Colony Wars: Vengeance

"A sequel should be better..."

A few decades after Colony Wars 1 took place, Colony Wars: Vengeance starts. This time you´re at the other side. A league pilot named Kron crashed on the earth in his final battle, and although the League has won, they sealed the earth and let the survivors alone on their ''dying planet''. Kron, who felt betrayed by the league is the one who unifies the inhabitants of the earth and builds a new ''Navy'' in order to take revenge.

Graphics: 7

In-game graphics: 10
Psygnosis managed it to improve nearly everything compared to the predecessor. The battleships are more detailed, there are really huge space stations and research facilities, and the planets in the background look perfect. The weapons did not improve, but they are still top. But they still didn´t manage it to create cool explosions. The battleships are still exploding in a very strange way. But alltogether the graphic gets a 10.
FMVs: 3
I can´t understand that the FMVs are so bad. Hey guys, you made perfect sequences in the first part. What´s this? Totally boring, ultra short sequences mostly with humans looking like clay-figures. I was so eager to see the new, better, even more genius sequences of CW2, and then I had to see such crap. Shame on you!

Sound: 7

Music: 6
Another disappointment is the music. In place of a really great orchestrated soundtrack is now a not really bad, but boring bunch of tunes being repeated over and over.
SFX: 7
The sound effects haven´t changed much, but they aren´t that impressive anymore. Don´t ask me why, but the sound lost a bit of its´ power.
Voices: 8
Like in CW1 there is a bit wireless traffic between you and your wingmen. This time you got a voice, too, so from time to time ''you'' are speaking with the headquarters - nice idea. But alltogether the quality is not as high as in the first part.

Controls: 10

Like in the first part the controls are excellent. Every button is in use, but nevertheless you are never confused. For 3-D-shooter newbies there´s also a flight training, where you can do a bit practicing before you start into real battle.

Gameplay: 9

Having nearly always mission-objectives like ''shoot everything that moves'' in CW1, they tried to integrate some more ''ambitious'' elements. For example you now have a grap that you can use to transport things like asteroids, machine parts, or lenses for mega lasers, and the so called ''leach beamer'', to transfer energy or viruses to other ships. Having those new weapons there are of course missions like: ''search for the three big parts of the laser gun, and bring them together, or transfer the energy from the energy-pods to the super-gun''. Although that´s a quite refreshing idea, the missions don´t become that more interesting than in CW1. But a very cool idea are the missions you have at the surface of a planet. For these missions you get a special fighter, and you have do defend/destroy something on the planet. Another novelty is the upgrade-ability of your ships. After every successful mission you get a certain amount of money of which you can buy upgrades for your ship. Nice idea, but you can only upgrade four abilities (machines, booster, shields, agility), and the upgrades are limited to 3 or 4 levels. So you can´t build for example an ultra slow tank, or a mega-fast but vulnerable mega-fighter. The first thing you should make is to upgrade the shields as much as you can. Otherwise you will see yourself in an escape pod very soon in the next mission.
So the game missions are much more varied than in CW1, but the good starting points could have been developed a bit better. I think the programmers were somehow under time pressure for releasing the sequel to CW1.

Story: 6

Actually the story is not that bad. But CW1, having the same problem managed it to make the flat story more thrilling by using plenty of genius FMVs with a great narrator. This time you are the narrator, but the FMVs are such crap, that I never liked the storyline. Surely, it has some twists, but they are all too cliche-like. Nevertheless the game has a story, and like the first part different endings.

Presentation: 3

Like for CW1 I will rate the presentation here too, because it´s a shame. Colony Wars was THE example for a perfect presentation of a PS-game with a huge amount of background information, superb films, and an original Sci-Fi- menu-design. All of that is gone. There´s absolutely no background information, and also the menus are all boring and have no originality. It all looks very very cheap.

Final Score: 7

Colony Wars: Vengeance is not a bad game at all. Psygnosis improved nearly everything technical, but did they forget the presentation of the game? I think the programmer-team of CW was under a big time pressure. Don´t ask me why, but maybe Psygnosis wanted to have a sequel as soon as possible, so that they forced the programmers to stuff the half-finished game with crappy FMVs and menus designed in half an hour. Very sad, because with the right presentation this game could have become a classic like it´s predecessor.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/02, Updated 08/15/02