Released by Softdisk in 1991, the same year as Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (and by the same team, Tom Hall, John Carmack and John Romero), Hovertank 3D was the beginning of a wildly successful journey into first person gaming for the team that formed Id Software, although they did not know it yet. It is often assumed that Wolfenstein 3D was the first FPS these golden boys of PC gaming would create, but while it was certainly their first big hit under the Id Software name and many gamer's introduction to the FPS world, the beginnings of that early FPS title were much more humble, but no less significant.
3D gaming was hardly new, as flight and combat sims had been doing this for years. But John Carmack set out to create a 3D engine that was faster and smoother than any previously used in the gaming scene. Taking place on a single plane and without any texture, but sporting fast and smooth gameplay, he developed the engine used in Hovertank, which would later become the basis for yet another FPS, Catacomb 3D (to be examined later) and finally Wolfenstein 3D.
Set in the future during a nuclear war, the player controls a hovering tank and must journey through maze-like cities rescuing refugees before a nuclear bomb drops. The cities are filled with mutants and other hovertanks. The game controls much like a normal FPS, but the character's vision "bobs" to simulate the flotation of the tank. Unlike Wolfenstein, where the task was simply to find the exit to a given level, in Hovertank the goal is to find and rescue all the people in the level, at which point an exit will appear somewhere in the stage. The head's up display provides a radar that shows the general location of people to be rescued, as well as enemies to be fought, and a timer runs on each level counting down the minutes until the bomb goes off, adding tension.
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Although somewhat amateurish in execution (particularly the cheesy "Yay!" that sounds when you rescue someone), the game plays well and showcases an early, yet well-designed engine that would soon spark a fire that would burn into the present day and change the gaming landscape forever.
