Colony Wars

I was so keen to revisit Colony Wars after many years, but it seems time hasn't been kind to it.

The game's missions follow branching paths a la Starfox, telling a rather dry and technical story of interplanetary colonisation. The presentation and voice acting are stiff and robotic, and whilst heavy sci-fi was big in the 90's, Colony Wars takes it to another level and makes itself feel cold and disconnected much of the time. Similarly, the missions are generally indistinct from each other, taking place in the same empty space environment with few to no surprises, unique set-ups or characters.

The real problem, though, is the control. God help you if you're stuck using a d-pad--prepare for a nightmare. The game supports analog, fortunately, but it's not a whole lot better. Fine and close-range aiming in particular are difficult thanks to infuriatingly sluggish, imprecise and stiff reticle movement. It's annoying wasting precious seconds chasing down a grunt enemy and missing most of your shots thanks to this and the often thin, tiny enemy ship models. Worse still, many enemies seem to change direction wildly with no sense of momentum, and the precision required to land a shot means you must strike one of the sometimes few pixels that make up their model; there's no leniency or assisted aim in the slightest. It all makes the game feel much more difficult than it seems it's supposed to be, and often shifts gameplay to the unfun end of the scale.

There's potential here as evident in the excellent visuals, sound and music, but it tends to go to waste on dated gameplay and mundane storytelling.