Got this from Tronix this morning. Been looking forward to it for quite a while, and on first impressions it would seem to be really good.
I never played Rebelstar on the Speccy, but I lost months to UFO and X-Com Terror from the Deep when I was at University, so I was hoping this would be similar to those (it's written by Julian and Nick Gollop, who did Rebelstar, Laser Squad, UFO and so on). From the first 45 minutes of play, it would seem that it's very much the same kind of game.
The combat works in pretty much the same way as X-Com, with the same grid-based setup, action points, the various types of attack and the line of sight stuff that made X-Com battles so tense. It doesn't seem to have the multiple height levels that X-Com had, but that's not a huge loss. Some of the later X-Com maps were a bit confusing when you had rooms on top of each other. The interface, while it contains quite a lot of options, is nice and quick, and the game seems to move at a decent pace.
Unfortunately, there isn't much of a game outside of the battles. So far it's just been characters talking to each other between each bit of combat. There doesn't seem to be anything like the X-Com Geoscope, and the progress through the game appears to be pretty linear. Maybe it opens up a bit later on?
Aside from the main campaign mode, there's also a single battle mode, which has a load of maps to choose from. You can play against the AI, or two-player on the same GBA (passing it between you).
Graphics and sounds are reasonably nice for the GBA. They do the job, anyway. The 2D character artwork that they use for the story bits is very good, although it doesn't entirely gel with the in-game art.
Anyway, so far this looks like being a great game. I'll be putting a fair few hours into it over the weekend, I think.
I never played Rebelstar on the Speccy, but I lost months to UFO and X-Com Terror from the Deep when I was at University, so I was hoping this would be similar to those (it's written by Julian and Nick Gollop, who did Rebelstar, Laser Squad, UFO and so on). From the first 45 minutes of play, it would seem that it's very much the same kind of game.
The combat works in pretty much the same way as X-Com, with the same grid-based setup, action points, the various types of attack and the line of sight stuff that made X-Com battles so tense. It doesn't seem to have the multiple height levels that X-Com had, but that's not a huge loss. Some of the later X-Com maps were a bit confusing when you had rooms on top of each other. The interface, while it contains quite a lot of options, is nice and quick, and the game seems to move at a decent pace.
Unfortunately, there isn't much of a game outside of the battles. So far it's just been characters talking to each other between each bit of combat. There doesn't seem to be anything like the X-Com Geoscope, and the progress through the game appears to be pretty linear. Maybe it opens up a bit later on?
Aside from the main campaign mode, there's also a single battle mode, which has a load of maps to choose from. You can play against the AI, or two-player on the same GBA (passing it between you).
Graphics and sounds are reasonably nice for the GBA. They do the job, anyway. The 2D character artwork that they use for the story bits is very good, although it doesn't entirely gel with the in-game art.
Anyway, so far this looks like being a great game. I'll be putting a fair few hours into it over the weekend, I think.
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