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ROTW special review, Incoming
This review is a little different; I have made this one for the ROTW contest.
INCOMING
I have a personal feeling toward this game as it was the first game I played on pc.
Incoming was released 1998 for pc(but came later for gamecube) by Rage and was was driven by the voodoo 2 3D engine(more to that later)
Story
The story in Incoming is fairly simple, the year is 2009 ( ) and aliens have started to attack earth. You are a member of the defence forces and this game will take you from their main base in Africa to around the world and even into space.
Gameplay
The game play in Incoming is about shooting aliens and driving vehicles. You drive one of many vehicles ranging from tanks, airplanes and helicopters to even alien crafts. You start the mission and get a small objective and a way to go from a big arrow in your HUD, this will also point toward hostile things. The Hud is also fairly simple to understand.
In the top middle there are the arrow I said earlier and to ther right of there you see what kind of vehicle your manning as well as your health. In the left you got your score, its like an arcade game so in the end you get a total score dependable of different things. In the bottom mid you got your radar and in the left and right you got your primary(left) and secondary(right) weapon.
The objectives are mostly simple and for the most times only take a few minutes to complete, they can be all from destroying all enemies to defend the base or pick up a package.
For most of the times you are alone but now and there you got a few friends, they are however long away from effective and mostly you have to cover their asses.
The game got 6 missions with 10 phases in each mission. Now each mission can be said to be a chapter while the phases are the ordinary missions. The missions are often set up like an arcade game, the same with the controls, its very easy to get into this game but there is no real deep in the story or gameplay.
![](http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/1/197621/incoming_screen003.jpg)
The controls are keyboard only, no mouse witch works fairly well thanks to a nice system of aiming help, apart from the turret, this thing is almost impossible to control in small and delicate manouevers so you often just strafe and firing hoping to hit something. This tactic does work cause the main ammo is unlimited however, you got two sorts of ammo primary(often normal shots and unlimited) and secondary(Often missiles or other things, limited) The secondary is much more powerful and can destroy most smaller enemies in one shot if lucky.
The game can also also be pretty hard(mostly later cannon missions) so I recommend that you save the game before each phase.
Graphics, AI and sound
The game uses the famous voodoo 2 graphics system and features a full 3d world. Even if the worlds are mostly empty, just full of brown dirt and similar the graphics was amazing for the time it was released. Even now the lightning effects can be surprisingly good, when you destroy an alien craft the whole sky lights up in nice colours by the explosion. The sounds are not a real problem either, using a surround sound system it works as well today. The music in the game is techno and can sound pretty cool but they repeat while sounding pretty similar during the game so soon you will probably be tired of them. Other effects like weapons and shots can’t be really complained about, it its something its that your vehicles don’t sound that much they should be(mostly the helicopter). And the explosions also sound a little weird.
The AI on the other hand are pretty darn simple, in many missions they are programmed to go certain routes (mostly in defense missions) and in most situations they aren’t even firing. Despite this I feel that this game is fun to play.
![](http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/screenshots/0/197620/incoming_790screen005.jpg)
But How is it today, overall?
The game was released 1998 so I am pretty surprised how playable it is today. The graphics are surprisingly nice to be over 10 years old, and I think that has aged pretty good. Sure it can’t compete with even games with bad graphics today but I enjoy it in all its simplicity.
I found problems with the sound in my example I don’t know if it is that the sound engine doesn’t work with my pc or if it is because the cd is old.
This is a small wonderful arcade game that works surprisingly well today. Even if the controls can sometimes be a little unprecise.
Just one small word, a game is never as good as you thought it to be, so I recommend that you wont play your favourite game from your childhood if their is no remake or something. Unless you want to ruin that feeling.
Points
Story 4/10 the story is simple, aliens attack, get rid of them. Or something like that
Gameplay 7/10 The game is easy to start with, the controls are simple and the mission often clear, and this game is unlike many others accually kinda playable today and you can drive all these cool vehicles, even if many of them feels pretty similar except the weapons.
Graphics 5/10 The graphics are full 3D but the worlds have like no details, if you seen the unexplored worlds at mass effect you know what I mean. However the lights with explosions look gorgeous in a small and low tech way.
Sounds 6/10 have aged better than the graphics but some things still sound awkward
Atmosphere 2/10 You get no feeling for the fight, you see or hear NO human and all information comes in green text.
Total 6/10 the game is fun as an arcade game and works if you only have a few minutes, its in full 3D but its really lightweight, not much meat on the bones so to speak.
Last edited by paecmaker; 09-03-2011 at 12:50 PM.
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great job i will enter it to the rotw right now
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