BattleWheels

BattleWheels is a first-person vehicular combat game similar to Interstate '76 and Twisted Metal where players assume the role of warriors taking the wheel of heavily armored automobiles in an attempt to kill other opponents at the titular sport to emerge as a winning victor of the match. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopia on the year 2019, where the world has been reduced to a Mad Max-inspired setting and humanity has now turned towards more violent sports for entertainment as a result of both technological advancements and nationwide reorganization of the political structure that led to the creation of new kinds of sports, with the titular BattleWheels being the most popular of all. This arena-based combat sport pits up to six warriors dueling each other and driving heavily armored vehicles named Hi-Tech in order to kill the other opponents to emerge victorious.

There are only two modes of play to choose from at the main menu: "Action" is arcade-style mode that allows players to select a prebuilt car and battle against rivals in a successive manner across several locations. "Custom" mode, as the name implies, let the players customize their own vehicle with new parts, engine, weapons and other improvements that are bought with cash obtained after winning a match, although there is the choice of building a new car from the ground up or buy a prebuilt model before starting, among other options. Prior to starting a match in either mode, players have the option of choosing an arena to battle in and adjust multiple default settings such as the difficulty level for AI-controlled opponents, their number during single-player, number of kills to be reached, and player character. Controlling the vehicle is done with the D-pad; Up and down accelerates or decelerates the car respectively, while left and right turns its direction.

Beyond Games was established between 1991 and 1992 by Kris N. Johnson, an avid video game player and self-taught programmer who had aspirations of entering into the video game industry during the 1980s. Johnson began coding with Atari BASIC on the Atari 8-bit computers and slowly built an understanding in how to program games and despite reaching several companies to publish his works, none of them ever reached the market after multiple unsuccessful attempts. Johnson also sent various letters to Nintendo and Sega in order to obtain a development kit for developing titles on their systems, but neither replied to his inquiries.

After Atari Corporation released the Atari Lynx in 1989, he took an interest towards the system and proceeded to contact Atari Corp in order to propose them several projects that focused on the console's multiplayer capabilities, which they eventually agreed to and offered Johnson a development kit for US$1000, becoming a licensed developer for the platform in the process despite his lack of professional experience in the field. Prior to his venture in video game development, however, Johnson was also the owner of a nightclub during his youth along with a colleague that would later part ways with him. It also served as a mean of recruiting staff for his company, among them being future WildWorks CEO Clark Stacey and designer Tim Huntsman, both of which would later play a role during the creation of BattleWheels.

In their June 1993 issue, GameFan gave positive remarks to the title in regards of its visuals and compared it with Warbirds.

BattleWheels has been met with positive reception from critics since its release. Chris Bieniek wrote in VideoGames & Computer Entertainment that BattleWheels effectively combines elements from Warbirds, BattleTech Centers, and the Mad Max film series. While highly praising the scaling effects and effective implementation of the Comlynx, his review focused mainly on the numerous features and resulting depth of the gameplay, noting elements such as the use of stereo sound to clue the player in to the locations of opponents and missiles, the customizable weapons setup, and ability to obscure the windshields of opponents. He summed up that "Though it sounds contradictory to the theme of ...

After the release of BattleWheels on the Atari Lynx, Atari Corporation was impressed with the work of Beyond Games and Gary Tramiel invited Kris Johnson, whose company was preparing to move into another platform to develop new projects, in seeing their new upcoming home video game console that would later become the Jaguar and after Johnson became intrigued by the hardware specifications during this invitation, his company was signed by Atari Corp. to be one of the first third-party developers for the console and an updated conversion of the game was intended to be one of their first titles for the platform alongside Ultra Vortek.

BattleWheels for the Jaguar was repeatedly touted to be an upcoming title for the platform that was being developed by Beyond Games, with plans to be released in 1994 before being pushed back for 1995. After the completion of Ultra Vortek, Tim Huntsman stated in a 1995 interview with online magazine Atari Explorer Online at E3 1995 that BattleWheels was intended to be their next follow-up project on the Jaguar, with plans to be also released on PC and now scheduled for a Q2 1995 release. However, neither version was ever completed and released to the general public for unknown reasons, though cover art and screenshots of the PC port do exist.