Colony Wars

"Average little game reminiscent of Wing Commander"

Colony Wars immediately reminds one of the PC classic Wing Commander. While it isn't as original or interesting as its predecessor, it is worth playing through at least once.

Fun Factor: 7
Passably entertaining, but some of the missions start to get repetitious towards the end: kill everyone, don't let anyone on your side die. You get the point. Still, some pretty interesting cut-scenes coupled with better than average voice narration make the game fun for a few afternoons.

Difficulty: 6
The hardest thing I had was not reading the booklet the first time and not realizing that there are both shield-destroying lasers and hull-penetrating lasers. You have to switch to hull-busters after you tear through their shields with the other laser... Of course, playing through the online tutorial will let you know that pretty quickly. Actual gameplay and AI difficulty is not bad, though.

Control: 6
Somewhat clunky at first, and although it might be the actual (supposed) response on the starfighers, the controls were VERY slow to change direction. Also, it was kind of hard to see what my current weapons were in the bottom corners of the screen (a bit too dark to make out what I was using).

Story: 7
Good attempt at making an original storyline/background universe/history, but unfortunately it did not quite make it complete enough for my tastes. Major plot points are left out, and your battles never really seem to have any importance in the context of the overall story.

Music: 5
Completely average, nothing to write home about. Most of the time there isn't even any music playing...

Sound FX: 9
There are some VERY satisfying explosions and missle impact FX, although the controls unfortunately make these sounds somewhat rare. More common is the sound of your wingmen getting torn to shreds. Their AI is pretty stupid towards the end of the game.

Replayability: 4
Once you beat it, there's not much left to do. No real reason to play through again, although it is good to kill some dreary afternoons if you have nothing better to do.

Rent or Buy: More of a rent than a buy, unless you are a fan of the genre.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99