I-War (1997 video game)
- For other uses of the abbreviation I-War, see I-War
| I-War, Independence War | |
|---|---|
 European box The North American box showing the Dreadnaught. North American box | |
| Developer(s) | Particle Systems Ltd. |
| Publisher(s) | Infogrames |
| Designer(s) | Glyn Williams, Michael Powell |
| Engine | BRender |
| Platform(s) | PC (Windows) |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Space simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
I-War (known as Independence War after the North American release) is a space simulation computer game developed by English development house Particle Systems Ltd. The game was first published in 1997 in Europe by Infogrames as I-War, and in late August of 1998 in North America as Independence War. An additional campaign was designed, packaged with the original game and released in 1999 as Independence War Deluxe Edition in North America and Independence War Special Edition in Europe.
The sequel Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos was released in 2001.
Overview
In the game, the player takes the role of an unnamed 23rd century spaceship captain in the Earth Commonwealth Navy. The primary opponents were rebellious insurgents called the Indies, a group distinguished by their elaborately and colourfully painted ships.
I-War was different from most other space combat games in that the player commanded a big, 162 meter long corvette named the Dreadnaught, and because the space ships flew according to Newton's laws of motion. In other words, the flight model took into account inertia caused by a ship's mass and the absence of drag in outer space. In addition to common flight dynamics, the vessels could move and accelerate in all directions: up, down, forward, backwards and sideways. The piloting was however considerably eased thanks to a simulated flight computer with autopilot modes and an assisted flight mode.
The game had two options to play it - the campaign mode and a mode for immediate space battle with endlessly spawning enemies. The campaign was linear in nature and consisted of a series of about 40 different scripted missions. One or few were available at a time and after completing a key mission new one or ones would become available. Sometimes a different set of missions would be unlocked depending of the out come in the previous mission, thus setting the campaign to different directions. Three different endings to the campaign were possible. The nature of missions varied between various combinations of combat and problem solving. The puzzles often made use of the game's physics modeling.
Depending on the mission Dreadnaught could be acting alone, support another vessel or have a group of wingmen under her command. Commanding your companions well could be crucial to winning the mission. Other missions had various special equipment at the player's disposal, like for an example a reconnaissance drone.
Player ship
Dreadnaught's standard weaponry was two Particle Beam Cannons (PBC) and various kinds of missiles. For protection the ship had two energy shield projectors - one at the bottom and one at the top (LDA's) - that could each track and absorb cannon fire from a single ship at a time. Shields did not cover the aft part of most vessels, which was a divergence from other space sims in which energy shields covered the whole ship like another layer of armour. Thus player's standard tactics were to try to get behind enemy ship's rear and, if assistance was available, to concentrate allied fire on one enemy at a time. The energy shields could be boosted for a very short time to allow ramming enemy ships without damage to the player ship.
Most ships in I-War had three modes of spacecraft propulsion:
- Propellant ejecting thrusters, similar to real-life rockets, were used for combat and close-in maneuvering.
- Linear Displacement drive System (LDS), which was similar in concept to warp drive from Star Trek. As it is limited at its fastest to almost the speed of light, it is ideal for fast interplanetary travel.
- Capsule Drive, which was used for faster-than-light interplanetary and interstellar travel. It was restricted to using Lagrangian points L4 and L5 as jump points. When jumping the ship forms its own spacetime capsule, referred as "capsule space", around itself. See also: hyperspace (science fiction)
During LDS-travel ships couldn't use weapons other than missiles designed to stop LDS-travel, but they couldn't be attacked either. For that reason engaging LDS could be an effective way to escape a difficult situation and to gain time to repair the ship. LDS Inhibitor missiles form an effective countermeasure against such tactics.
As the captain of Dreadnaught the player could assume the command of any of the four workstations on the command bridge. From the command station (CMD) the player received his/her mission briefings and could sometimes control other ships through a remote link. The station also had access to an accurate star map. The ship was normally flown from the navigation station (NAV). From the weapons station (WEP) the player had an outside view of Dreadnaught's wire frame model. Following a locked target, the angle of view could rotate 360 degrees on all axis. This workstation also had a ripple fire mode which allowed attacking quickly a large group of enemies. The fourth station engineering (ENG) was for controlling the repairs when the ship was damaged by weapons or a collision with another object. However, the automated repair functioned well and player supervision was rarely needed. The station also had a fuel gauge which was nonfunctional because the game design was changed to give Dreadnaught limitless fuel.
The bridge of Dreadnaught was a small ship of its own, called the "command section". It could be detached from the main vessel. Some missions made a use of this feature.
