Colony Wars: Vengeance

The Good
I'm a fan of the Colony Wars series. Ironically I played them all in reverse, noticing how each one had improved upon its predecessor. Red Sun has the best graphics and gameplay but without a doubt it is Colony Wars Vengeance that is by far the best game out of the trilogy. The strength of Vengeance is the plot, or to be more exact, the feeling that you’re immersed in world of the plot, the world of the Vengeance War.

You play the role of a Navy pilot, Mertens, who is the narrator throughout the game. Mertens is a survivor of the terrible civil wars that erupted in the Sol system due to the success of the League of the Free Worlds, all this happened in the first game.

The one thing you'll notice straight away about this game is it's dark tone. Like the title of this game suggests this game is all about Vengeance. The sole purpose of the Colonial Navy in this game is to wreak vengeance upon the League of Free Worlds for defeating them in the previous game. As you complete the missions and experience the full horrors of the Vengeance war, you go through his journey as well. You’ll go from adoration of your leader Kron to becoming more and more disillusioned with the war. The change is very gradual but adds to the games sense of realism.

To be honest I liked this dark tone from the start. I'm fed up of plucky rebels fighting for a good cause! I loved the sense of hatred directed towards the league that emerges in the opening scenes of this game. The opening cut scenes work as they're supposed to, they're propaganda. As the game progresses Mertens and therefore you begin to see beyond the propaganda and question the motives of Kron, leading to the biggest plot twist imaginable...

The opening missions are very impressive, flying your fighter in high Earth orbit, the planet taking up half of the screen, fighting off rival factions as you help to rebuild the shattered Navy. As you get further and further into the game, and further and further into the war, the variety of missions is staggering. You can go from dog fighting, to dodging capital ship heavy lasers, to covering planetary invasions in ground missions. Every now again you'll have to face a "boss" like figure, for example giant interplanetary relays or even the deadly Widowmaker...

The Bad
Colony Wars Vengeance improves over the first Colony Wars game. However many of the worst faults of the first game have survived. Sadly, just like the first game, Vengeance is un-winnable. Really, just forget trying to get that final mission done. It's not going to happen. Get the cheats and save yourself a lot of frustration...

Similarly, some of the missions during the game are impossible to complete! Thankfully you don't have to win them all to progress, but it is still pretty annoying. There's one mission in particular, which to this day I still haven't been able to complete, despite my best efforts...

One could complain about the cut-scenes in this game. Don't get me wrong they're done extremely well but there is a lack of them. You're treated to one every three missions or so. For me though it was a bit of incentive to struggle on in order to get to the next chapter of the story...

I mentioned earlier how many of the original game's faults have been kept in this game. Well this is true of your space-fighters shields. They don't regenerate! You can be unlucky and get hit by a missile and there go all of your chances of completing the missions, time to hit restart. Trust me, that'll be something you'll be doing very often.

The Bottom Line
It's a great game! Not without it's flaws but defiantly well worth playing. While the story of the first game was very similar to that of Star Wars. Colony Wars Vengeance truly distinguishes itself separate from the Star Wars mould. As the game progresses the plot takes its dark turns, it is great to play a game that has believable twists and turns, one that has a dark plot of murder and vengeance.

I picked my copy up second hand, but there are still a lot of copies of this game out there. If you see it around buy it! Experience the thrill of a good game...