You have just joined the league of free worlds as a rookie pilot as war rages between the league (good guys) and the Navy (bad guys). With no time to waste you are thrown into the thick of the action piloting a variety of spacecraft equipped with various lasers and missiles and your mission is simple.....Stop the Navy or you and you're race will be no more (similar to the rebel/empire scenario in Star Wars). Each episode is split into three missions, and depending on how many missions you complete determines how you will progress to the next episode. Obviously the more missions you complete, the brighter the outlook for you and your colleagues. But as you would suspect the missions get tougher the further on you are. It does not just involve blasting the hell out of enemy craft. Some missions will have you escort a league frigate to it's destination and defend it while under attack or disarm and take over a battle platform.
Complete with James Earl Jones sound-a-like narration this is a very good looking sci-fi combat game. The music score is very dramatic and the battle scenes are ferocious and fast. As you complete more missions your ranking within the league is increased but does the gameplay match the presentation? Lets find out.
I have never seen graphics on a space combat simulator like this. In Colony Wars The opening sequence and FMV between episodes looks straight from a George Lucas production and really sets the scene well. Space is not just black with a few white dots representing stars. Space has planets, black holes, space stations and lots of colour. The detail on the spacecraft is very good too. I also have to mention the explosions which are fantastic. As a craft is about to blow it swells and glows white and then.... BOOM! With a screen shaking explosion it explodes in to a massive amount of flying polygons.
The music complements the visuals very well and uses a Star Wars-esque type orchestral score. I didn't care much for the passing noise of spacecraft which sounded more like a passing electrolux vaccum cleaner than a roaring imperial ship (I'm sorry but I'm a bit of a Star Wars fan at heart). Another let down was the sound of the laser guns which sounded more like the laser effect that were used on a toy laser gun I had as a kid. Pity the lasers didn't sound as good as the rumbling explosions which nearly blew the speakers on my surround sound system.
I had read a review of Colony Wars which was the main factor in purchasing it. Initially I was highly impressed by the visuals, more than happy with the audio and just getting used to the gameplay. Now, even though it remains impressive presentation wise I just cannot bring myself to play it. I just never have the urge to find the many missions that I missed when initially playing it and unfortunately I don't think I will go back to it. Didn't quite live up to it's expectations in the gameplay department.
