Two centuries of endless conflict. Two centuries in which the Commonwealth has failed to bring justice to a troubled world. Jamie Cunningham sees if he can get away with copying more stuff from the back of the box.
As a kid I wanted to be a spaceman. I had Darth Vader on my duvet, pop-up books of the Apollo missions, a much cherished model of a Space 1999 Eagle and a life-size Alien poster that terrorised me every night for a month before I took it down and stuck it in the loft. But then I remember watching this documentary about astronauts and everything changed. Far from launching themselves bravely into the unknown, they spent fifteen years hanging upside-down in centrifuge simulators feeling motion sick.
Even the ones lucky enough to take off were forced to wear Michelin man costumes and sit wedged in a capsule no bigger than an airing cupboard. And how did they take a dump?
A lesson in physics
Having played I-War, my childhood desire for weightlessness is back. Here's a game that allows you to sit in the captain's seat of a Commonwealth Navy dreadnought and experience Newtonian motion in space without the desire to laugh up your lunch. It's quite impossible to describe exactly how the craft responds so beautifully to tugs on the joystick, or how it manages to be so uncompromisingly realistic; the bottom line is that it feels just right.
To get things moving, tickle the set-speed indicator and the throttles will kick in to thrust you forward. Pull back on the yolk when you're hurtling along and the ship arcs gently round, boosters on the craft's underbelly wrestling noisily with the new heading. Swing full circle at maximum speed and you can almost feel your stomach fighting to get out of your butt.
Very interesting. Where's the fun?
Tacked on to a superb game engine are a splendid series of missions that link together and require hard thinking, imagination, and an ability to scrag the bad guys - an unruly bunch of fruitcakes who oppose the Commonwealth and spend most of their time stealing its ships. But combat is tricky and although you improve over time, it doesn't have the same immediate appeal of, say, X-Wing Vs TIE Fighter. Even the 'Instant Action' mission sees you dead in a matter of minutes, and where's the fun in that? A difficulty setting would help, but there isn't one.
Combat gripes aside, I-War remains a decent space adventure. It makes a mockery of the way rival titles play, and can be recommended as a worthwhile addition to the library of any genre fan for the fabulous CGI intro sequence alone.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
