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Project Sylpheed Review
Space shooters are beyond a dying breed. They're dead. When a member of this now-rarefied genre comes lurching at you from the darkness, it's always a good idea to be wary. And a shooter with an anime flavour, evoking the memory of the Macross and Robotech series? It has to be bad, right? Yet, somehow, Square/Enix has delivered a thrill-ride of a space plane game; Ace Combat with blue hair. The frighteningly titled Project Sylpheed has a clunky menu system, an overly complicated HUD, mediocre voice acting, and an easily-skippable story. Thankfully, none of that matters. When you're in your fighter, it's so ... so good. Read on for my impressions of this quirkily appealing arcade-style shooter.
Thankfully, you won't miss them. The story is a semi-decent distraction. The forces of ADAN, allied former Terran colonies who broke away from the motherland, are striking hard against the Terran alliance. They're fighting to re-affirm their freedom after what appears to be the senseless slaughter of an entire planet by military forces. Your protagonist is an uber-talented rookie, friends with a cute fellow pilot and arch-foe of a former pilot who has now joined the ADAN military. The cutscenes are full of breathless exclamations of surprise and tight-fitting space suits. Just the same, the cutscenes have two things going for them: vague hints of something deeper to ADAN's story of planetary cleansing, and the ability to skip past anything you don't want to see.
While I enjoyed watching them, it's easy to understand wanting to get back to the game proper. Project Sylpheed is an all-out assault almost from the get-go. Enemy fighters come at you in waves, punctuated by larger frigates and carriers, with special named fighter units acting as boss battles in later stages. Before you start your bloody work there are usually dozens of enemies onscreen, providing you with a 'target-rich environment.' You're not alone, of course, fighting with support from your capital ship and three (mostly brain-dead) squadron-mates. Fights take place in a varied array of 'space locations', giving you a variety of pretty places to look at while you blow stuff up. Anyone not playing the game directly will be impressed by what's on the screen; if you know what you're doing the action is fast, frenetic, and beautiful.
Knowing what you're doing is the trick, of course. Your Delta Saber fighter has a dizzying array of weaponry and instruments. As such, the Xbox controller gets a stiff workout by your overwrought hands. I actually found the default setup cumbersome, and ended up remapping some things; every single control is customizable, thankfully. By default the shoulder buttons fire your weapons, while the triggers boost and brake your ship. I reversed these, as I found it awkward to hold down the RB for an extended period of time. Your mileage may vary.
The Delta Saber has three different weapon systems plus a nose cone popgun. This means that you have several choices of ordinance to bring to bear on every situation. Surprisingly, none are superfluous. There's an anti-aircraft missile system, which locks onto targets as they come within your field of fire. Dozens of missiles can be aimed at multiple targets just by sticking closeby. Upon releasing the fire button they soar away from your ship like deadly homing birds, creating a beautiful and ultimately fiery ballet. A larger set of missles is available for frigates, destroyers and the like, while a railgun acts as a catch-all choice that can be directed at either sized-target with deadly effect. It's simple to switch between weapon systems with the twitch of a thumb; the downside to this is that often pits you against a wave of fighters and their destroyer escort at the same time.
Those scenarios are always quite challenging, as you're forced to make some tough choices. Toughness is a watchword of this game, but not frustratingly so. Sylpheed is very much an arcade shooter, right down to the arbitrary clock on each mission. You're given a warning when there are only three minutes left on the clock; when it runs out the captain of your capital ship says that you are 'unable to fight any longer.' I'm not really sure I understand this, but it does make for tense level design. Even If you screw up, there's no real problem. You're encouraged to go back and re-try levels on which you do poorly.
A letter grade measures your success in each mission, based on the number of ships destroyed and the completion of some 'sub-objectives'; these sub-objectives are never really spelled out, but the game's Achievements often revolve around them. As such, when you do end up with a new medal (their in-game representation) you can rest assured that you did good. Points are awarded for your successes, which can in turn be spent on weapon upgrades for your ship. There are a wide variety of systems available for purchase on the Delta Saber, and collecting them all seems to be another happy aspect of the game's arcade element.
Not all is perfect in space, of course; aside from the aforementioned throwaway plot and some ... interesting choices in voice acting, some design and system issues tear at the edges of this otherwise pretty picture. As in many games, the other pilots are of almost no help whatsoever. That's to be expected, but they also have a nasty habit of flying directly between you and your target. This results in annoying cries of "watch where you're shooting". The D-pad acts as command center for your squadron, and they'll follow your orders to the best of their ability. The problem is that friendly fire significantly takes away from your points earned for a given mission. This gets really old, really fast.
The other major problem is an occasional noticeable graphical slowdown. I have my 360 fairly well ventilated, but despite that there were several battles where a wall of oncoming enemies caused some sluggish turning. In a game where being able to execute snap turns and dodge oncoming laser fire are essential skills, that can lead to some frustrating trips back to the briefing room. All the other issues I had with the game were fairly minor. The title did little to explain what exactly you were buying, for example, despite some basic letter grades attached to weaponry range and damage. Likewise, the tutorial at the game's start seemed woefully unhelpful once I was actually in the thick of things.
Thankfully, everything about this game is easy to pick up. Project Sylpheed is a brainlessly fun, easy-to-like title for your next-gen console. A complete lack of multiplayer condemns this to a few months of enjoyment , or even a rental, but don't let that stop you from trying it out. If you miss this under-appreciated genre, Sylpheed is going to hit every synapse just right. Barrel-rolling through a flight of dozens of enemy starships, all while locking-on and firing-off volleys of missiles, is a blast any space shooter fan shouldn't pass up. My biggest complaint about the whole game is that, once again, I find myself really wanting a next generation version of Tie Fighter.