CGI and cutscenes
The game began with a 14 minute long high quality CGI animation to introduce the game's setting and even some game play features through the story of Jefferson Clay and his last battle. Along the campaign, shorter pieces of CGI encoded in RAD Game Tools's Smacker video format would be shown within missions as cutscenes. These sometimes provided clues to solving some problematic aspect of the current mission. Simple CGI animations utilising wire frame models were used in mission briefings.
Occasionally external camera views were used for kind of real-time, game engine rendered, cutsenes. For example when Dreadnaught docked or undocked with another ship or a space station.
Characters, factions and spaceships
- Colin McDuff - A charismatic Indie leader. Also the captor and the captain of Under New Ownership. McDuff was instrumental in exposing COSA.
- COSA - A conspiracy to perpetuate the war, that consisted of arms dealers, ship builders and others who profited from the conflict between the Indies and the Commonwealth. The faction had advanced technology at its disposal. COSA's defeat opened the possibility to a peace and creation of the New Alliance.
- CNV 301 Dreadnaught - "First in her class and the last ship of Jefferson Clay." The player's ship and the namesake of its class. Often called just Dreadnaught.
- Earth Commonwealth - The player's faction in I-War. The Commonwealth constitutes of Earth, the Solar System and the extrasolar colonies. Earth's need for resources has caused resentment and support of the Indies among the colonies. With its massive space Navy, the Commonwealth tries to keep order and maintain its own unity against the Indies.
- Indies - The player's faction in the expansion campaign Defiance. The Independence Movement has fought a guerrilla war for self-determination against the Commonwealth for the last hundred years. The group is made of a mix of pirates, ordinary colonists and political activists. The Indies' fleet mainly consists of modified utility vessels and captured Navy ships. Indie ships were flamboyantly painted with graffiti and had whimsical names inspired in style by the Culture novels of Scottish author Iain M. Banks.
- Jefferson Clay - The hero and a casualty of the Battle of the Toliman Exchange. A digital recording of Clay's personality is retrieved by the player and this version of him provides commentary and advice throughout the game. He is somewhat annoyed by the fact that he has been revived without consent and his dialogue is often bitterly sarcastic.
- Nairnama - Aliens encountered in few missions. As a reward helping against Chaos - another alien entity - they fit Dreadnaught with a device which allows following ships through the capsule space. In a later mission this allows the player to find either the COSA or Indie base.
- New Alliance - The peace conference ended in a staged attack against President King's personal cruiser Excalibur. Despite this most of the Indies and Commonwealth forces joined under the New Alliance in hopes to end the hundred year old civil war. The player could choose to follow President King or the New Alliance.
- President Harrison King - The president of the Earth Commonwealth. King gathered a group of other hard-liners to oppose the New Alliance. In the final mission of the "New Alliance path" the player had to destroy the Excalibur.
- Edison Hayes - A member of the Indies and captain of Spartacus.
- Spartacus - The ship was originally the Navy corvette Rome, but was captured and renamed by Edison Hayes and company in the Defiance intro.
- Under New Ownership - Abbreviated as UNO. The ship was originally the Navy destroyer Harvard, but was captured and renamed by the Indies in the intro video.
- Year of the Dragon - The Indie cruiser from Defiance campaign that the player helped to capture while it was being repaired at a shipyard. Its original name was Washington.
Development
The development of I-War was led by Particle Systems co-founders Glyn Williams (whose previous games include Warhead for Amiga and Atari ST) and Michael Powell (whose previous games include Subwar 2050 for PC/DOS). With Williams and Powell included, Independence War had a development team of six men, which was the full personnel of Particle Systems at the time.
The game had some naming troubles. I-War was originally signed to Philips Interactive Media, Inc., who were moving into PC-games. At the time the game had merely a working title, "big ships". The first suggested name was Dreadnaught, per the player ship, but it was considered to be meaningless to French and German audiences. The next name candidate was Infinity War, which was found to be also a name of Marvel Comics comic book miniseries. Therefore the name was shortened to I-War. At this time Philips Media was taken over by Infogrames, who became the publisher of the game.
I-War was first released in Europe in November of 1997, under the label of Ocean Software. Ocean was acquired by Infogrames earlier that year. This version, having no 3D hardware support, had only software rendered graphics. The game was released in English, French and German languages. I-War was a critical success, but wasn't selling as well as expected.
In late August, 1998, the game was released in North America, but as Independence War. The reason for the name change was that "I-War" was already trademarked in the US by Atari for an Atari Jaguar game of that name.
Support for 3Dfx's Glide, at the time the dominant and best supported 3D-hardware accelerated graphics API for computer games, was added for the American release. The upgrade included support for the higher 800x600 resolution that the new graphics card from 3Dfx, Voodoo2, was capable of rendering. Additionally, some of the in-game 3D models were re-created with a higher number of polygons, making them more detailed. On modern graphics cards that support Direct3D or OpenGL for real-time 3D graphics, a Glide wrapper must be used for the game's hardware assisted visuals. The game can be problematic to run on modern hardware under the XP operating system. Use of all patches and a glide wrapper solves most problems. The graphics upgrade was made available as a separate Internet download for the owners of the original I-War. This patch also changed the game's title into Independence War on the loading screen.
