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Free Duel, Oh This Hot Seat Of Ours
Round Two, Act One: The Caveflyers
Many a duel game has caves, or cave-likeness as the levels in which the action is executed. The second category, the round two, includes some cave-flying, with usually v-shaped little rocket-propelled ships.. controllable only by rotating the ship around in 360 degrees and firing the engines to keep you away from gravity's ruthless grip. Would not sound very comfortable solution for real life transportation, but makes a perfectly simple principle for a good arcade game. I trust many of you have at least heard such names as Gravitar, Thrust or Oids.. perhaps you've even played those games.
Credited predecessor, on Amiga, of all of this genre in competitive mode, in all its v-shapedness, is the legendary Turboraketti (and its sequel). Nowadays the game is freeware, which you can download from the official site.
This has always been one of my favourite genres when it comes to video and computer games. Fighting against the gravity with the basic controls, and at the same time trying to fire your overpowered arsenal of weaponry on someone else trying to keep away from colliding to the ground (and the walls and the ceiling).. of course (s)he has to try and dodge your firing.. of course (s)he is trying to have you take some damage as well.. Lots of parameters for action! Action. Yesyes. And don't forget -- even if you win, you probably still have to find a landing pad and successfully land on it.. pretty hard if next to every bit of your energy/armor were already spent in the battle. Smash into a wall and your beaten enemy will be enormously delighted.
Dozens of games like this have been made.. it was a trend in the later half of '90s for the Finnish free/shareware to make such a game, and why not, being relatively easy to program, having a very simple basic idea and being quick to develop to a point of being entertaining.. and not requiring any AI development. Well, there are many games which to choose from, and like with every other game category, there's a lot of crap, there's a few gems that shine through, and of course there are the personal opinions. Few of mine follow.
AUTS - technically perhaps obsolete, but there will always be a special place for it in our hearts - us, who did experience the game in its prime. Oh ye newcomers, who are fooled by AUTS' crude appearance - you are missing the stepmother of caveflying/shooting, hard-to-master yet enjoyable gameplay, including a high damage ratios which punishes the reckless or incompetent pilot without mercy.. remorselessness and lethality very rewarding to overcome. Classic levels.. classic weapons. Dumbfire duels as the Ultimate Test of the Masters of AUTS. Even the pea-shooter is very powerful, as you can push and smash your opponent to a wall with it.
Ahhh... memories..
Perhaps Turboraketti was the first, but AUTS was the first to properly introduce this sort of action on PC, and, alongside TANKKK, the earliest action duel game which truly struck me.
Wings shamelessly borrows straight from AUTS, adding just about more of everything. Gameplay, graphic style and about everything else is significantly similar to AUTS, which can't be very bad, now can it? Things Wings adds include numerous options make the game pretty configurable. And of course a load of weapons, some being quite original and fun. Unlike in AUTS, your ship can be equipped with as many special weapons as you like (the pea-shooting main cannon is still standard configuration and cannot be altered), but you have to visit a landing pad to change it. Also there are a number of different ships to choose from, but they're (a) not very different from each other (following that standard v-ship Gravitar thinking) and (b) not actually balanced. Anyway, this can be taken advantage of to balance the skill difference the players might have.
Also, technical evolution took place and Wings boasts background music, parallax scrolling background graphics and an optional, neatly flowing water, which ruins couple of levels but I guess you can't have it all. :)
One of the reasons to play Wings, and a lot of fun to be had with is the special weapon called Harpoon. I just love to keep on yapping about how ingenious and hilarious this weapon is: first time you fire, it launches a "spearhead," or more precisely, harpoon with a rather elastic rope tied to it. Just like those nasty whaling ships. The spearhead will stick to anything it hits, be it ground, or, if you're lucky or of good aim, an enemy ship. But if there's nothing for it to hit, then, as the rope is tied to your ship, its momentum will begin to pull you along. Well, actually, it's not your ship it's stuck with, but another harpoon, waiting to be launched! Perhaps some of you folks already realise how many possibilities, different situations and amusing flukes using this sort of weapon can produce, people already familiar with Wings may smile in remembrance of a duel or two of which the Harpoon has been part of, and the rest, and just everyone, should try and see it yourselves.
I think physics are an important part of these games. In principle, they're simple: gravity pulls you down, you can rotate your ship 360 degrees and fire your engines, which shoots you to the direction you're facing. In a caveflier/shooter, there's also the weapons, and some of them for instance kick back, and impacts with the projectiles affect object's (the ship) inertia.. more of these factors, more unpredictable and surprising the game will get, probably also more fun.
Since Harpoon has two of these weighty heads which have separate inertia, and both affect the other end (of the elastic rope), it's a great "random" factor to the physics of the game, thus something decisively special in regards of gameplay.
One other thing I should also mention, is the level converter. This turns your bitmap picture into a Wings level. This does not mean any picture can do, it has to be drawn especially for Wings: this is due to the fact that different colors mark different behavior, "materials" if you will (flammable, soft, landing pad, snow..) in the level. This is nice, neat and all (well, AUTS had this too - 3rd party program, IIRC though) - but the reason I'm writing about this is that in the converter you can also set the number and of the civilians (Ouch! Poor guys. These game developers are sadists. And just to think of us players..) in the level, as well as (tadaa!) the weather conditions!
Well, that's nothing yet. You can also have the level bombed. Intense bombing adds a neat feeling of a dangerous environment to the game, so we did a level called Baghdad (Belgrade, Kabul..) and ended up playing it a lot.
V-Wing is another old favourite. Compared to AUTS and Wings, the initial levels are much more spacious and open areas are common though of course the tight corridors and caves are represented too. For reason or another, there seem to be not many (good) levels made by third parties for V-Wing, unlike AUTS and Wings, which have multifold. This is a bit of a pity, especially when V-Wing's levels aren't graphically something to enthusiastically discuss about with the fans of pixel art, but on the other hand the ten levels are each quite big and good to play, which is of course the most important thing about a level. They also have nice little details like houses and mining equipment, and are overall well designed, and all in all the minimalist style isn't displeasing to look at.
V-Wing is also capable of "populating" the level with hostile-to-all H-Wing AI - controlled fighters, and likewise aggressive turrets, which come in five types, most dangerous being the cool laser turret which is capable of incinerating a full-health ship with two blasts. Luckily it aims slow. Fun thing about the aiming process is that you can actually watch the two red dots beside the turret trying to lock on your ship. Ah! The excitement.
The weapon arsenal in V-Wings is something that I haven't seen in another game yet. There's this spirit of consistency in it.. I don't know if this is just me or perhaps the background story, which you don't have to mind at all if you don't want to, but I suggest you read the fine manual. It includes a description of each weapon, explaining its history and technical nature.. Some have been developed out of civilian utilizations.. Many have something to do with the battle between.. err, was it Quatar Empire and United.. some.. Planets? The background story is kind of lost with this kind of a game, but for those who read the manual, all this appears to affect the overall design of the weapons, binding them to a continuing theme and feel.. very industrial, militant.. function over the appearance if you please. They're also mostly well balanced, although a few weapons we used to ban for we felt they were either silly or useless.
Most aren't! The destructive power is immediately recognizable. The impacts of the weapons, even the kickback of some really throws the ships nicely around. The huge blast of the V-Wing's shotgun is indeed a rewarding punishing implementation. One very entertaining weapon the author came up with are the Plastic Explosives. They 'cover' the ground you fly over or near - actually, it's just changes color but never mind that, this is a very special color, for it explodes into many many little fragments if hit by ammunition - a perfect device for setting traps for your opponent to be lured in. The fact that it can be hazardous to your own self if you're not careful only makes it funnier.
And then there's, of course, napalm which sticks where it hits to burn it continuously. Homing missiles which accelerate faster than turn, this means they're - sort of - fun to dodge, and it's certainly are fun to watch your opponent dodging them. Weapons which use a gravitational pull to direct gun pellets or other projectiles, or ensnare your opponent (or the unlucky you). A few bombs, a few mines, lots of strange gadgets.
Besides the weaponry, a few details and quirky features also surface as the high points of V-Wing. Damage system includes critical hits to the ships, so after your shields (the first "green half" of your total "hit points") are gone your ship's hull is susceptible to damage, and you might suffer a critical hit. These include malfunctioning weapons engines, or in the worst cases you might lose your turning jets, or even have your engine core breached, which causes you to take damage every time you accelerate. All that during an intense battle is indeedy a nice challenge to overcome.. if you can manage it. But wait, there's more! You can also eject your ship in emergency! Oh yes, this is the funky bit, though the pilot, armed with less-than-a-pea-shooter, a pepperer if you may, has practically no chances against a V-Wing class fighter. Unless he utilizes his grappling hook to grab the enemy's ship, climbs up and manages to steal the craft! This does not happen too often, but it's fun to try a little survival game if you have to, and even more fun to ruthlessly punish your poor, helpless opponent.
I can but say that V-Wing certainly has something very special to it. Rumour even has it that a version compatible with modern machines is on the works..
Here's a brief overview of some other recommendable takes on this genre.
Rocket Chase is actually among my top faves. Well-thought and balanced
gameplay is one reason. One are fantastic bitmap graphics - many levels are simply beautiful - which bring a classic arcade feeling to the game and give it a really polished touch. One is the fact it runs fine on my old 486SX, better than AUTS actually. And the most important one is the way you can configure this game from a traditional PC caveshooter gameplay (with tougher ships) into a really hectic suddendeathmatch, where your rocket explodes as soon as it touches a wall, floor or any such solid obstacle.
Which happens a lot unless you're careful, fortunately you can also set the number of lives for each level. This mode often leads into players trying to distract each other by telling very bad jokes and other mischievousness.. that's a sign of a compelling game if any.
And of course there's a load of powerful (or just fun) weapons, numerous power-ups, a selection of ships and a system which keeps record of a few player statistics - rather nice if you play a lot - plus a "hidden" worm game on top of it all. This, make no mistake, is a great game. (I still feel like grinning they made it freeware, [g], [g], [g])
KOPS, to me, seems, although good, still a bit of a bland caveshooter. The action is not as hectic as in some other games of the genre, and neither there is anything very original in the game. However, the graphics are impressive, and the game has recently been transferred from its original DOS-environment into versions for Windows and Linux. If you're having trouble with getting some of the other games from the genre to work (or prefer not bothering to try that at all), here's one that will.
Luola is an interesting multi-platform open source project, attempting to recapture the spirit of V-Wing. While not at the time of writing a polished piece of playability, it's certainly something to keep an eye on.
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