Day 128: Colony Wars: Vengeance

The difficult second album of a classic Psygnosis trilogy is today's title from my 520 game backlog, I'm playing one game a day, every day, while furloughed from work...

Colony Wars: Vengeance for the PlayStation
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

I said, a little while back, that somewhere around day 110 it started to feel like things in the world, or in my world at least, felt like they were getting back to normal because I began to struggle to find a good amount of time to play a game for this blog. I’ve since realised that this is only partly true.

I’m one of those people who needs a tangible deadline for motivation. For the last four months (or more) every day has felt much like the last. The very purpose of this blog was to give me something to focus on and keep my mind active. But now, with my return to the workplace just four days away, I have that ‘tangible deadline’, and the reason I’m finding it harder to find the time to play games is, yes, partly because the opportunities for other activities are far greater than they were, but also partly because I’ve realised that so many of the things I could, and probably should, have done while furloughed need to be completed in the next four days.

So where does that leave me with Colony Wars: Vengeance? 

Woefully unprepared, is the all too apparent answer.

The recently announced Star Wars: Squadrons aside, they just don’t make games like Colony Wars any more. The last one I remember was the (actually rather good) Project Sylpheed for the 360. This kind of omnidirectional space shooter was hugely popular in the nineties, when new technology was making their existence possible for the first time. But the fires of excitement seemed to die rather quickly, and by the PS2 era they were already a rarity.

Coming from Psygnosis, the Colony Wars games, of which Vengeance is part 2, are heavily story focused. To this end they have eschewed the usual video game fail states and (as I understand it) you can bumble through the game failing almost every mission and there would still be plot and FMV sequences to convey your story. 

In the case of Vengeance there are six possible denouements to the adventure, and if I carry on my game at a later date it’s pretty clear which one I’ll be getting.

This is a game that’s not just hard, but unpredictably, brutally, unapologetically hard. A lot of the time It’s also pretty sketchy on the details of why you failed - which can be controller-hurlingly frustrating especially when, just to squeeze lemon juice on the salt in the wound, you can only save after every third level.

Clearly Psygnosis wanted the player to start with the worst ending and gradually improve, and I would normally applaud that, but the difficulty of missions is all over the place, but it’s worth noting that this definite negative point might be partly due to a definitely positive one: The variety of missions on offer.

Now, I’m not as adverse to an escort mission as many others, but I’ll admit seeing that format in the very first mission of Vengeance filled me with dread. But the four or five missions I’ve played since have had four or five completely different structures.

I’ve mined asteroids, refuelled battle stations, and had numerous dogfights. This variety is exceptional, but there’s every possibility that in choosing to mix up the gameplay so often, any sense of a progressive difficulty curve was lost. 

I’m hoping to persevere at some point, as there is much to enjoy with this game. It’s very nice looking, and the handling of the ship (there are apparently up to four to choose from) is a real joy. The developers' flair for the cinematic extends beyond the inter-level cutscenes too, with bombastic tunes and dramatic enemy arrivals throughout - or throughout the little I’ve played at least. There's always the option of the third game in series too, which reportedly resolves the balance issues and, according to some reviews from the time of release, is the best game in the series.

However, for me the elephant in the room is Psygnosis’ own ‘Blast Radius’; a game built with the Colony Wars engine, with all the audio visual bells and whistles, but which focuses on straightforward action set-pieces and the usual try-die-retry structure. This isn’t to say that the Colony Wars approach isn’t valid or impressive, it’s just that, after crashing head first into the difficulty wall with annoying irregularity, I didn’t feel like I was getting the space shooter fix that I came for. 

Colony Wars: Vengeance - If you want your omnidirectional space shooter with a side of heavy plot and uneven difficulty, this is the game for you. Otherwise, play Blast Radius, or Project Sylpheed for that matter.