Uropa� Part 1 (812k)
Uropa� Part 2 (???k)
Uropa� Part 3 (823k)
Uropa� Part 4 (823k)
Uropa� Part 5 (823k)
Uropa� Part 6 (813k)
 |  |
When I first played a demo of this game a couple of months ago I was slightly sceptical, things just didn't seen right, however all my worries were quashed when I received the full version for review.
After installing the game onto hard-drive (It's Hard-Drive only BTW,
folks) I got down to business. The game itself combines two types of
games, a 3D isometric and a 3D light sourced vector game. All this
takes place on a moon called Uropa (Which coincidentally is the title
of the game :). To cut a long story short this moon has
been taken over by evil force called the Kapones, it is your job to
regain control over the moon.
Once loaded you are presented with a screen listing all the missions
that you have to complete, from here you can read a briefing for
each mission and the objectives that you have to complete. There
are ten missions to complete, all varying in difficulty and
objectives set. Each of these missions have to be completed in
order. As well as the basic missions there are Havorwar levels
(More about these later). Once you have read the mission briefing and
objectives it is on to the game.
Every mission you will start in the isometric part of the game with
your droid waiting for instructions, you will always start in the main
transporter room, from here you can transport to the surface, to one of
the other transporter rooms (Which are called translink rooms) or of
course go exploring. The 3D isometric section takes up the most of
the game in this section you take control of a droid called a Tekite
which you have to guide around this 3D isometric world killing enemy
droids, collecting objects and of course completing the various
objectives as specified in the mission briefing, 
once all of these objectives are complete it is on to
the next mission. It's not all just a case of wondering about though as
you will have to solve various puzzles to complete the mission.
The objectives in each mission consist of many different objectives, they range from recusing hostages to repairing a generator unit. Some of the missions will also require you to go to the surface and complete various tasks, this is where the vector based part if the game comes into play. In this part of the game you control a Eagle-V Hovar vehicle, this is generally you your method of travel, however, it is also used to complete mission objectives. In it's most basic form you fly around a sparse landscape blasting anything that gets in your way, some missions require a bit more tact such as escorting a damaged hover vehicle to a repair station. This section of the game is very smooth with the detail on it's highest setting on my 030 50Mhz, even too fast at times, although if you have a lesser machine the detail can be lowered to make it fast on any machine, even a A500 (although were talking lowest detail, wireframe settings here). This speed can sometimes make it very difficult to fight against enemy ships because as soon as they are in your sights they have either flown past you or in some cases straight into you. Also the landscape can be a bit sparse at times, maybe a bit more detail to the could have been added as there are long periods of flying without any objects about.
In each of the two sections there are a multitude of weapons available,
the weapons available for the droid can be seen in the boxout. The
Hover vehicle also has many weapons such as lasers, homing missiles,
flares etc. There are also bolt on's for all the weapons improving it,
such things as auto-repeat and cooler units are available. As for
getting these weapons some can be found hidden in objects, while others
are available from the ordering computers found throughout the levels,
there not free however and you have to build up credits before you can
even think about getting some of the better weapons. Credits can be
gained in many ways such as completed missions destroying droids and
also downloading droid data, this is done by stunning the droid with
one of the stun weapons (such as the laser sword) and then download the
data from it, this data can then be exchanged for credits at the
appropriate computers.
Spot The Difference....Sort of |
| The ECS Version | The AGA version |
| I was going to include the pictures but it was difficult to see any difference depending on how many colours you run your browser in. So just use download link to disk on the two pictures above, one of from the ECS version and the other is the same room in AGA form. |
The game is fully multitasking for those of you who demand this is a game, so you can play it while your rendering your latest creation, and you can switch back to the workbench screen with a quick press of keys. Also the game comes with two sets of graphics one for ECS and the other for AGA machines. These are not hughly different and it is hard to notice unless you look at the two side by side. The game also comes with a very nice preferences editor that allows you to edit in game prefs such as music, detail levels etc. with a nice and easy to use interface, you can also select the language in which the game is played although at the moment only English is supported.
Going back to something I mentioned earlier, the Havorwar section. This allows two players to battle each other in the vector based surface game, via a serial link. From what I saw of this it could be quite fun, although it does seem a bit limiting, maybe a bit more strategy or some sort of mission for each player could have been included....
 |  |
Overall this is an excellent game, and I was very impressed with it. I'd go as far to say as it's one of the best games I have played this year, you could say that there hasn't been much competition but that even more reason to buy it. There's not many games around at the moment so when a good game does arrive we should buy it, if not only to try and keep the programmers with the Amiga. It's not terribly expensive although it is only available direct from the authors see here.
Uropa� -The Ulterior Colony | ||
| Machine: | All Amigas | |
| Workbench: | All | |
| RAM: | 1 Meg chip, 1 Meg Fast | |
| Hard-disk Install | Required | |
| Disks: | 6 Disks | |
| Graphics:- | Very detailed and nicely drawn, | 87% |
| Sound:- | Small spot effects, you can use your own module if you want | 82% |
| Playability:- | Great fun | 92% |
| Lastability:- | The game draws you in and doesn't let go | 92% |
| OVERALL:- | A GREAT GAME WORTHY OF ANYONES PURCHASE. | 91% |
