The Space page
This is the page dedicated to my personal favorite types of games, Space Combat Simulators. These games feature a level of realizm and intense action along with usually a good plot and some characters you get used to seeing on your wing. The only reason i like these better than FPS (first-person shooter) games is because those tend to scare the heck out of me. These games don't do that, it's all good, here are my favorites.
Freespace and Freespace 2:
Rating: 6 out of 5
| I know it's technically impossible to get a 6 out of
5, but these two games are just that good. I have never
grown tired of these 2 masterpieces brought to us by
Interplay and Violation INC. They are a shining example
of what all other space shooter games should try to be. These games have many missions in the one player game, which features a story line about a spread out human race, their alien, Vassuden, allies, and the evil invaders of their space, hell bent on destroying them both. Everything about this game is perfection as far as the actual game design goes, i have no problems. The only problem i find is that at times, for reasons i have yet to figure out, the force feedback sometimes doesn't work. I find that exiting the game and taking out the cd and restarting tends to solve this problem. And when it does work, the force feed back is some of the best i've had. |
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There are many ships to be able to fly in each game, and you can customise each one's weapon loadout. There are HUGE capital ships that slug at each other with giant beam weapons that swing through the space between them like giant sabers. There are vido PIP's (picture in picture) of the pilots and aliens that talk to you, awesome video sequences that advance the story line. Just, cripes, this game in god like! A must have for action and space fans alike.
Tips:
1. I find the best weapons to have are the promethius cannon with honet missles when you're not going to be bombing a cap ship.
2. Know how many gun ports there are when you place your guns. For example, the Herculese has 4 guns in one gun port (as oposed to the usual 2) meaning, that you can put a gun there and get twice the punch for half the power and time requirement, a defenate advantage.
3. The best way to dodge a missle is to turn your ship untill the little yellow pointer indicateing where it is is either at the 9 or 3 o'clock position on your HUD, when the beeping becomes more rapid, turn towards it and dump off chaff. You can even avoid a missle without chaff with this strategy!
4. Keep the afterburner and even shields out button close together on the keyboard. That way, when you start to take a pounding, you can escape while transfering a little extra power to the shields (not as effective as acutally transfering all power to the broken part of the shield, but i find that to be too involving).
5. When you finaly become equiped with shields, i recomend having the gun recharge rate being set a notch below what you start out with in a mission, this gives you a little more speed and a bit faster recharge, and the guns tend to keep enough of a charge. If it becomes drained, just jack it up all the way for about 5 seconds and then return it to it's original setting.
6. Use your wingmates to attack cap ships if you're too buisy to do so yourself.
7. ALWAYS take out the weapon systems on a cap ship first. It makes it nearly impossible for them to hit either you or your bombs. Beam cannon's should also be taken out right after you to this.
8. Don't piss me off in a multiplayer game (ie: kill me and gloat about it), it only makes me better.
Starlancer:
Rating: 4 out of 5
| Here is another great game from the all mighty god of
gamming, otherwise known as Chris Roberts. He is known
for making the widely popular Wing Commander games. This
game is a good example of how space combat should look
like. I'm sure you're thinking "Hey Ben, didn't you just say that about Freespace? Why did you give Starlancer a lower rating?". I'll get to that in a minuet, in fact, as far as the actual dogfighting between ships goes, it does do it better than freespace. What it lacks is good cap ship combat and story line, along with a few other things. For example: There are no beam cannons in this game, and if you have played Freespace 2, you're going to miss them trust me. You also can not hope to be able to blow up a cap ship within any reasonable ammount of time without another cap ship or torpedo bombers. Most missions will provide these, but it causes a lack in flexablity. |
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Now, about the storyline. It delivers in it's promise to have the storyline of an old WWII airforce pilot moive. And it does do that, the problem is that the whole "we are the good guys with compassion and they are the evil guys who kill for fun" personality thing gets old. I also was sick of hearing Russian accents by the time I finished this game.
Which brings up another problem. It usually takes me months to beat a space shooter game on the medium dificulty setting. I beat Starlancer in a week, and i was usually buisy with other things! This causes a bad mark in my book on the replayablity of this game.
The force feedback and multiplayer parts of this game are the best i've seen in a space combat game, and it's graphics are a step up above the rest. In the end, i highly recomend this game to anyone who loves space combat, but walk, don't run, to your nearest retailer to get a copy.
