Completion time: 1:47:15

One of the games I had been eagerly awaiting to replay was Colony Wars. Again, I remember how much I enjoyed the game, and how I just thought of it as a Star Wars game with space combat done well (in comparison to console games before it). My journey through replaying this gem was a bit unusual though.

Early on I accidentally dealt a little too much friendly fire, and my allies became enemies, blowing my ship up and sending me back to the first stage. I started over, was doing well, and then I botched a mission. The thing is though, I kept going; the game ever ended or sent me back to redo the mission. I had long forgotten that you basically play through the game, win or lose, and keep advancing to the next mission, unless you lay waste on your teammate. This helps lead into the fact that there are about a half dozen different endings (I knew this had multiple endings, but it has more than I had thought). I basically got the worst ending, as I kept screwing up most missions.

Here’s the thing – had I spent more time with Colony Wars, I could probably better discern how to tackle each mission. It always felt like if I didn’t kill the smaller ships, they’d overwhelm what I am protecting, but then the larger ship would wreak havoc, and if I did it vice versa, the reverse would happen. This is not a fault of the game, but a lack of time to understand the nuances I supposed. Regardless, the missions were relatively similar – either kill x enemies, protect an ailed vessel, disable an enemy, or protecting while destroying.

The audio and video of Colony Wars has aged gracefully. The effort to add color to outer space, while staying plausible, works out in spades. The soundtrack, sound effects, and voice acting are still some top tier quality stuff. After it was all said and done, I couldn’t help but to feel slightly disappointed. PSX Mania is an any % any difficulty challenge, so the ending I got counted as a win, but with how I was getting pounded on some stages yet went ahead with the story, it felt somewhat disjointed how things went. I absolutely enjoyed the time I spent with it again, but at the same time, I’m a little disappointed with how things played out. That doesn’t stop me from recommending this to space flight sim fan though. There’s a lot of content here, and you’ll get your money’s worth for sure.

Rating: 8

Twitch VOD:
Part 1/3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1001433769
Part 2/3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1001436671
Part 3/3: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1001439192

YouTube video: