Colony Wars
A series of space-combat sims released on the PlayStation in the late 90's, Colony Wars was exceptionally good and it was unfortunate it never expanded beyond the first generation of Sony platforms.
Colony Wars was another one of those game my brother purchased from what I can only gather was the case art alone. Though, as always, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic game. Though it did prove difficult, I never made it past a few first missions. I think my brother got quite a bit further though, since it was his game and console. (Though we technically shared.)
At a time when most space combat games were limited to PC, Colony Wars did a great job of taking advantage of Sony's new dual-stick analog controller. With 4 shoulder buttons and the twin-sticks, flight on 3 axis worked quite well and if I remember correctly, you could always re-orient yourself on the x-axis. (If I've got that right.) Colony Wars supplied you with on the most important information on screen, allowing for a few different POVs similar to modern car and aircraft sims including an external view and two cockpit views. The cockpit views did a great job of placing you in the action and used a kind of 'floating' mechanical HUD as if your cockpit was mainly glass, giving you very little blind-spots.
Colony Wars was not simply an aircraft simulator in space either. It took full advantage of your three available axis and used some smart gadgets, such as a tow-cable system that allowed you to latch onto larger ships and simply fire away while hiding in their blind spot. One of the few missions I recall quite well because it was simply awesome.
Colony Wars did very little wrong and everything right. For the time it handled very well, had an awesome soundtrack, looked fantastic graphically and was generally a solid game at a time when fully 3D games were still getting their footing. Apparently it's not yet available on the PSONE Classics store for PS3 and so, anyone wanting to give this one a go (and I suggest you do) will have to dust off their old PS1. Which is something I've been about to do for just over a week now.
A series of space-combat sims released on the PlayStation in the late 90's, Colony Wars was exceptionally good and it was unfortunate it never expanded beyond the first generation of Sony platforms. Colony Wars was another one of those game my brother purchased from what I can only gather was the case art alone. Though, as always, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic game. Though it did prove difficult, I never made it past a few first missions. I think my brother got quite a bit further though, since it was his game and console. (Though we technically shared.)
At a time when most space combat games were limited to PC, Colony Wars did a great job of taking advantage of Sony's new dual-stick analog controller. With 4 shoulder buttons and the twin-sticks, flight on 3 axis worked quite well and if I remember correctly, you could always re-orient yourself on the x-axis. (If I've got that right.) Colony Wars supplied you with on the most important information on screen, allowing for a few different POVs similar to modern car and aircraft sims including an external view and two cockpit views. The cockpit views did a great job of placing you in the action and used a kind of 'floating' mechanical HUD as if your cockpit was mainly glass, giving you very little blind-spots.
Colony Wars was not simply an aircraft simulator in space either. It took full advantage of your three available axis and used some smart gadgets, such as a tow-cable system that allowed you to latch onto larger ships and simply fire away while hiding in their blind spot. One of the few missions I recall quite well because it was simply awesome.
Colony Wars did very little wrong and everything right. For the time it handled very well, had an awesome soundtrack, looked fantastic graphically and was generally a solid game at a time when fully 3D games were still getting their footing. Apparently it's not yet available on the PSONE Classics store for PS3 and so, anyone wanting to give this one a go (and I suggest you do) will have to dust off their old PS1. Which is something I've been about to do for just over a week now.
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