First thoughts on Aircars - 6/30/97 After a few minor snags, Aircars is here at last! Here are some first thoughts and observations on the game. Good points:
- Control is dead-on and frame rate is decent, probably 20 FPS.
- Enemy AI is surprisingly smart -- once they take a few hits, they retreat with a smokescreen for cover, then circle back for another attack.
- Lots of weapons and powerups to collect. The shotgun and rocket launcher are particularly enjoyable.
- Explosions are nice (although not IS2 quality).
- The terrain fades in nicely, avoiding a lot of pop-up like Cybermorph has, and there is some shading, too.
- You can momentarily launch yourself off the terrain... kind of fun... :-)
- It networks!!!
Bad points: - Some weapons are rather dull, like the machine gun. It looks like the bullet is suspended in front of your aircar.
- Missions are sporadic -- for 1-2 minutes you may not find any enemies, then suddenly 4-6 are on screen.
- Even the normal difficulty setting is really tough! One or two hits and you're dead.
- Very little to no t-mapping.
- Repetitive sound effects.
Summary: Jaguar "ship/tank/mission" games ranking:
1: | BattleMorph | 2: | Hover Strike CD | 3: | Aircars | 4: | I-War | 5: | CyberMorph | 6: | Hover Strike cart |
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