Graphically speaking, Colony Wars is simply of the finest quality available at this time. The space surrounding your battles is adorned with very realistic representations of planets, nebulae, worm holes, warp zones, and suns. You can actually loose sight of a targeted ship in the wash of light from a nearby sun. The textures are rich, the environments are dark and foreboding, while the lighting effects are outrageous.

Colony Wars excels in the sound department too. I know this seems like quite a bit of accolades for one game early on, but trust me, I’m not even close to exaggerating. The explosions, ships sounds, voices, and laser impacts all sound REALLY good. The music even melds well with the story and ensuing action.

As if Psygnosis’ arsenal wasn’t augmented with enough stellar titles -- Assault Rigs, Wipeout, Wipeout XL, G-Police to name a few -- they now come (full force) into the Space Shooter genre with Colony Wars. What Psygnosis has effectively done here is harnessed each and every facet of their development experience, know-how, and creativity to fashion, to create not only a visually astounding space adventure, but also a story of unquestionably epic proportions. Psygnosis has managed to incorporate very well rounded aspects of the space fighter genre into the “Wing Commander Crusher.”

First they have put in place, what is without a doubt, one of the most comprehensive running story lines found in a game of this type. The script work is movie quality, as are the CG presentations that seamlessly integrate themselves into the experience. The musical score is absolutely top quality, as is the voice acting, especially that of Burt Caesar, who is the epitome of a James Earl Jones impressionist. True, the “Star Wars” undertones run strong in this game, but it develops a personality all its’ own.

With all this glitter and filler, one would think that Colony Wars’ gameplay might have been sacrificed. This is not the case at all. Besides modeling very believable craft, Psygnosis has managed to implement useful and albeit enjoyable flight elements. Instead of having to constantly make minor adjustments to air-speed, Colony Wars uses a fixed rate of speed that is augmented by the use of the ship thrusters. This keeps things a bit more simple in this area, because you don’t have much time to fiddle with speed adjustments when your enemy’s A.I. is as good as it is here. Enemy craft constantly perform a drifting or slide maneuver that is pretty slick. It is used as an offensive/defensive tactic on attack runs against the League of Free Nations’ (the good guys) vessels. But, the Colonial Navy (the bad guys) does not have a monopoly on this tactic. By accelerating rapidly toward and just past or along side an enemy ship, you will find that you can abruptly decelerate (the thrusters), nosing your craft toward the target. What this does is it allows your craft to slide (sideways) in a strafing-type manner, allowing you to pummel the enemy with fire. You will take much less damage this way as your craft is not traveling along a static vector. Add to this the fact that stars will actually streak past as you employ the use of your thrusters. With every change of direction, the star trails will make the appropriate adjustment. Very impressive indeed!

The various craft you will pilot feel different, and are equipped with different load-outs. Colony Wars handles the task of assigning the appropriate craft for given missions. Some will like this feature, while others may not. So far I have found the default choices very appropriate. The cockpits of the various ships are also very intuitively laid out and presented. In fact, they look really cool, especially when you notice how the game simulates the slight shift in perspective as your “virtual” head moves side to side when changing direction. You can also check your shield and hull status, as well as those of target craft, which brings me to another point:

Colony Wars also implements a slightly different way to destroy enemy craft. Dedicated lasers and missiles serve the task of eroding enemy shields, while other such lasers and missiles are devoted to the task of hull destruction. Some craft apply the use of a Scatter Gun which effectively combines the functions of both the aforementioned weapons, depleting shields and hull simultaneously. There are other dedicated weapons that serve to destroy enemy sensor capabilities, tag ships for future identification, and larger torpedo-type weapons more suited for capital ship engagements. Lasers can and will overheat. It is therefore important to learn how to switch weapons quickly on-the-fly to maintain a constant barrage of incoming fire. Even when a hull laser is being deployed when a shield laser is needed, enemy craft tend to react as if they are in jeopardy of sustaining damage. This can be put to good use in that you can force any enemy ship into a better tactical position while your needed weapon re-charges from an overheat.

In addition to the wealth of story that is presented, the in-game data base is simply astounding. I managed to spend a considerable amount of time educating myself by sifting through the Craft and System data bases. Once you have passed through the initial training and early missions, these data bases expand to reveal copious amounts of information on every Colonial Navy and League of Free Nations fleet and fighter craft. Additionally, you can access detailed information on any planet for any of the systems provided. It is simply unreal how much time and effort went into breathing life into the story, quest, and purpose behind Colony Wars.

So, now that I have given you all the good about Colony Wars, you must be wondering what falls into the bad category? Well, I’ll have to save that for a follow-up review... because, truth be told, I haven’t found anything about this game that I don’t like. The branching mission tree and multiple endings give this game a high degree of replay value. It is therefore my opinion that Colony Wars receive the score you see above, which is unprecedented (for any game to have received) coming from me.