Space War 2000 is a good, but not quite finished 3D space shooter for
the 64-Bit Atari Jaguar. Although not complete, it does succeed as an update to
the original game. The opening sequence has a swirl of
psychedelic colors in the background, followed by an image of the programmers
head, with three eyes! The third eye on his forehead blinks, and he smiles as
though he is proud of this game! The start-up screen has
several options, some of them may not work. For instance I could not get the
Weapon Shop to work. When you select this option, a
box slowly swirls as it gets bigger. It kind of looks like an old arcade
cabinet:)
You have the option of changing your radar range as well
as options like Droids and Asteroids, my favorite being the Blasteroids option.
When you do chose to start your game, a pair of human hands opens up and your
ship slowly flies out and into the swirly VLM-like background.
The music is OK; sounds to me like something from an 8-Bit system. A repeating
background tune that may get old after hearing it too much. Of course you can
turn this off using the zero button on the keypad. The one
player version has different difficulty settings. The easy setting was to easy.
Destroy one enemy ship, then you go back to the screen with the smiling 3-eyed
head, where your score is displayed. As you progress into higher levels, you
will have more than one enemy ship to destroy. The radar is 2D, but does help,
once you learn to use it correctly. You can change the range of the radar using
the "8" button on the keypad. You can also change the speed of your
ship using the "1" and "3" buttons. Of course
the two-player mode is much more fun. Once you learn to master the radar, you
can track your enemy, or try to get away from them. The cloak option ("*" on
your keypad) is fun when someone is closing in on you about to blow you away! I
don't think you can use weapons while cloaked but, but it definitely helps to
elude the enemy. After a few two player rounds, we noticed
droids popping up once in awhile. When I shot the first droid, I mistook it for
the other player/enemy. The droid was much easier to kill than a live human
enemy. Of course you can choose the cooperative option, and join together to
destroy the droids.
Weapons
Laser (A button)-never runs out of
power, but takes more shots to be effective than the other weapon
options.
Photon Torpedoes (B button)-seem
to do a little more damage than the laser, but not much.
Special Weapons (option toggle, C button
fires)-Special weapons do a lot more damage, but of course are
very limited to you, making the fact that the WEAPONS SHOP doesn't work a real
downer. This would have been a nice feature to have (similar to the Cybermart
in SkyHammer) in this unfinished game. The Special Weapons will not fire
unless an enemy is in your sights. Be careful laying those mines though; you
can sometimes hit and explode the mines you just fired!
SW2K just doesn't seem to
have as much depth as a game like Star Raiders
orBattlesphere,
then again, not many games do. It is a good arcade/action game that may be a
little to slow, or even easy with one player. Overall, I do like Space War 2000.
The graphics are very good, and having multiple views; cockpit, side, rear and
third person (behind your ship), makes the game that much better. The game will
lock up occasionally, but then again you already know the game is not finished
and your primary objective is not to finish, but rather to have a good time
blowing up enemy ships:)
Space War 2000 is highly recommended to all
Jaguar fans!