Forgotten Old Games – Colony Wars: Vengeance

Hi everyone! Today, I’ve chosen a great spaceship simulator from Sony Playstation, it’s Colony Wars: Vengeance.

Hum… The right thing to do was probably make a review of the entire Colony Wars franchise, however I don’t like the third game “Red Sun” and the second game is my favorite, so here we go!

Before I start talking about the plot, I would like to mention that both this game and the first one have a lot of endings, therefore, a lot of plot variations, so I’m just going to summarize the “winning plot”.

The League of the Free Worlds, who were the good guys of the first game, were able to liberate mankind from the Tzar Empire, with the exception of  the Sol system (our system, to be exact), so instead of going in there, they just sealed the entire Sol system from the rest of the galaxy, leaving it at its own fate. As the years pass, Sol starts to become very poor and society begins to crumble.

So, in desperate need of a leader who would reunite them all, Kron, an enigmatic figure, rises promising vengeance against the League of the free worlds. Using fanaticism and building a fleet called New Navy, he is able to reopen Sol’s warp hole, and so begins another Colony Wars.

As you may have guessed by now, you play with the “bad guys” from the last game. Player’s character is called Mertens, and he is part of the so-called New Navy, whom proves to be one of the most important pilots of the plot, unleashing a lot of plot twists, some even envolving Kron.

This leads to even more plot twists, I mean, this game’s plot is great, and you should see how it unravels by yourself, I’m not giving you any spoilers for this one.

The controls look a bit complicated at first glance,  as you know, this looks more like a space ship simulator then a 3D shoot ’em up and it reminds me of the Wing Commander game or Freelancer, but it’s nothing extremely complicated as the X’ series.

You have access to three types of weapons at the beginning of the game, one is for Shields, which is not very effective against the hull, another is for destroying the hull, which obviously wont cause much damage against a ship’s shields, and the last one is for collecting minerals, which is a “sword” like beam, you’ll be using them all the time, and as the game progress, you’ll be unlocking new weapons, including a hook gun that allows you to grab stuff in space.

shield disable gun

laser gun

mining laser

hook

You also have Foward and Backward thrusters, and when you use both of them at the same time, you activate Afterburners (which, by the way, have a very nice effect) and in no time at all you’ll be participating in some cool dogfights.

Missions are very well done. While in most console spaceship games player only advance going straight ahead, destroying everything  in screen untill you reach a boss, in this game missions range from gathering materials of asteroids, destroying huge space ships, scouting freighters, uploading viruses to satellites, rescuing ships from hostile and much more, and just like I said before, this game has a lot of endings which are influenced by these missions.

 That is why I think it falls more like in the simulation category than in the “3D shooter” category.

Not to mention the game’s great physics, you can notice it when you use the grappling hook, destroy a vessel and it’s bits fly off like they were in space, or the way your ship behaves floating like it’s actually in space, very well done indeed.

The graphics are amazing, the ships are extremely well done, high quality models, with minor details, specially in large frigates, you can gaze the space scenes and planetary surfaces, for they are very cool, also this game offers a lot of nice effects, like the gloom effect, which is used a lot, gives you the sensation that there is really a huge vessel exploding right in front of you, or that the sun is really burning, it’s very awesome.

The CGi scenes are well done too, and believe me when I say there’s a lot of them in this game, which adds to the experience.

The sounds and musics are awesome, specially the intro music, you can actually feel the drama they are living, that combined with the already mentioned CGs.

Sound is pretty good too, with good sound effects and voice actors.

I’m just going to leave the intro for you, so you can admire both the CG and the incredible music, as for that beggining, I believe it’s Kron crashing into Earth, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when you play the game, and believe me, it is awesome.

‎”The urge to survive is strong, but if it hadn’t been for Kron we would have given up long ago.”

Forgotten Old Games – HARD DRIVIN’

Hello and welcome to another FOG!
Today I’m not gonna bring you another hidden treasure from the golden era of gaming. Instead I’ll show you a bad port. Yeah, a bad driving simulator game, called HARD DRIVIN’ for the SEGA GENESIS.

Released in  1991 by TENGEN this was originally an arcade game with 3D Polygon graphics. The reason why it got released for the Genesis? No idea!

Straight from the manual:

“Sure, driving a real high performance car can be quite a blast. But where can you go to do vertical loops, high-speed races and high flying jumps? In Hard Drivin’, that’s where! Hard Drivin’ is so real you’ll feel like you’re burning up the road in a high-powered car. Two tracks provide plenty of challenge – put the pedal to the metal on the Speed Track or get airborne on the radical Stunt Track! Jump a drawbridge! Do a 360 loop! The true 3D screen display will have you hanging on for dear life! If you lose it, you get to see an instant replay of your accident. Like the incredible arcade hit, this Hard Drivin’ is looking for a few hard drivers. No license – or cars – required!”

Unfortunately these are all lies. The arcade game had it’s merit. But this horrible port is far away from all those promises.

The first hint that shows you're playing a bad port...

Graphics: Awful. I mean there’s plenty of good 2D racing games for the Genesis, this one features really bad ‘3D’ graphics running very slowly compared to the original arcade game.

Slow game + Time attack = FAIL

Sound: Not so different from the original (which wasn’t great by the way). But it’s not as bad as the graphics

Gameplay: This is one of the main reasons why this game shouldn’t have been released for Genesis. The main reason you would play this game back then, was to get the feeling of driving a real car, which you could barely achieve by playing the original arcade. Even if Genesis had a Steering Wheel and Pedals it would still suck, because the controls lack response and precision. And since the game feels like you’re playing in slow motion, you’d have to steer slowly as well. Cool huh?
There’s another thing I should mention, despite they having said the game features TWO TRACKS, you have only one, divided in two: Speed and Stunt.

As for the default controls:
D-Pad LEFT/RIGHT – Steers car
D-Pad UP/DOWN – Gear change (manual mode only)
A – Accelerate
B – Brakes
C – Clutch (hold and press UP or DOWN to change gears)

It doesn't matter if you were hit on the back, your windshield will always get damaged.

Just don't ask me...!

 

But I’m gonna tell you something. I knew the game was terrible, but I played it quite a few times when I had a Genesis. The reason? THE REPLAYS! Everytime you crashed an instant replay starts, showing you from a far camera, what happened to your car. And seriously, I found that quite hillarious. I could spend hours, just crashing, watching the replays and laughing. Yeah I know, silly me…

This is one game to keep very away from you. Unless for completeness of your collection, of course. A true “FORGOTTEN OLD GAME” with lots of reasons for that.
And as always, a video for your delight. This time I’ll show you videos from both versions. See you next time!

GENESIS Version:

ARCADE Version: