Kent
Jun 16, 2007, 03:07 PM
Project Sylpheed, for those that don't know, is a space combat game, much in lieu of Freelancer and the Wing Commander series.
You know, the kind of game we have a severe lack of, in this day and age.
The demo for Project Sylpheed was released a few days ago, to the Xbox Live Marketplace. I downloaded it, tried it out, and... It's actually pretty fun.
Albeit there's only one mission, and there's no way in hell you'll have a chance of beating it without doing the tutorial first, as the controls are pretty intricate, but just feel right once you get them down.
Gameplay-wise, the game plays like a combination of Freelancer and Ace Combat. The flight is more sim-style than Freelancer's, but it's got all of the in-space dogfighting mechanics you'd expect (such as having few things to worry about running into, huge areas to fight in, and the classic "engine kill" move), as well as a good smattering of weapons in the demo.
Machineguns and beam weapons for the nose of your fighter, then all sorts of missiles, railguns, mines, cannons and the like for your other three hardpoints, many of which have some interesting quirks.
For example, one of the missile weapons you can purchase, allows for 60 simultaneous lock-ons... And not only allows multiple locks onto a single target, but also allows you to look around your ship to lock onto enemies you're not facing (contrary to how many missile systems work), and then the projectiles it fires don't home, but instead, launch all of their homing warheads from it after being fired.
So, really, the game feels less arcadey than most space combat games, and has a good bit of that Ace Combat-style sim feel. That, and it's coming out next month as a budget title ($40, unless that plan's changed), so it should be a pretty good purchase, assuming that this is a good taste of what the game's really like.
You know, the kind of game we have a severe lack of, in this day and age.
The demo for Project Sylpheed was released a few days ago, to the Xbox Live Marketplace. I downloaded it, tried it out, and... It's actually pretty fun.
Albeit there's only one mission, and there's no way in hell you'll have a chance of beating it without doing the tutorial first, as the controls are pretty intricate, but just feel right once you get them down.
Gameplay-wise, the game plays like a combination of Freelancer and Ace Combat. The flight is more sim-style than Freelancer's, but it's got all of the in-space dogfighting mechanics you'd expect (such as having few things to worry about running into, huge areas to fight in, and the classic "engine kill" move), as well as a good smattering of weapons in the demo.
Machineguns and beam weapons for the nose of your fighter, then all sorts of missiles, railguns, mines, cannons and the like for your other three hardpoints, many of which have some interesting quirks.
For example, one of the missile weapons you can purchase, allows for 60 simultaneous lock-ons... And not only allows multiple locks onto a single target, but also allows you to look around your ship to lock onto enemies you're not facing (contrary to how many missile systems work), and then the projectiles it fires don't home, but instead, launch all of their homing warheads from it after being fired.
So, really, the game feels less arcadey than most space combat games, and has a good bit of that Ace Combat-style sim feel. That, and it's coming out next month as a budget title ($40, unless that plan's changed), so it should be a pretty good purchase, assuming that this is a good taste of what the game's really like.