Axia

The Good
I first saw Axia before it had a name; Tony Proios showed it to me when it was still in development at a local (Chicagoland) Christmas 1995 demoparty, and even then I was stunned. The graphics are a tweaked VGA 640x400 mode that helps the game run at the full 70 frames per second. Yes, full-screen full-framerate, and the action is just insane! There are always 150 or more sprites/objects on the screen at once (stars, smoke trails, bullets, enemy body segments, you name it) and it plays just as good if not better than any console game.

The sound is great -- pounding, thumping techno is probably the only music any space shooter should have, and Axia delivers.

The gameplay itself is a twist: Your ship is centered in the lower third of the screen, and does not move; when you turn and thrust, the entire playfield moves and rotates around your fixed viewpoint. There is no strafing, so you have to perform some pretty funky curves to avoid getting hit. The action is just non-stop.

The Bad
The gameplay idea of having a fixed ship without any strafing can get extremely frustrating at times if you're used to traditional shooters. Also, the keyboard feels "mushy"; there is a bit of inertia (things "drift" to a stop). I recommend playing with an analog joystick.

The Bottom Line
There simply is no other choice for heart-pounding, mind-racing, headache-inducing action in a space shooter. Axia does not disappoint.

The Good
What I like most is that Axia provides a decent challenge without overwhelming the player. Although there are situations in which it's pretty much impossible to survive, the cheapness of extra ships and the ready availabilty of game-saves makes up for it.

Most of the background music is fun listening; the "Bubbly Death" bonus-level theme is my favorite, but there is lots of other good stuff there too.

The sound effects are clean and entirely appropriate for the goings-on.

The graphics are sharp throughout, except for the images used in the cut scenes. The ship and weapon designs are almost all neat-looking, though there are a few enemy ships that elicted an "EH?" from me the first time I saw them.

The variety of enemy ships and weaponry keeps the game fresh as one proceeds through the FIVE HUNDRED levels of action... new enemies appear regularly and older ones occasionally come back for encore destruction as the game progresses.

The gameplay is fast and furious. Thank goodness there's an EXCELLENT on-demand save-game feature. The player cannot save in the middle of a level, but that's not really a big deal, as most levels take only a couple of minutes to complete.

The weapons... ahh yes, lovely instruments of blazing death. What's the best thing about the weapons? All the major weapons systems (cannon, laser, missiles) can be bound to a single "fire" key... very handy once one gets those ship-slicing lasers later in the game.

Speaking of weapons, and other things, I must applaud DDD for making extra ships the -cheapest- thing in the shop that appears after every five levels. At 1,000 cash a pop, any decently-skilled player should be able to make it to the end of the game.

And finally we have the BONUS LEVELS. The objective is very simple: You get a timer, and a playfield with lots of stuff to shoot. Toast everything within the time limit and get a FAT cash reward. I won't tell you -what- you get to shoot, though. ;)

The Bad
The ONE thing I really didn't like about the game were the extremely cheesy-looking cut-scenes... and the too-frequent typos appearing in the commentaries that go with them. The difference in the artwork between the actual game playfield and the cutscenes is like day and night... it's actually jarring.

The Bottom Line
Axia is one of the best single-player shooters ever made for the PC.

The Good
I have to make it #1 for the space game category. The music makes you actually hurry up between levels. (niteclub style music). I cant really review much because I only have the shareware version of it. but still, the shareware version is great and I bet the full version will be better (if I can find it).

The Bad
Once, I tried to use Axia, shareware version in DOS (windows 95 version), It doesnt work. Then I run it in a windows 95 DOS box when no drivers are installed, and it doesnt work. Other than that, It works well.

The Bottom Line
Its one of the best space games I have played. It looks like 16-bit color game in a way but it is actually 256 colors. It also has (nite-club style) music.