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Article Type: Demo Preview
Article Date: July 24, 2001
Particle Systems has a bit of a history of releasing odd demos. The original I-War demo was nearly useless: the documentation was so short as to be virtually nonexistent and the demo gave only the skimpiest and most cut-rate sample of what the full game had to offer. If you knew something about the full game, you could see a glimmer of its promise from the demo. Particle Systems has rectified some of these faults in the demo for Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (I-War 2), but not all of them.
The documentation is far better, but still geared towards someone who is already familiar with the I-War universe—the game world is too complex to present easily. Unlike the original demo for I-War with its limited scenario with a maximum of 5 minute’s gameplay, the demo for I-War 2 offers a limited-time Instant Action mode, a Training mode, and a limited selection of bits strung together from the main game to form a couple of missions. So far, so good? Yes, but the full game is supposed to offer non-linear gameplay, of which we get little hint here (though, in fairness, it would be hard to provide much of a sense of it in the demo.) Online multiplayer is supposed to be included, but it is not in the demo.
What we can see from the demo, though, is generally quite promising. Like its predecessor, I-War 2 is visually stunning, though the greenish tint added to the background is a bit odd. Also like its predecessor, it models large ships as well as fighters, and the player is usually flying the big ships. These do not handle like Star Wars or Wing Commander fighters. I-War is a Fully Newtonian Compliant™ simulation. If it took you 10 seconds of thrust to get a vector of 200 km/sec in a given direction, it’ll take you 10 seconds of opposite thrust to cancel that vector. In assisted-flight mode, the thrusters will try to bring your vector in line with your heading, though you’ll still see your ship slide all over the place. In unassisted flight, you are in complete control. Assisted flight was more useful in I-War 1, most of the time, and the same is true here, though unassisted flight still lets you pull small tricks out of your hat.
Combat is still both tense and intense, with a mix of strategy and tactics, and the demo lets you play around with a variety of weapons, ranging from the I-War 1 staple, the Particle Cannon, to newer toys such as mining lasers and gatling cannons. Combat is also still, for your intrepid reviewer, bloody difficult. I have yet to survive through to the end of the demo, and I-War 1 was also quite difficult at times. The happy side of the difficulty, in I-War 1, was that the challenges rarely felt entirely contrived. It is not clear, from the mission snips provided, if that’s still the case.
I suspect that much of the 200Mb download is the intro movie. This uses the same technology as was used in I-War, and it has not aged entirely gracefully. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t as good as it was a few years ago - the original I-War's intro movie is one of the best ever made. Perhaps the quality has been downgraded for the demo? I do not know. Equally, the in-game conversations, while they sound good, are let down by the terrible quality of their accompanying animations, which look like small plasticine heads being bounced on a tiny spring. The game would be better with just the sound. The animation may have been downgraded for the demo to keep it from being even more massive, but I do not know this for sure. I would have been happy to skip the movie to get a smaller download, at any rate.
Is it worth the download? If you have a fast connection, then the answer is probably yes. If you are on a phone modem, probably not. (After a week of trying to squeeze it down my modem line, I finally got it in a few minutes over my brother’s cable modem. [sigh]) There is a solid dose of fun to be found in the demo, and it does give you a good taste of the spaceflight mechanics I-War is famous for. However, I’m left with a nagging feeling of disappointment. I-War 1 is a superb game, and I’m not yet sure that I-War 2 will live up to its predecessor, but I’m mindful of the fact that I-War 1’s demo was a travesty. Watch this space for an eventual review of the full game—especially if you don’t have a very fast net connection.
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Independence War 2: Demo Preview
by James SterrettArticle Type: Demo Preview
Article Date: July 24, 2001
Particle Systems has a bit of a history of releasing odd demos. The original I-War demo was nearly useless: the documentation was so short as to be virtually nonexistent and the demo gave only the skimpiest and most cut-rate sample of what the full game had to offer. If you knew something about the full game, you could see a glimmer of its promise from the demo. Particle Systems has rectified some of these faults in the demo for Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (I-War 2), but not all of them.
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| Pursuing a small fighter |
The documentation is far better, but still geared towards someone who is already familiar with the I-War universe—the game world is too complex to present easily. Unlike the original demo for I-War with its limited scenario with a maximum of 5 minute’s gameplay, the demo for I-War 2 offers a limited-time Instant Action mode, a Training mode, and a limited selection of bits strung together from the main game to form a couple of missions. So far, so good? Yes, but the full game is supposed to offer non-linear gameplay, of which we get little hint here (though, in fairness, it would be hard to provide much of a sense of it in the demo.) Online multiplayer is supposed to be included, but it is not in the demo.
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| Instant Action: The enemy enters from the Lagrange Point |
What we can see from the demo, though, is generally quite promising. Like its predecessor, I-War 2 is visually stunning, though the greenish tint added to the background is a bit odd. Also like its predecessor, it models large ships as well as fighters, and the player is usually flying the big ships. These do not handle like Star Wars or Wing Commander fighters. I-War is a Fully Newtonian Compliant™ simulation. If it took you 10 seconds of thrust to get a vector of 200 km/sec in a given direction, it’ll take you 10 seconds of opposite thrust to cancel that vector. In assisted-flight mode, the thrusters will try to bring your vector in line with your heading, though you’ll still see your ship slide all over the place. In unassisted flight, you are in complete control. Assisted flight was more useful in I-War 1, most of the time, and the same is true here, though unassisted flight still lets you pull small tricks out of your hat.
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| Delta-V in action |
Combat is still both tense and intense, with a mix of strategy and tactics, and the demo lets you play around with a variety of weapons, ranging from the I-War 1 staple, the Particle Cannon, to newer toys such as mining lasers and gatling cannons. Combat is also still, for your intrepid reviewer, bloody difficult. I have yet to survive through to the end of the demo, and I-War 1 was also quite difficult at times. The happy side of the difficulty, in I-War 1, was that the challenges rarely felt entirely contrived. It is not clear, from the mission snips provided, if that’s still the case.
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| The explosions are pretty and detailed |
I suspect that much of the 200Mb download is the intro movie. This uses the same technology as was used in I-War, and it has not aged entirely gracefully. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t as good as it was a few years ago - the original I-War's intro movie is one of the best ever made. Perhaps the quality has been downgraded for the demo? I do not know. Equally, the in-game conversations, while they sound good, are let down by the terrible quality of their accompanying animations, which look like small plasticine heads being bounced on a tiny spring. The game would be better with just the sound. The animation may have been downgraded for the demo to keep it from being even more massive, but I do not know this for sure. I would have been happy to skip the movie to get a smaller download, at any rate.
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| The dialogue makes good use of British regional and class accents, but the animation.... |
Is it worth the download? If you have a fast connection, then the answer is probably yes. If you are on a phone modem, probably not. (After a week of trying to squeeze it down my modem line, I finally got it in a few minutes over my brother’s cable modem. [sigh]) There is a solid dose of fun to be found in the demo, and it does give you a good taste of the spaceflight mechanics I-War is famous for. However, I’m left with a nagging feeling of disappointment. I-War 1 is a superb game, and I’m not yet sure that I-War 2 will live up to its predecessor, but I’m mindful of the fact that I-War 1’s demo was a travesty. Watch this space for an eventual review of the full game—especially if you don’t have a very fast net connection.
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| That ugly thing in the middle is the ship you steal |
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