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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne Rating: Average The biggest question going through my mind as I popped Colony Wars: Vengeance into my PlayStation was whether or not it would be even better than its predecessor. After playing the game extensively, the answer is definitely no. The graphics are a little smoother and it's nice to see those cool blasters again, but other than that, I felt like I was playing the exact same game I played in 1997. I would have have liked to see some more detailed ships- maybe ones that shot lasers out of actual guns, not the tips of their wings... Besides the graphics, the play mechanics of the original game actually got worse at some point during the development of the sequel. It was really fun to seek out and destroy little ships in the first game, but the ships seem to come right to you in Vengeance, leaving you without a sense of adventure and with very little excitement. I also found it disturbing that I could kill almost every ship the same way, and with the same weapon. Figuring out the weaknesses of various ships is half the fun of any shooter, and it's completely missing from Colony Wars: Vengeance. Variety is mysteriously absent in this game as well. Mission after mission seems like the same basic thing, even if you have different mission objectives. After six missions of flying toward a huge craft, firing like a madman, and then turning around so I could come back and do the same thing again, I was agitated to say the least. Variety was one of the original Colony Wars' biggest advantages and it never seemed like you were playing the same mission twice. I don't know why the guys at Psygnosis would decide to forget all about that glowing aspect of the game, but they clearly did. The music in Vengeance was surprising as well, and not in a good way. After enjoying the dark and surreal music in the original game, I was disappointed again when I found out that the music resembles that of the original game as much as a frog resembles a prince. The music tries to be epic, but ends up being too sci-fi oriented and upbeat. The dull story line in Vengeance was the last straw for me. The original Colony Wars didn't have a very strong (or original) story, and Vengeance takes a bad, meaningless story and somehow makes it worse. Not only was it absolutely pointless, but it is boring and once again drains the fun out of the game. This is a boring adventure and a very monotonous game. It was fun for a while and there aren't many other games like it for the PlayStation, but by no means does it deserve a place in your video game library. If you're looking for an awesome space shooter, go for the original Colony Wars, because Colony Wars: Vengeance makes most horror movie sequels look good in comparison.
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