Infinitely superior to another similarly controlled space shooter game whose name escapes me now, Colony Wars is best played with a surround sound system and the speakers turned up. That way when you take out that seriously huge capital ship, you can feel the room shudder and hear the explosion drown out almost everything around you and coming from the game. This effect has yet to be replicated by today's games.
Besides that, Colony Wars is different from the average space shooter. Instead of always going forward, Colony Wars had a basic throttle system that even allowed you to go backwards. This made Colony Wars easy to pick up. There were a variety of ships with different strengths and weaknesses, and even the weapons were different. There were standard lasers, of course, but there were also tractor beams, anti shield weapons, and lock on and forget missiles. This game also had branching paths, another rarity among space games.
At its heart, though, Colony Wars is still a stock space shooter. There's a story about freedom and tyranny. There are movie sequences. But what a tough space shooter it is. The fighter ships you engage are fast and nimble and will have you desperately chasing them around to tag them while their cohorts sneak in and destroy your convoys. And did I mention that the capital ships are HUGE? Add to all this intesity a wonderful visual aesthetic, and you've got a gem on your hands.
The only thing bringing this game down is that you can only save after every three or so levels.
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