Colony Wars
| Colony Wars | |||
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| Studio |
 Psygnosis Liverpool
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| Senior Developer | Mike Ellis (Lead Designer) | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
 November 14, 1997 |
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| platform | PlayStation | ||
| genre | Space flight simulation | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Game controller | ||
| medium | CD-ROM | ||
| language | German | ||
| Age rating |
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Colony Wars is the first game in the three-part series of space flight simulations of the same name for the PlayStation . It was developed by the British game developer Psygnosis in his Liverpool studio and published in November 1997 in Europe for the PlayStation. The focus is on action-packed air battles in a science fiction scenario. The player takes on the role of a nameless space fighter pilot who is committed on the side of the League of Free Worlds for the independence struggle of the human colonial worlds against the exploitative homeworld. A special feature of the game is a branched mission structure, which can lead to five very different end scenarios, and the presentation of the plot in numerous, computer-generated FMV interludes.
action
The plot of Colony Wars takes place in a fictional future in which humanity began to colonize strange planets. So-called jump gates connect the individual solar systems and enable fast travel between the solar systems. The natural resources of the solar system are almost exhausted, which is why the home planets are dependent on appropriate supplies from the colonial worlds. The earth empire is ruled by the so-called tsar , who brutally suppresses the colonies with the help of his space fleet, the colonial navy. The League of the Free World, founded in 4299, however, under its charismatic leader, the "Father", has set itself the task of ending the ongoing exploitation by the earth. In the so-called Battle of Bennay she succeeds for the first time in defeating the Navy. The game begins immediately after this event, at a time when the Navy fleet is facing an attack on the League's Gallonigher system.
The action of the game is driven forward by numerous computer generated FMV cutscenes between missions. In them, a nameless fighter pilot, the player's alter ego, comments on the course of events that occur in the period 4593-4620. Depending on the player's success during the missions, the action takes a different course and ultimately leads to one of five different game ends.
There are a total of five solar systems in the game, but only three of them are visited during one game round. In the event of a successful defense against the Navy attacks in the Gallonigher system, the league then attacks the Draco system and, if successful, pushes further into the solar system (solution 1). If the league is defeated in the Gallonigher system, it falls back into the Diomedes system. If it can defeat the Navy there, it finally advances into the Alpha Centauri system (solution 2). It also ends for the player at Alpha Centauri if he is defeated on solution path 1 in the Draco system. The following five game outcomes result from the two solutions and the different possible outcomes (victory / defeat):
- The league will be crushed if the player loses every mission in the Gallonigher and Diomedes systems.
- In the event of a defeat in the Alpha Centauri system, the league breaks up through the establishment of a splinter group loyal to the earth and the colonies continue to be exploited as before.
- A victory in the Alpha Centauri system leads to a stalemate and a subsequent peace treaty between the League and the Navy.
- In the event of a defeat in the Sol system, the league withdraws, but seals the jump gate of the earth and thus isolates the home planets. This ending is the basis for the continuation in the second part, Colony Wars: Vengeance .
- A victory in the Sol system leads to the overthrow of the Tsar and a happy new beginning for all of humanity.
Gameplay
Colony Wars is a mission-based space flight simulation that focuses on action-packed flight battles. The task consists in the majority of cases in the elimination of all enemy spaceships. Before starting the game, the player can learn basic control functions in a multi-part tutorial. The game consists of 69 missions, which are spread over the individual solution paths. There are a total of six different types of spaceships that the player can control himself and that differ in their flight behavior (speed, acceleration, maneuverability) and the weaponry. The program specifies which spaceship the player can use.
Missions are initiated by a mission briefing in the form of a screen text with voice output. After an animated start sequence, the player controls his space fighter either from a cockpit view in the first person perspective or in a third person perspective through the area of operation. In the 3D space environment, movements over all six spatial axes (forwards / backwards, right / left, up / down) are possible. Different energy beam weapons , missiles and torpedoes are used during the fighting . Spaceships are protected by their armor and an energy shield . If both values are reduced to zero, the spaceship is destroyed. The game distinguishes the weapon systems mainly according to whether they weaken the energy shields, destroy the ship's hull, or damage both to the same extent. Normally, the player is also supported by program-controlled escort pilots during the mission.
