

And its flaps and knobs.Īt around 18 minutes in, the fleet lands at the city they've been hunting for, and the player has to control the descent to avoid blowing up on the landing pad. It's a side-on war game and yet it's sensorally rich. The clouds in the background flicker as they're lit up by explosions, your flying frigates catch fire and spew smoke that wafts perfectly as you lunge through the air, and the whole thing is viewed as if through a video screen at a distance. Plus, these thoughts are happening while the sky is filled with machinegun fire, fighter jets, and missiles from the multiple heavy duty hulks that are trying to shoot you down.Īgain, these look gorgeous. There's a lot to think about, too, between balancing fuel consumption with the need to keep fighting, and weapon use with the expense of different ammo types.

The player controls one ship at a time and there's a lurching momentum to it as you thrust around a 2D sky. The action itself is in real-time, and I found it exceedingly tense just to watch. Then they need to plot a course to intercept said enemy, at which point the game switches into battle mode.įor fights, you choose which of your ships to send and how to kit them out with weapons and ammo. They intercept an enemy signal, and must tune into it by twirling a knob like tuning an old radio, and they eventually reveal an enemy location.

The video begins with the player scouting for a city on a map drawn in spare lines on an old computer screen. I have no particular interest in military machinery, and yet I love tiny switches with red flaps on them. A lot of the game takes place in menus, but god, they're nice looking menus.
