Tanks is a multiplayer dream of vehicular carnage. And none of those school buses or sedans, 'cause this is the future. 2062, to be exact. With a need for good post-apocalyptic entertainment, the public naturally turns to arena combat. Giant tanks, some dating from before the war and others fiendishly cutting-edge, enter combat zones and battle. 4 Tank enter, 1 Tank leaves... Yes, you might have played something similar on N64 or maybe in the arcade. But, the whole Timesplitters plus Vigilante 8 thing puts WDL in its own corner.

Game modes for combat are brought directly over from the PS version with few additions. Tournament Mode is like Wimbledon, but with more explosions. It's a single-player mode, and you play through various stages on the way toward being crowned Champion. As you play, announcers give a blow-by-blow and even have little CG cut-scenes where they speculate about how far the 'rookie' will go. Good comic relief. During Tournament levels, competition is fierce. Pitted against one or more opponents, you follow the 'live and let die' path to glory, or go out in a ball of flame. The other game characters pilot tanks with unique strengths and attack strategies, but the arenas are also packed with drone tanks who follow you and your enemy around on little robotic search-and-destroy missions. Beating the Tournament is fun, but once you see the 4-Player options, there's no goin' back!

Under the heading of Skirmish Mode, up to four players can plug in a PS2 multitap and start WW4. Death Match, Family, Domination, Capture the Flag and Frenzy are all Skirmish Modes. Death Match and Family are flat-out competition, but Family scales difficulty for less experienced players by locking the tank turret to the body and simplifying firing controls. Both can be customized for number of rounds and other factors like drone tanks, controller config, and obviously your choice of tank. Capture the Flag and Frenzy Mode are similar, except CTF has the flags stationed on your opponents' base and Frenzy spawns flags randomly around the playing area. Domination is a special mode related to the devices that send out drone tanks. Driving up on one of the devices during this mode will sway the tanks it creates to fight for your team, and send them out to beat your opponents. When all of the devices are under your control, you've won. The choices for tanks, characters and weapons are wide-ranging and really fun.

Family Mode is a nice way to scale multiplayer for novice gamers, and other options like turning off the drone tanks or selecting custom controls help level the playing field. Also, if any slots are open in Skirmish Modes, AI teams can compete with you and some human players. Dialing up the AI level will definitely provide a good challenge, in addition to what your buddy has in store.

Although multiplayer mechanics involve many options for control and selection of weapons, it's worth knowing the characters. 3DO did a great job balancing each tank in WDL for one type of offense and defense. Some have heavy firepower but run slow, while others are quick or have special attack/defense features. The simplest driving configuration has the turret gun locked to the body, so turning the tank forward is the only way to see your targets. Slightly above this is a style of driving that lets you turn the gun independently from the body of the tank so you can retreat while firing, or run parallel to someone while you attack. This is a cool setup, but when you really feel comfortable, WDL Thunder Tanks has a sim control scheme with the right and left stick controlling separate treads and weapon control somewhere else. Very cool, but not intuitive for most folks.

Other cool stuff is the strafing ability some tanks have, plus special abilities you learn to maximize after playing the same character a few times. Really, the main element is learning power-ups. Just like in Quake or any FPS, in WDL you're only as good as the last weapon you grabbed. Not all power-ups are weapons, but landing some of the good weapons like homing missiles or the nuke will almost assure a win if used strategically. Most pickups are scattered through levels in obvious places, but more than few are hidden or reveal themselves when something is destroyed. Cool defensive powerups can be used to your advantage, but this game really is about carnage. Apart from a few improvements to the gameplay WDL Thunder Tanks had on PlayStation, 3DO didn't change much for PS2. Although it would be easy to believe people were reviewing a different game last year, I'm happy to see them finally getting it. There's plenty of rocking multiplayer action here, and now I can just taste the online play...