Due to the branched mission structure, if the mission objectives are missed, there is no classic game over , as in Wing Commander , which forces the player to repeat a mission immediately. Depending on the efficiency of the player, however, he can miss the game goal formulated in the intro, the liberation of the colonial worlds from the yoke of the earth empire.
development
The original concept of the game goes back to lead designer Mike Ellis . On the one hand, Ellis and his team wanted to use the 3D possibilities of the new generation of consoles for their purposes, but at the same time also wanted to differentiate themselves from the game principles of other arcade- heavy console titles such as Ridge Racer and Tekken . They saw a possibility in the transfer of the space flight simulations, which at that time were more at home on the PC, to the PlayStation. The game was supposed to distinguish itself from previous competing products by significantly faster, intense flight battles in the style of the Star Wars films and Top Gun . The developers also wanted to experiment with changing storylines that offered different possible solutions. For Ellis, it was all about breaking the usual good / bad narrative scheme. The 3D engine of the first-person shooter Krazy Ivan served as the code base .
Colony Wars was initially developed by Psygnosis' development studio in San Francisco . In late 1996, at a time when the project was already well behind schedule, Psygnosis decided to close the studio and relocate the development team to the headquarters in Liverpool. At the same time, Andy Satterthwait, a new producer, joined the team who was supposed to get the development work back on track and secure the completion of the game. In addition to a few personnel losses and an increase in the team, the scope of the project was also reduced. For example, the planned more than 150 missions have been cut by more than half. After ten months of additional development time, the project was brought to a successful conclusion. The development budget was around £ 1 million .
The limited 3D capabilities of the PlayStation proved to be problematic in some cases, and the competitive situation with the more powerful game PCs was made even more difficult. So the polygon grid of the console caused serious problems. Problems also arose with large polygons, such as the combat ships, which disappeared from the camera's field of view when approached very closely. These and similar challenges sometimes had to be circumvented creatively by the developers. That meant, for example, splitting large polygons into several small ones as soon as a certain distance to the object was not reached. A specially developed texture sharing system saved working memory and instead used it for additional special effects , which were written in assembly language by programmer Chris Roberts . Another main focus was maintaining a constant refresh rate of 30 frames per second. As one of the first developers, Psygnosis also used a mission editor developed by Gavin Dodd, with which the design team could design the flight missions independently of the assistance of a programmer.
The music for the game comes from the pen of video game composer Tim “CoLD SToRAGE” Wright , who based his orchestral soundtrack on opulent space films such as Star Wars and Battle Star Galactica . It works with leitmotifs that are varied and interwoven according to the situation. For the dubbing of the English cutscenes, the speaker Burt Caesar was hired, whose speaking performance was compared with that of the actor James Earl Jones . The German version of the game has been fully localized. The adaptation and release of the game for the Japanese market was carried out by the Japanese development studio Artdink .
Colony Wars was released shortly after Psygnosis' also futuristic helicopter combat simulation G-Police and the racing game F1 Championship Edition . The sales launch of the three titles was accompanied by a marketing campaign worth a total of six million US dollars. The common origin and similarities of the game principle often led to the comparison and the mention of G-Police and Colony Wars in the same context , both in test reports and in retrospect .
reception
| publication | Rating |
|---|---|
| play The Playstation | 9/10 |
| Video games | 70% |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 9.25 / 10 |
| GameSpot | 7.2 / 10 |
| GameVortex | 99% |
| IGN | 9.3 / 10 |
| Meta-ratings | |
| GameRankings | 92.57% |
| Metacritic | 91/100 |
Colony Wars received not only, but mostly, excellent ratings from the trade press (gamerankings: 92.57% / Metacritic : 91 out of 100). Particular emphasis was placed on the graphic performance and the special effects, which despite the opulence did not cause the refresh rate to drop.
