Space War

Overview

Space War is a starship combat simulation, based in the Star Trek universe. Up to four ships can battle it out from a number of different races, each with their own unique attributes and special weaponry, across a hexagonal grid consisting of eleven columns and fourteen rows. It’s a small battlefield such that it’s possible to cross from one side to the other in two or three turns providing, of course, you reach the other side intact.

Requirements

• Any hardware, but you’ll need a colour screen for the colour version!

• PalmOS 2·0.

• At least 200 Kb free memory.

Features

When you first pick up Space War, the overall first impression is that the game itself is remarkably simple. This means that it quickly and easily draws you in, and for me this is an important bonus. Your first few missions are familiarisation games, anyway, and it’s only once you’ve figured out how to destroy the enemy that you can _really_ start to play!

All craft have a choice of two weapons - Phasers and Photon Torpedoes. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. To fire a weapon, you must first select a sector to target. Then, when the turn takes place, the weaponry targets this sector and fires the weapon. Photon Torpedoes are targeted almost immediately, but move relatively slowly, whereas Phasers take a few seconds to fire but reach the target almost immediately.

In addition to having five races to play - Federation, Klingon, Borg, Tholean and Dominion - the game also features sentry guns, which fire Photon Torpedoes at random across the map.

As you achieve kills so you gain experience, and this in turn improves your rank, providing you with a better quality ship. You can upgrade your shields, engine, Phasers or Photon Torpedoes, so providing scope for some tactical decisions - you can bolster your ship’s defenses or improve the firepower.

Finally, there is a two player, two PalmOS device, whereby you can beam the information between PDAs.

Performance

Space War works equally well on the Palm IIIxe and on the Palm m515 - the game is quick.

Stability

I’ve had a couple of crashes whilst running Space War, so if I were giving it marks, I cannot give it full marks. This said, two crashes across five PalmOS devices, across two years, is hardly unstable!

Summary

Space Wars is my kind of game! It’s simple to play, it’s flexible, it has some nice tactical elements and when you get bored of playing one race, you can switch and play another.

Tactics

It’s a simple game, but there are many different ways to play it. Here are a few of my own personal tips.

One, I prefer Photon Torpedoes to Phasers, although there are certain tactical scenarios where Phasers are useful.

For the most part, I also keep my ship’s speed up, mainly because it’s harder to hit a fast-moving target.

Finally, ramming can also be effective!