Tips:
1. The missle warning system is hard to notice and your RIO won't warn you every time, make sure to keep an eye on it and be ready to dump chaff when you need too (it's farely easy to dodge, just pic a direction and dump it).
2. Use blind fire on targest that are closeing in on you, or ones that you just can't seem to turn fast enough to be able to get a lead on. Otherwise, keep it off for more rapid fire.
3. The Patriot is the god of all Space figher's, and the Shroud is it's godess when you want something a little faster, all other things pale in comparion.
4. Untill you can get your hand on solomon pods, keep a healthy ammount of screamer pods as your missles, and always have 2 jackhammers under your wing and hold onto them untill you really need them (sometimes, certain objectives need on and won't be acomplished if you don't have one).
5. Break off any attack the moment you see that your shields are about to go down, your hull may survive the damage, but you'll lose performance with each hit you take, and therefore, will become more easy to kill (that's why most crippled enemy fighters seem to like coming to a near halt, their engines are almost dead!).
6. The faster you go, the faster you turn, 'nuf said.
X-Wing Alliance:
Rating: 4 out of 5
| The latest in the X-Wing series of games that was
first started with the classic, well, X-Wing of course.
This particular one stood out in it's attempt to do
something we've all wanted to do (us geeks anyway): fly
the Millenium Falcon in the Battle Of Endor. For those of
your Starwars illiterate, that was the big space battle
at the end of Return of the Jedi (or the 3rd movie to
people like my mother). Notice I said "attempt". The big battle got divided up into 4 parts, the part where all the ties swoop in ,(you remember that part right? "There's too many of them!") the part where you take out the Super Star Destroyer "The Executioner", a part where you have to punch through several capital ships to get to the surface of the Death Star, and then the actual, hair-raising, flight through the Death Star into it's core. That last part was the part i give them credit for, it was REALLY well done and made the whole purchace worth every penny. |
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Of course, you don't just buy this game for One mission right? As far as the rest of the game goes, it's all been done as good as the preivious games have (which is spectacular). The storyline about the youngest brother in a family dedicated to the trading buisness, forced to leave his home, (by the empire of course) and join the rebel alliance adds a little personality to the series that it seemed to lack.
The 3D graphics are still good enough today to compare with most other games and the force feedback is adequate for a game like this. Multiplayer works good with direct connect, but i have yet to really try it out on the 'Net because of my slow speed (dad, if you're reading this GET CABLE!). The custom meale mission builder works well for people will little or no experience in making their own missions, but i wish there was a way to make event triggered games like i tried with TIE Fighter (the software i used was buggy).
In the end, if you liked any of the other X-Wing titles (X-Wing, TIE Figter, or X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter) you'll defenately not regret adding this great game to the collection. May the Force be with you! (i had to say it, sue me)
Tips: (note: most of these tips can apply to the other's in the series ones marked with an * are only applicable witn X-Wing Alliance)
1. In an X-Wing, keep your shield recharge rates normal and lazer recharge rates at maximum. This allows you to constantly fire your lazers without worrying about waitng for them to charge up again and when your shields take a hit, you can transfer energy to them.
2. When you know someone is behind you, and you're buisy trying to take someone else out, dump a flare, it will go after him and to major damage.
3. Use chaff only if you really don't have the time to turn around and shoot the missle/torpedo, because you still get knocked around and can end up taking lazer fire while you try and recover.
4.*When stuck in any ship that has gun turrets, always have them auto fire at a taget untill you get them lined up, then link them to forward fire. Don't bother trying to keep your lazers rechared, the gun turrets have a never ending suplly that is more than enough, just direct the engery to the engines and keep your shield recharge up a notch or two.
5.*When a mission is done and you need to get out fast, dump whatever lazer energy you have into the sheilds, and set your engines to max and get the heck out of there!
6. Always put on beam weapons when you can, even if you don't like to use them, you can just redirect it's engery to the engines for an extra boost!
Complaints? Problems? Insults? E-mail me at bite-me@go-screw-yourself.com
Now, if you have something nice to say, e-mail me here: doomsday1982@aol.com (also e-mail me at that same address to report broken links, pictures that won't load, or spelling errors you find, thanks!)
PEACE!
Note: this is a non-profit sight, all images are copywrited by their original owners. If you own the copywrite to these and do not wish them posted e-mail me at Doomsday1982@aol.com and i'll remove it post-haste. Please don't sue, i'm trying to pay for college and you probably have enough money such as it is whoever you are.