The mission design, which was comparatively poor in variety and was ultimately limited to the destruction of all enemy units, was mainly rated as critical.
“Science fiction and action fans are spoiled for choice: G-Police or Colony Wars, or both? There is no way around Psygnosis, as the two best PlayStation shooters this year come from the same company. "
“Psygnosis goes to great lengths to create a newly conceived mega-sci-fi scenario with good and bad, navy and league, wormholes and everything that goes with it, and with its never-before-seen hi-res quality, it shows all competitors how WC IV , Jupiter Strike or even Darklight Conflict clearly go to the back graphics slots, and then forget about adding the gameplay. "
“Gamers who were fans of the Wing Commander series on the PC may be disappointed that Colony Wars tends to feel more like an arcade game than an epic, engaging adventure. Once in the cockpit, you are taken through the dynamic visual world of your own interactive sci-fi movie: a long film, with a heavy dose of special effects and action, but one that is definitely short of being a classic. "
“Players who have been fans of the Wing Commander series on PC will be disappointed that Colony Wars feels more like an arcade game than an epic, addicting adventure. Once in the cockpit you will be guided through the dynamic visual world of your own interactive science fiction film: a long film, with a lot of special effects and action, but one that cannot boast enough for a classic. "
“Brilliant. Awesome. Spectacular. Trouser-creamingly good. I could go on and on. But I won't. Because if the phrase "best PlayStation action game yet" and what I've already written isn't enough to motivate you to get off your ass and rush down to your nearest software store to buy this, you don't deserve any more of my time. "
"Brilliant. Fantastic. Spectacular. Incredibly good. I could go on like this. But I won't do it. Because if the phrase "the best PlayStation action game yet," and what I've written so far, isn't enough to motivate you to get up your bum and dash into the nearest software store to buy it, then you don't have another minute earned my time. "
Web links
- Official website of the series
- Colony Wars at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Dirk Sauer: Test: Colony Wars. (Scan) In: Video Games 12/1997. December 1997, p. 102 , accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ↑ a b c Isaiah Taylor: How Colony Wars Came To Be. In: Gamasutra . United Business Media, September 28, 2011, accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ^ Isaiah Taylor: Colony Wars: Andy Satterthwaite's Side. In: Gamasutra . United Business Media, October 1, 2011, accessed March 22, 2012 .
- ↑ a b Isaiah Taylor: Colony Wars: Lead Programmer Mike Anthony. In: Gamasutra . United Business Media, October 3, 2011, accessed March 22, 2012 .
- ↑ a b Fabian Blache: Colony Wars. In: GameVortex. Retrieved March 22, 2012 (English).
- ↑ a b Jack Oughton: The PlayStation's Cult Shooters. In: IGN . News Corp. January 3, 2012, accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ↑ Artdink : Official Japanese product page , last accessed April 10, 2012.
- ↑ Harley Jebens: Psygnosis' Big Push. In: GameSpot . CNET , September 17, 1997, archived from the original January 23, 2013 ; accessed on March 21, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Feature: Has the PlayStation Plateaued? In: IGN . IGN Staff, October 15, 1997, archived from the original on February 7, 2012 ; accessed on March 21, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d Martin Weidner: Test: Colony Wars. (Scan) In: play The Playstation 11/1997. November 1997, pp. 104-105 , accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ↑ Ben Stahl: G-Police. In: GameSpot . CNET , October 1, 1999, accessed March 23, 2012 .
- ↑ a b c Tim Soete: Colony Wars Review. In: GameSpot . CNET , January 7, 1998, accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ^ Jaz Rignall: Colony Wars. In: IGN . News Corp. , Nov. 4, 1997, accessed March 21, 2012 .
- ↑ a b GameRankings : Average rating , based on 12 articles. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
- ↑ a b Metacritic : Average rating , based on 24 articles. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