The American version was successful and won "Space-Sim of the year" awards from many magazines and websites. Encouraged by this, an expanded edition was designed. I-War / Independence War sold around 250 000 copies worldwide. Including the special editions the total sales were about 300 000 [1] [2] [3]. Despite the relative success, I-War stayed merely a cult classic and was an underdog in comparison to such space simulation games as FreeSpace or Wing Commander series.
Defiance
Later an additional campaign from the Indie side of the conflict, called Defiance, was developed. The campaign consisted of 18 missions and it mirrored the I-War campaign. This time the player assumed the role of Edison Hayes, a captain of the Indie fleet and the Dreadnaught-class corvette Spartacus. Defiance had three new features - in-mission savepoints, limited customisation of player ship's weapons and a zoom mode for longer range weapons fire. The campaign was designed for experienced Independence War players, and was generally considered more difficult than the original game.
Originally Defiance was supposed to be released as an expansion pack, but Infogrames decided they would prefer a special edition that would have both the new campaign and the original game in the same box. This special edition was released in the US as Independence War Deluxe Edition in 1999. The European version was released the same year, but was called Independence War Special Edition instead since it was reasoned that "deluxe" doesn't mean much to the French or German audiences. The American version also included a $10 rebate for owners of Independence War, but no rebate was included with the European version.
The development of Defiance was led by Stephen Robertson who also maintained a strong and long lasting on-line presence helping players of the Independence War series.
Mods
In late 1998 tools and documentation allowing I-War players to modify the game were released. The package only provided means to modify and create mission scripts and dialogue, as well to unlock some game's locked features like more free interstellar travel. To create and texture new in-game models, like ships and space stations, a 3D modeling software with support for NewTek's proprietary LightWave 3D-model format was needed.
Several fan-made missions and even full campaigns were made. These included Buda5, a Babylon 5 mod that replaced I-War's own campaign, instant action and even game-selection interface with its own. The main impetus for creation of this mod was the cancellation of the planned Babylon 5 computer game: Into the Fire.
Trivia
In July 19, 1999, Iwerks Entertainment and Infogrames jointly announced a long-term agreement "to develop and distribute ride simulation, theme park attractions and Large Format films based on popular Infogrames titles". The first project was to be a 3D simulation film based on Independence War [4]. It was scheduled to be released in the spring of 2000 [5]. Apparently the project was cancelled at some unknown time.
Credits
I-War
- Glyn Williams - game design, art direction, script writing, manual, art and briefing animator
- Michael Powell - game design, technical direction, lead programming and project management
- Richard Aidley - programming and artificial intelligence, mission scripting
- Matt Clark - modeling, realtime modeling, graphic design and character design, art management
- Michael Todd - production design, animator, modelling, movie editing and storyboard artist
- Andy Turner - animator, graphic design, sound editor and movie editing
- Music by Kevin Saville
Voice actors: Corey Johnson (IMBd), Stanley Townstead, Davis Jarvis, Aaron Shwartz, Alletta Lawson, Annie Tomkinson Jarvis, Billy J. Mitchell (IMDb)
Defiance
- Stephen Robertson - project lead, game design, mission design and scripting, Internet support
- James Moore - mission design and scripting
- Richard Aidley - programming and script support
- Paul Clayton - animation and modeling, character design
- Tim Brown - animation and modeling, character design
- Richard Bentley - character animation
- Music by Christopher Mann
Voice actors: Bill Dufris, Paul J. Medford, Toni Barry, Tom Wessel, Ken Drury (IMDb), David Jarvis, Stanley Townstead
References
- ^ Stephen Robertson on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.space-sim
- ^ Stephen Robertson on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.space-sim
- ^ Stephen Robertson on the official discussion forum (archived at Dreadnaught's www-site)
- ^ Iwerks and Infogrames Announce Long Term Agreement to Bring Games to Life
- ^ Iwerks Entertainment Announces FY 99 Fourth Quarter Results
External links
- The official discussion forum
- The defunct official Independence War page archived by Wayback Machine
- Indpendence War II - Edge of Chaos - Community
- Independence War at GameSpot
- Independence War at MobyGames
- Independence War Deluxe Edition at MobyGames
- Buda5, a Babylon 5 mod for Independence War and its sequel
- Dreadnaught's Independence War Page, I-War fan site with tactical guide, information and extensive collection of fan-made missions for I-War 1. Retired, but site runner is now the Atari forum moderator.
- Independence War Paper Models