mos6507's Blog - Warblade addiction

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It's been a long time since I've really really been involved in a single game. I think the last time was circa 2000 when I had 5 coinop machines. I was putting a LOT of time into playing Star Castle and Rastan. (BTW, when is someone going to finally find a way to emulate the sound on Cinematronics games??) Anyway, I think I've blogged about Warblade before, but it's my favorite overall game of all time. The reason I like it so much is that it takes every possible aspect from a shootemup and merges it together in one. You have:

 

1) rankings

2) bonus waves

3) kamikaze waves

4) bosses

5) money (buy powerups)

6) regular powerups (when you kill stuff)

7) extra life by collecting letters (or a powerup)

meteorstorm

9) alien capture

 

The powerups cover the gamut. There are two ways to shield (regular shield which is limited to a timer, and armor where you are only protected from one hit but it lasts forever). The weapons are highly varied and some of the higher powered weapons have their limits because they are more directional. The balance of the game is such that you can get get knocked down to no powerups and still limp through a level with the single shot gun. This is different from other games that rely on powerups so much that the second you lose your death blossom the game is over.

 

The only thing I haven't really figured out a good use for is missiles. You have to really work hard to earn them and they seem to be not that useful. They might come in handy with bosses (kind of like sinibombs in sinistar).

 

This game is not just a button masher. You have to exercise some resource management with your bank account. I recently was able to make it all the way to level 100 (which I think is the end of the game) but die there. I did this by carefully deciding how to spend my money in the store between waves. The best investment is in armor. Armor is better than extra lives because it helps you maintain your current weapon. When you die, your weapon degrades to the next one down. It's especially important to have armor when you go up against bosses. It's possible to get through the first two bosses without getting hit but the last two are really tough. Also, with the bosses, the directional weapons don't seem to work that well no matter how powerful they are. I think the game just counts how many hits rather than the power of each hit, so the best weapon against them is the super triple.

 

In the highest waves, there is a wall of death and destruction that would make Eugene Jarvis proud.

 

I've said it before but I think games like this are a model for other programmers. The reason this game is this deep is because Edgar worked on it for many years (back when it was an Amiga game called Deluxe Galaga). You can tell a lot of thought was put into the game at every level. I can not praise it enough. Anyone reading this really owes it to themselves to play it.

 

http://www.warblade.as

 

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=3467