Independence War: The Starship Simulator

aka: I-War, I-War: Enter Infinity, I-War: Rebellion im Universum, Independence War, Infinity Wars
Moby ID: 801

Description official descriptions

The Indies, colonists from Earth, and the Commonwealth are engaged in a never-ending war in Space. As an officer of the Commonwealth it's your job to strip these rebels of their defiant natures and force them to re-join with Earth.

Independence War: The Starship Simulator is a space-sim with a twist. Instead of flying the usual fighters, you take charge of a 150-metre long Dreadnaught-class corvette. And all the goodies of a capital ship are included: big guns, big shields, lots of missiles. All the daily essentials for an officer of the Navy.

Mission times vary from 5 minutes up to 35 minutes without save point. If you have successfully completed the mission, the game will save. There are primary and secondary missions and, later in the game, you can change the sides from the Navy to the Indies. Later, the Dreadnaught become updated with more firepower, new missiles and a friend. The game has three endings.

Some of the missions require you to remote control other crafts, such as fighter, freighter, and more. Unfortunately, when you are controlling that ship, your own ship is flying with no one at the helm.

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Credits (Windows version)

50 People · View all

Design
Lead Programming
Programming
AI Programming
Music
Sound
Art Director
Briefing Animation
Integration & Game Test
Project Presentation
  • Jacqui Lyons & Marjacq
Voice Recording
  • M&S Music Tunstudio GmbH
German Voices
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 17 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 22 ratings with 7 reviews)

Flawed

The Good
It's an intriguing idea - command a corvette-sized space vessel through a series of 'X-Wing' esque missions - and the graphics, although three years old, are still very attractive. Space is a wash of colours, and the sequences in which you zoom through asteroid fields are alarming. The attempt at making accurate, but playable space physics is commendably effective, much better than the ultra-anal 'Frontier'.

The Bad
On the other hand, it doesn't really gel. Your corvette flies like a bulkier Y-wing, and it only has one gun, so you don't get the impression you're in charge of a death-dealing arsenal. You can switch between multiple command stations, but there's no real point in doing so. The gameplay itself falls down hardest - space combat is a jousting match, in which the slightest damage results in you drifting off, out of control. The missions are very tightly scripted, too, and you get the feeling that you're just a cog in a giant FMV. Maybe as a 'Frontier'-style epic space trading game it would have worked better.

As for FMV, this was probably the most extravagant use of an intro movie ever. The entire first disc contains a long, dull sci-fi epic that most people will skip past after the first thirty seconds, and never see again.

The Bottom Line
An interesting idea marred by ill-thought-out execution.

Windows · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2000

Not your typical space shooter is fine, but why the infinite respawn?

The Good
The different perspective: driving a corvette instead of a small fighter, ability to remote control other vessels (you'll need it in some of the missions), many special challanges (the "catcher" one is great), as is the one that you have to crash onboard, decent story and cut scenes. Good graphics even without 3D acceleration support.

The Bad
Many of the missions have "infinite respawn" where you HAVE to destroy the mothership while under attack from the defenders, which just keep on coming and coming no matter how many you kill. Some of the missions are more like puzzles than war. Lack of mid-mission save means you have to repeat the easy parts to get to the "challange", damage control seems to be just a bit too easy.

The Bottom Line
Independence War is a space sim that has you driving a corvette that actually obeys the laws of physics, and a great story to go with it. As the war goes on, you discover a conspiracy that will lead you to make a critical choice... This game is different from the normal space shooters, with less fighting and more thinking. On the other hand, the infinite respawning enemies detract from the effectiveness of the game, among other problems. It is almost a classic...

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2000

So close, yet SO far!

The Good
I heard a lot about iWar before I found it while walking about in a used book store. I jumped at the chance to grab it and looked forward to getting home to play it. I had heard it was one of the only physically realistic space combat simulators, and as a hard-core simmer I was excited.

In some ways this game is good. Although it only support 3dfx for accelerated graphics, on my middle-of-the-road machine the graphics were still excellent even without any acceleration.

The depth of the game is likewise interesting. Differences in mission outcome do indeed effect future missions, but this seems to be a limited branching tree.

The Bad
Good as the graphics were, the physics was terrible. As it turns out the "physically realistic" review turned out to mean "can fly sideways". The fact that the ship can turn about at something on the order of several hundred gees was overlooked, as was the fact that it could repair itself from almost total destruction to fully working in a few moments.

Worse, although I'm a big simmer, I found the game utterly confusing in combat. Every time all I saw was stuff flying about and it was unclear who was who. Ship's weapons couldn't hit targets, and this drove me up the wall.

And finally missions are sometimes dependant solely on "random" outcomes that can't be understood without watching a small TV show within the game. For instance in one mission I needed to do something, but that something was explained while I was in combat, and that was that - I had to play the whole mission over again to figure out what to do.

The Bottom Line
Good try, but not a home run in my books.

Windows · by Maury Markowitz (266) · 2000

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

3dfx patch

There's a 3dfx patch that allows the game to use 3dfx 3D accelerators for improved graphics. This applies to I-War European release only, not the US release titled Independence War.

Editor

You can download the I-WAR developer's kit from the official website. It allows you to figure out the scripts and the events that goes into making a single mission, and create your own.

Version differences

The final mission of the game (Impeachment) was split in two missions for the western release (at the point were the Excalibur flees from the main navy fleet).

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 1999 (Issue #177) – Best Space Sim of the Year

Information also contributed by Zovni

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 801
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by faceless.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Maury Markowitz, Rebound Boy, Erwin Bergervoet, Kasey Chang, Joel Segerbäck, Independent, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 27, 2000. Last modified November 16, 2023.