Independence War: The Starship Simulator

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

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

Superb space sim, but not without problems.

The Good
The physics model and associated gameplay mechanics. The graphics (espcially with 3Dfx graphics cards.) The introduction, and other pre-rendered video.

Shortly after finishing I-War, I played the demo for Freespace 2 -- hailed as the best space sim ever by many reviewers -- and I discovered that I-War had ruined me for all space sims that do not feature believable physics. (Freespace 2 let you slow down, but not fly backwards! I was dumbstruck.)

The feel of I-War is (to mix metaphors) delicious. The physics could easily make the game unplayable, but the collection of auto-pilots (e.g. approach; match speed; dock) and pilot aids (e.g. the clear continuous 3D depiction of the motion of your own and other ships) that were implemented make it a joy to play. The technical aspects of space travel and combat are all presented in a way that makes it possible to suspend disbelief, and imagine that you are indeed in space, in command of a sophisticated ship. Just watching the docking computer at work can be a delight in this game.

Like any good sim, there's a learning curve to overcome, but you don't have to take it all in at once, and the playing experience is all the more rewarding for the extra complexity. And when it comes down to it, the game isn't as complicated as some would make out, but it can seem that way when compared to most other space games.

The graphics are good in software mode, but beautiful in 3Dfx hardware mode -- the nebulae are spectacular, the models are detailed, and the effects are also generally improved (although there were one or two distortion effects that presumably could not be achieved in hardware, where the software mode actually looks better!) The destruction of ships can seem a little anti-climactic, though.

The pre-rendered sequences are amazing, and put every other space-based game CGI that I've seen to shame. And save for one or two bits of dialogue, the introduction is stunning... I'm sure I've watched it a good dozen times. (The software mode actually integrates the video slightly better than the hardware mode. It was designed so that the game could switch seamlessly between gamplay and video sequences, but the 800x600 resolution available on Voodoo2 and better results in the video sequences being less than full-screen.)

The story is really quite decent, and if it isn't completely devoid of cliches, it's better than most of the competition that I've seen.

The Bad
Sadly, the mission scripting does hurt I-War. While good for the most part, there are a few missions that will probably drive you insane; certainly they were some of the most frustrating gaming experiences of my life. On the most notable example, a series of simple but time-consuming events (which I was able to complete in about 5 minutes IIRC) culminated in an insanely intense combat encounter in which I died over and over again, dooming me to repeat those very-rapidly-annoying initial events over and over until I was able to survive the end.

The scripting also seemed to trip over itself on a couple of occasions, and either trigger an event too soon, or not trigger it at all.

Thankfully it is possible to skip missions via a cheat, so this needn't put you off the game. If only I'd known about it at the time...

Another flaw was that while you (the captain, and one of four crew members on the bridge of the Dreadnaught) were occupied remote-controlling another craft, your ship was left totally defenceless. That was a jolt to the suspension of disbelief, that the rest of the crew wouldn't even fight back if attacked!

With the "Defiance" expansion, these flaws had been diminished -- auto-save points during missions, and a more pro-active crew greatly reduced their severity. However I was greatly saddened that these changes (save-points in particular) were not retro-fitted to the original campaign in the "Deluxe Edition" which contained both campaigns :(

The Bottom Line
I-War should be a must-buy for any fan of both sci-fi and simulations. Having said that, the much anticipated sequel is nearly upon us (the estimated release is for the end of April 2001), and I imagine that I-War 2 will be the superior game in most respects; but if you can't get enough, or crave a more story-driven game, the original is a deserved classic of the genre.

Windows · by Shadowcat (121) · 2001

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

[ 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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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.