Reviewed: October 21, 2004
Reviewed by: Greg Barabe
Publisher
Rampant Games
Developer
Rampant Games
Released: September 24, 2004
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1 / Online
ESRB: Everyone
4
6
7
4
5.9
System Requirements
I want to start this review out with the answer to your basic question. Void War is not worth paying retail price for. With that out of the way, this is a promising installment from a brand-new development company and as their first game, must be viewed with a little leniency. This is after all an impressive debut, especially from a company that is attempting to become a startup independent game developer, a daring feat in today’s volatile video game industry.
Then again, viewing the game as a game, as I have to, it has many flaws that have to be fixed for this company to succeed. This is a mediocre game at best, and it doesn’t break into any kind of new ground. And even though it shows promise, at this point in time, the game isn’t good enough to compete with anything in its genre. But let’s get into the specifics of Void War.
You play the game in a spaceship, blasting at other spacecraft to move through the story. With minimal environmental exploration, this game boils down to an arcade-type shoot-em-up. To advance to the next level, you kill a certain number of ships, then at the next level, you do the same. This goes on until you reach a boss and are treated to a cinema scene, and after the boss? More spaceships to shoot at. Ok, so on to the breakdowns.
I didn’t feel like the gameplay was anything new or exciting, and honestly thought that a lot of older games have a lot more to offer for even less price. There was a lack of a good story, boring gameplay, and repetitive missions, but there were also some good points. The game was nice to have on my computer while reviewing it. It was a good distraction from any sort of work that I should be accomplishing. I would just fire it up, kill some aliens while watching TV or playing music. As long as there was something on to augment the game I found that it was a fun experience. And that’s what a game is supposed to be.
The problems with the gameplay are numerous. The most glaring problem is the lack of an interesting, cohesive story. All game players know, or at least should know, that a good story makes or breaks a game. After all, until the advent of the Playstation and Final Fantasy 7, gamers were not playing RPG’s for the action, and most times not for the beautiful graphics either, but for the story-line. It boils down to the fact that the story in this game is horrible, and without Tetris-type addicting gameplay, the lack of a good plot is going to make most players reluctant to play the game through. This game just isn’t fun enough.
Another problem with the gameplay is the loose, gliding movements of the ships. While the looseness of the ships feels authentic to maneuvering in zero-gravity, it detracts from the gameplay. I would continually be frustrated from moving the mouse a small amount, and having my sights zip past an attacker, to “gliding” into an asteroid, which causes your ship damage. The gameplay needs to be tightened, and if you’re not frustrated at all while playing this game, then congratulations, you’re Gandhi.
The last problem glaring enough to detract from the game is the lack of objects within the 3-D space you fly through. Every map has one regular object within it, from a space-station, to an island city, to a couple of small asteroids, to four large asteroids. But surrounding these objects is space, a lot of it! I had fun exploring the environments, but they were so small, that after the first time through, I had already found all the secrets the environments had to offer. Every environment and map had way too much empty space.
The pros of this game are definitely less in number. But if you want a fun game to play around with, this isn’t too bad. It provided me with a couple hours of diversion every day. But this isn’t a compelling game, which depending on your view is good or bad. If you want to be drawn into a story of intrigue, you’re going to be disappointed. But if you want a few hours of mindless action between work or class, then Void War can fit the bill. The best thing about this game I would have to say is the ease of use. This game takes up hardly any space on your computer, can run on about any computer out there, and is easily purchased through a quick download on the Rampant website. Even with dial-up it only takes around 20 minutes. But the game is still over-priced in terms of the content it delivers.
I’m going to give these folks credit where I can since I feel empathetic to their endeavors, and I can do so in the graphics department. I was actually pretty impressed, not because the graphics were state-of-the-art, or artistically done, but just because the graphics in this game are so stable. Usually when playing 3D games, I am used to graphical glitches like the background walls shimmering and disappearing when you get close to them, or 3D constructed objects losing a side when you get to close to them. This game is put together graphically very well. The graphics are well done, and although not beautiful like Doom 3, or artistic like the Baldur’s Gate series, they are definitely above average. And all the shooting effects and the burn from the ship’s engines are very nicely done evoking a Star Wars type of feeling.
With that said, I would like, in a perfect world, more of the graphics. That’s my only complaint. You are flying around in a spaceship and the look of the ship is great, you can select between many views of your ship, but the world around the ship is rather bleak. There is a background of swirling galaxies and planets which is also nice, but aside from the ship and the background, there are not many objects that you can fly through or explore. The textures are also kind of bland, not very descriptive. No craters on the asteroids, or burn marks on the space-stations. I think the graphics the game has are excellent, but in the end, there is just too much of a "void".
The sound in this game definitely stands out. Although I don’t think the sound is up to movie-quality surround sound standards, it is still excellent none-the-less. It is at least quality stereo sound with the use of multiple sound channels to portray sounds coming in from all angles. If you’re being shot at from the left, you hear the sounds of the lasers coming from the left. The game effect sounds are great, crunchy and booming like they should be. And while the soundtrack is not the best out there, it properly conveys the feelings it is supposed too. The soundtrack brings back feelings of 80’s arcade shooters with the campy, yet eerie game music. And that is what this game is meant to be, a new incarnation of the old, campy 80’s arcade shooters. The music in this game not only accomplished what it is supposed too, but more, it shows a lot of promise.
The only problems that I have with the music are due to the limitations of games that are distributed via the internet. To ensure easy downloading, the makers of the game didn’t want too large a file for the game. So that means that some of the in-game music repeats too early and some tracks can become annoying, as you realize that the same track has repeated itself a couple of times each level. Another omission that becomes obvious it the fact that in the cinema scenes, there is not voice-acting. This is not the worst thing to be missing, but having human voices for the characters in a game always improves the gameplay. Overall, though I have to say that the sound is definitely above average.
Getting through the single-player game in Void War takes a couple of hours. And after the first pass-through you can go back and play around with different ships, try to get a higher score, or try another difficulty setting. You can even play against computer players in a point-type free-for-all match, or connect over the internet to play against other people. The only problem is that though this should add a lot of replay value, the game wasn’t fun enough to want to play much after the first time through.
Another problem, at least for now, since the game is only just a bit over a week old, is that I could not find any players to play against online, though that might change. So while there is potential for replay value, I don’t think that most players will get a lot of gameplay out of Void War. Not much more than a couple of times through the single-player game and going online or playing against free-for-all computers a couple of times.
Well I like the graphics in the game, even though they’re not the most detailed, they capture the game’s essence perfectly, as does the sound. Both these aspects have a kind of fun-factor to them, a kind of playfulness. But what they also have in common with each other is that although not technically the best sound, or graphics, they are solidly done. Done in the way say a Nintendo game is done. The graphics and sound are just solid, not over-the-top beautiful, but also nothing to sneeze at. But with these presumably good pillars to a game, also comes the parts of the game that just ruin Void War for me. The gameplay and the story-line are just too over-the-top. They just don’t catch you and draw you into the game, and what result’s is a nominally fun game that gets boring after a couple of tries. I think this game has a lot of unrealized potential, but at this point, just doesn’t make the grade.
You know when it comes down to it, Rampant Games promises a new kind of game. Not the same safe, run-of-the-mill major developer release, but they just don’t deliver. The story line is cliqued, the gameplay is a 3-D blaster norm, and the graphics are just above standard. Then you have the standard multiplayer experience thrown in to eek more out of the game and its engine. Which is good, except that at this point in time, there is no one to play with, literally! I really wanted to give the game a good review, but I couldn’t. Hopefully their next outing will hold up better. Of course this is omitting the sound, which I have to say again, it quite impressive.