That's probably a plasma charge.
Auto Destruct is a vehicular combat game, developed by Neurostone and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation in 1997-1998.
A cult known as the Disciples of Lazarus orchestrates a rash of terrorist attacks in San Francisco. Booth, a retired race car driver, loses his family in one of those attacks and is then contacted by an organization known as the Temple, seeking to recruit him to fight against the Disciples. After he agrees, they provide him with a heavily armed car and send him out onto the streets to do battle wherever the Disciples rear their heads.
Auto Destruct features examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The world looks more or less the way it did in the '00s; however, laser and plasma weapons are in (relatively) wide use, one of the armor types is named "Nanoshield", and one of the missions takes place in the "old and disused" New York subway.
- Artificial Stupidity:
- The cities are randomly dotted with idle pedestrians; not only do they often end up standing around in the middle of the road, they also completely disregard any gunfire and explosions. They only react if there's a car hurtling directly towards them (by running to the side) or if they're killed (by yelling and falling over).
- Traffic vehicles don't have any self-preservation either, honking at flaming wrecks to get out of the way while more flaming wrecks are being produced nearby.
- Enemies that are programmed to follow a certain path will prioritize that above all else, even if the player's firing at them and they have the means to retaliate. They'll only start taking potshots if the player gets ahead of them.
- Bag of Spilling: The only things that carry over between missions are the banked money and performance upgrades; weapons, armor and nitro are discarded.note
- Big Applesauce: New York is the second city the Disciples elect to terrorize, depicted complete with a subway network (old and disused), Liberty Island and burning trash cans.
- Boring, but Practical: The humble machineguns - nearly hitscan, plentiful ammunition and equally effective against health and armor. Their only weaknesses are helicopters (unless there's an incline to park on) and small targets (since they're side-mounted and do not converge).
- Bottomless Fuel Tanks: There's a dedicated fuel gauge in the instrument cluster, and the player can refuel in exchange for some hard-earned cash at one of the gas stations around the city. If the car runs out of fuel, it loses most of its power, forcing the player to limp to the nearest pump at quarter-speed and hope there isn't a steep hill (or hostiles) in the way.
- Cool Car: The player's car: sleek, armored, armed to the teeth. Some NPC vehicles, both friendly and hostile, boast the same combo - most notably, Lazarus's stark white car with massive vents in the back and a lot of firepower.
- Critical Existence Failure: Though they start billowing steam and then smoke as their health drops, vehicles don't suffer any performance penalties until they explode at zero health.
- Escort Mission: On a couple occasions, there's a defenseless vehicle that must be protected from the Disciples as it speeds around town. One of them breaks down and stops, turning the ordeal into a Protection Mission.
- Hellish Copter: Many helicopters are lost to missile fire over the course of the game, including Lazarus's helicopter in the finale, complete with a pre-rendered cutscene of it going up in a massive fireball that triggers as soon as its health is depleted.
- Hope Spot: An early mission involves helping an informant escape the city. After a lot of hoop-jumping, the player collects and delivers him to his car waiting at the city's outskirts; as soon as the informant drives off, a helicopter comes in with a massive barrage of missiles and demolishes him.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: The Temple's engineers have somehow managed to stuff the player's car with machineguns, missile racks, pulse and beam lasers, regular and plasma cannons, a grenade launcher and much more without any effect on the car's appearance.
- Interface Screw: During one mission in Tokyo, the car's IFF system suddenly gets jammed, intermittently losing all hostile vehicle indicators and making it impossible to use lock-on weapons against them.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Swarmers weapon class allows the player to launch homing missiles in packs of three or five (depending on the variant), at a rate of about one salvo per second, with a dash of Roboteching thrown in.
- Made of Iron: Enemy infantry usually goes down with a couple of machinegun rounds, but on rare occasions there's some guy that inexplicably tanks a car's worth of damage (or more).
- Mighty Glacier:
- Perhaps owing to the massive amount of gear onboard, the player's car barely outperforms NPC vehicles; on the straights, it has trouble keeping up with cars, vans and an occasional semi. It falls to the player to remedy this using nitro (if it's available) or carrying speed through corners (compared to NPCs driving strictly in straight lines and sharp turns).
- Enemy tanks are usually rooted in place, have a layer of armor points over their health and lay down a considerable amount of hurt with explosive or plasma rounds.
- Money for Nothing: The player's cash balance carries over between missions, can be increased with semi-regular cash pickups, and goes towards getting repairsnote at gas stations. A neat lifeline for a struggling player, but a skilled one will be rolling around with five figures in the bank and nothing to spend them on.
- Monumental Damage: Right off the bat, the Disciples destroy the Golden Gate Bridge. Later in New York, the player has to avert this for the Empire State Building.
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Nintendo Hard:- The game's difficulty ramps up pretty quickly; very soon it gets to the point where time-critical tasks all but require consulting the city map to plan a route with the fewest turns possible, and combat scenarios sometimes involve entire enemy formations that will shred the player's car if engaged head-on.
- As if the player's car wasn't slow enough, some races and chase sequences occasionally spawn buses and trucks hurtling in the opposite direction, stopping the player dead if not dodged in time.
- Nitro Boost: There's a dedicated Nitro button which temporarily grants the car increased power and a flaming exhaust; up to five charges can be stored. Those are usually provided by the game just in time for some high-speed chases or ramp jumps.
- Oil Slick: Available to both the player and escaping enemies. It causes a massive loss in traction for a couple of seconds, but its deployment is accompanied by a plopping noise which the player can use as a cue to dodge.
- Plot Armor:
- On several occasions, the player has to chase Lazarus in his signature car. While its armor points can be whittled down, its health is completely untouchable, unless it's one of his car-and-body clones.
- At the end, Lazarus gets completely fed up and trades his car for a helicopter to attack the player with impunity, since he has homing missiles and the player doesn't. Right then and there, his plot armor expires, and the player's police buddy suddenly comes in hot and drops a crate of missiles.
- Sadistic Choice: Once Lazarus is forced to abandon San Francisco, he sets up two nukes as insurance policy in case he needs to cover his escape. Once the player is hot on his tail, he reveals that fact and forces a choice between getting revenge and saving ten thousand lives, cackling maniacally. Downplayed in that at that point Lazarus has plot armor, so revenge is not really an option in terms of gameplay.
- Smoke Screen: Available to both the player and escaping enemies. Since a moving vehicle deposits smoke in a straight line, it can be countered by switching lanes.
- Super Drowning Skills: Dunking the car in any body of water instantly fails the current mission.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Explosive and energy weapons make mincemeat of unarmored targets; armored targets are greatly resistant to those, but their armor can be stripped on the cheap with machinegun fire.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: One mission involves a head-to-head race across the city, with the prize being intel on the Disciples' plans. The problem is, the opponent is outright faster than the player, even with nitro, and there are no weapons to use. The game directly suggests the player cut across a large park in order to win; it's also possible to slip ahead in the first corner and bodyblock the opponent up until the finish line (at the cost of significant damage).
- The End... Or Is It?: The ending cutscene starts with Lazarus's helicopter exploding over Tokyo Bay, and ends with what looks like a mini-sub slowly diving amid the burning wreckage.
- Timed Mission: A few missions involve finding and defusing time bombs, with a countdown appearing once they're activated. One of the late missions has a global countdown and must be finished in less then 5 minutes.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Blowing up a sufficient amount of traffic vehicles nets the player a verbal warning from mission control; blowing up some more nets a mission failure. Pedestrians, fortunately, do not enjoy such protections.
- Weaponized Car: Many, many of them.
- Where It All Began: Tokyo is where Lazarus first started the Disciples, and it's where the game ends.
