Gameplay
800 years in the future, the seven dominant races of the galaxy are at war. Stealing a plot idea from an ancient Star Trek episode, they have agreed to confine their hostilities to Sector 51, a spherical sector of space formerly used by the Earth government to secretly test new weapons and starships. Each race has sent its best soldiers and military hardware to participate in a tournament of space battles in this Battle Sphere. The race that wins the tournament will be given control of the galaxy.
The game involves 7 races, the Oppressors, the Smg'Heeds, the O'catanut, the Slith, the Se'bab, the Telchines, and the Thunderbirds fighting a war over who will control and colonize the galaxy. It features 5 different play modes and the ability, unusual for a Jaguar title, to play over a network of up to 16 consoles, each with a pilot and an optional gunner, for a total of 32 potential players. The claimed network capability has not been tested, due to the game's release after Atari's takeover by JT Storage and abandonment of the Jaguar platform.
The Se'bab is "babes" spelled backwards, along with O'catanut is "tuna taco" spelled backwards. Another race name, Smg'heed, appears to be a reference to the insult "smeghead" from the TV show Red Dwarf. Also, the default high scores for one of the gameplay modes features names of all the major characters from the show. All of the ships for The Oppressors' are named with a phallic theme, i.e. the "Penetrator" supership.
The game has the following play modes:
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