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Void War 
Release date: Aug 2004
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Void War
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The modern day game industry is a strange entity. No longer are games feverishly formulated in the bedroom by the hobby programmer who creates for the love of it, with no more ambition than maybe some recognition of his programming skills, and maybe, just maybe, a product good enough to sell a few copies's of. In fact, today's industry bears little resemblance to its humble origins.
Software today is subject to stringent rules and regulations – a game hoping to be published must be deemed appropriate for today's market, a target demographic, and every aspect of it's production and marketing is planned with almost militaristic precision.
It is a relief then to find that the notion of an independent game is still beating hard within the hearts of Rampant games. A small developer, Rampant has been recently working on a new arcade style space combat game – Void War. The story involved is formulaic science fiction; during a massive war, an eccentric scientist created a number of pylons of his own design, and arranged them in strange formations. Shortly after the construction of these configurations, the scientist mysteriously disappeared. It wasn't until eight years had passed that anybody realized that not only were these constructs created with the aid of alien technology, but they could also act as "Void Points", or holes in the fabric of space that allow speed of travel previously thought impossible. While initially it seemed like a wonderful new form of travel; a problem presents itself - a mysterious alien cruiser entering the Void Points. All attempts at contact with the ship have proven fruitless, and the universe waits nervously to see whether it will be welcoming friend or foe….
The actual game is a very arcade like, three dimensional space shooter. One of the amusing elements to be found before you even begin to play is a rolling demo of various ships engaged in combat. For those gamers old enough, it will evoke a feeling of being in an arcade during the 1980's. The screen is lit with blaster fire, streaking rockets, and enough evasive maneuvers to make you feel like you're watching Star Wars. The graphics are certainly not cutting edge, but they are reasonably detailed. The backgrounds are very colorful and detailed, and do a respectable job of making you feel like you are in space. The 3D models of the ships are fairly basic at this stage however - they certainly don't look bad, but PC gamers will expect more. Some of the lighting effects, such as the ship's thrusters, do look much better, and bode well for the level of polish the developers are aiming for.
Likewise the sound is catchy, but it feels overlaid, and is in no way dynamic – It maintains the same pacing whether you are just floating and looking at the scenery, or fighting for your life in yet another dogfight. Hopefully, this too will be addressed before final release.
Void War's game play is fun, and as stated before, has a pleasant arcade game quality to it. The basic controls consist of two modes – combat and movement. Missiles and laser cannons are easily controlled via mouse button and space bar, and the handling of the ship of course doesn't take long to figure out - largely being mapped to the familiar WSAD keys. So don't expect it to take too long before you find your ship firing, and barrel rolling out of trouble. Even at this early stage of development, the control feels well implemented, and allows the player to easily get into the dogfighting mood.
If Rampant allows itself the time needed to fine tune Void War's game play and issues with both graphics and sound (as it is still alpha phase development), there is a good chance it will evolve into a more enjoyable title – although it may have its work cut out to become as well regarded as today's space combat games. Players looking for a title that gives control over every aspect of a ship from throttle to thrusters could possibly be disappointed, but if you are purely looking for a fun, old-style arcade experience, you could do far worse than to keep an eye out for Void War.
Preview by Andy Turner on 10 Aug 2004
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