Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: July 26, 1998

Though it may seem amazing to some of you who view game reviewers as pig-headed, close-minded individuals who make a final irrevocable judgment of a game’s worth within ten seconds of seeing the first screenshot, most of us actually reconsider our initial evaluation of games and change our opinion of them as we gain more information on them and play them more thoroughly. So when you check out The Adrenaline Vault to find out about a given game and then compare a preview to a final review, you will often find a distinctly different tone in each. In my opinion, this pattern of difference is highly desirable, because it shows that reviewers are willing and able to admit (almost never explicitly, of course) that their first impression of a game was off-base.

Such a change has certainly characterized my attitude toward Shepherd’s Worlds’ new release, Juggernaut Corps: First Assault. Three months ago I did a preview of the game, and frankly I was not very impressed by what I saw. It seemed to have generally low production values, misspellings, long load times, and pauses in gameplay, and it did not really seem to compete in the same league as the very best 2D/3D arcade shooters out on the market. Indeed, since Logicware’s AstroRock 2000 and Reflexive’s Swarm came out earlier this year, they have set a high standard which no other game of this type has been able to match. However, having now played the full retail version of Juggernaut Corps from beginning to end, I can say with conviction that my initial impression of the demo was misleading, for what I now see can hold its own against any arcade shooter out there.

This is the Florida-based Shepherd’s Worlds’ first game release, and it clearly will not be its last. When you finish Juggernaut Corps, the game ending more than subtly hints at the emergence of a sequel. The company’s thrust is clearly not to introduce a lot of innovation but rather to add small new wrinkles to a well-established genre. Indeed, the appearance and gameplay of Juggernaut Corps bear a striking similarity to Swarm.

The background story here is unremarkable. An alien race Species CAN-8932 has invaded the Alliance, with enemy ships destabilizing key wormholes crucial to the Alliance’s stability. The Council of Elders has decreed that the Juggernaut Corps, a genetically superior fighting force selected from the planets in the Alliance, must use every means to stop this menace. Ultimately the Corps must employ the previously-outlawed Juggernaut Armageddon weapon, with each planet containing a secretly-hidden piece vital to its construction.