Silver Wings - a new euroshmup made on the Quake engine

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:53 am

http://www.bampusht.ro/index2.html

This one comes from a developer in Romania, and happens to have been made on the Quake 1 engine. It has a downloadable trial(70MB), $20 purchase for the full version. More impressions once I play it, but the site says it's in the vein of Raptor and Tyrian. Also of note is the fact that the source is available for download under GPL, which might be of interest to developers.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:05 am

OK, I played it briefly, and based on that I'm going to say it's probably not wirth bothering with. It seems to focus more on graphics than gameplay (and the graphics aren't all that great either) and even though it's got some decent particle effects, the backgrounds don't even scroll. On top of that, the bullets seem to be mostly undodgeable, and the idea seems to be to get enough powerups to stay alive. The FMV is also extraneous and gets in the way. The install is also convoluted.

Interesting from a technical standpoint, much less so for gameplay.

Post by **Ghegs** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:40 am

You just know it's a euroshmup when the features list includes:

Bampusht wrote: - 3 environments stretching over more than 30 levels
- over 30 different enemies including huge mutated bosses
- 15 upgradable ship sub-systems (including the Gatling Automatic Turret, the Firebug FJ, the SAABIAR Dampening Array and the almighty Epsilon 5 Molecular Disruptor), each with 3 different upgrade levels
- intermission video briefings
- full speech in-game dialogues
- full screen cinematic movies
- original immersive soundtrack
- state-of-the-art graphics including 3D ships, amazing particle effects, bump and specular mapping, dynamic lighting, weather and fog effects, underwater caustics and many more, all powered by award winning 3D technology.

Replacing quality with quantity. I just don't understand how this never changes, aside from few individual developers who "get it".

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:03 pm

Euroshmups aren't necessarily bad (there have been some good ones, even if they don't necessarily appeal to the hardcore shmuppers) but this one has mediocre design plus annoying cutscenes, and you have to install the game engine separately from the game itself (for GPL reasons, presumably.)

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:16 pm

What's the point of using a FPS engine for a shmup?

japtor · Post by **japtor** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:25 pm

free open source 3d engine. dont have to write your own (and some other stuff like sound and controls im guessing). its like the companies using the unreal 3 engine for next generation games.

in related news, quake 3's engine is going open source soon too.

BUHA · Post by **BUHA** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:33 am

I think it's a great idea, but it's too bad that the game isn't any good. maybe somebody else will get it right