- Title: Project Sylpheed
- Developer/Publisher: Game Arts, Microsoft Game Studios
- System: 360
- Genre: Arcade-Style Space Shooter
- Score: 3/5 - This game is flawed, but will appeal to genre fans. Any gamer might enjoy renting it, but this won't ever be a classic.
Thankfully, you won't miss them. The story is a semi-decent distraction. The forces of ADAN, allied former Terran colonies who broke away from the motherland, are striking hard against the Terran alliance. They're fighting to re-affirm their freedom after what appears to be the senseless slaughter of an entire planet by military forces. Your protagonist is an uber-talented rookie, friends with a cute fellow pilot and arch-foe of a former pilot who has now joined the ADAN military. The cutscenes are full of breathless exclamations of surprise and tight-fitting space suits. Just the same, the cutscenes have two things going for them: vague hints of something deeper to ADAN's story of planetary cleansing, and the ability to skip past anything you don't want to see.
While I enjoyed watching them, it's easy to understand wanting to get back to the game proper. Project Sylpheed is an all-out assault almost from the get-go. Enemy fighters come at you in waves, punctuated by larger frigates and carriers, with special named fighter units acting as boss battles in later stages. Before you start your bloody work there are usually dozens of enemies onscreen, providing you with a 'target-rich environment.' You're not alone, of course, fighting with support from your capital ship and three (mostly brain-dead) squadron-mates. Fights take place in a varied array of 'space locations', giving you a variety of pretty places to look at while you blow stuff up. Anyone not playing the game directly will be impressed by what's on the screen; if you know what you're doing the action is fast, frenetic, and beautiful.
Knowing what you're doing is the trick, of course. Your Delta Saber fighter has a dizzying array of weaponry and instruments. As such, the Xbox controller gets a stiff workout by your overwrought hands. I actually found the default setup cumbersome, and ended up remapping some things; every single control is customizable, thankfully. By default the shoulder buttons fire your weapons, while the triggers boost and brake your ship. I reversed these, as I found it awkward to hold down the RB for an extended period of time. Your mileage may vary.
The Delta Saber has three different weapon systems plus a nose cone popgun. This means that you have several choices of ordinance to bring to bear on every situation. Surprisingly, none are superfluous. There's an anti-aircraft missile system, which locks onto targets as they come within your field of fire. Dozens of missiles can be aimed at multiple targets just by sticking closeby. Upon releasing the fire button they soar away from your ship like deadly homing birds, creating a beautiful and ultimately fiery ballet. A larger set of missles is available for frigates, destroyers and the like, while a railgun acts as a catch-all choice that can be directed at either sized-target with deadly effect. It's simple to switch between weapon systems with the twitch of a thumb; the downside to this is that often pits you against a wave of fighters and their destroyer escort at the same time.
Those scenarios are always quite challenging, as you're forced to make some tough choices. Toughness is a watchword of this game, but not frustratingly so. Sylpheed is very much an arcade shooter, right down to the arbitrary clock on each mission. You're given a warning when there are only three minutes left on the clock; when it runs out the captain of your capital ship says that you are 'unable to fight any longer.' I'm not really sure I understand this, but it does make for tense level design. Even If you screw up, there's no real problem. You're encouraged to go back and re-try levels on which you do poorly.
A letter grade measures your success in each mission, based on the number of ships destroyed and the completion of some 'sub-objectives'; these sub-objectives are never really spelled out, but the game's Achievements often revolve around them. As such, when you do end up with a new medal (their in-game representation) you can rest assured that you did good. Points are awarded for your successes, which can in turn be spent on weapon upgrades for your ship. There are a wide variety of systems available for purchase on the Delta Saber, and collecting them all seems to be another happy aspect of the game's arcade element.
Not all is perfect in space, of course; aside from the aforementioned throwaway plot and some ... interesting choices in voice acting, some design and system issues tear at the edges of this otherwise pretty picture. As in many games, the other pilots are of almost no help whatsoever. That's to be expected, but they also have a nasty habit of flying directly between you and your target. This results in annoying cries of "watch where you're shooting". The D-pad acts as command center for your squadron, and they'll follow your orders to the best of their ability. The problem is that friendly fire significantly takes away from your points earned for a given mission. This gets really old, really fast.
The other major problem is an occasional noticeable graphical slowdown. I have my 360 fairly well ventilated, but despite that there were several battles where a wall of oncoming enemies caused some sluggish turning. In a game where being able to execute snap turns and dodge oncoming laser fire are essential skills, that can lead to some frustrating trips back to the briefing room. All the other issues I had with the game were fairly minor. The title did little to explain what exactly you were buying, for example, despite some basic letter grades attached to weaponry range and damage. Likewise, the tutorial at the game's start seemed woefully unhelpful once I was actually in the thick of things.
Thankfully, everything about this game is easy to pick up. Project Sylpheed is a brainlessly fun, easy-to-like title for your next-gen console. A complete lack of multiplayer condemns this to a few months of enjoyment , or even a rental, but don't let that stop you from trying it out. If you miss this under-appreciated genre, Sylpheed is going to hit every synapse just right. Barrel-rolling through a flight of dozens of enemy starships, all while locking-on and firing-off volleys of missiles, is a blast any space shooter fan shouldn't pass up. My biggest complaint about the whole game is that, once again, I find myself really wanting a next generation version of Tie Fighter.
This game was absolutely horrible. I tried the demo on XBL and I could honestly not play it for more than a minute. The controls are shitty, the graphics are shitty, and the gameplay is shitty. To compare it to something like Ace Combat is a fucking travesty. Don't just take my word for it though, download the demo on XBL and try it for yourself, I guarantee you'll delete it within minutes.
who thought this post was going to be about the Sylpheed email client? --jrd
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
So....any funny "engris?" It's what makes some of these games so enjoyable.
I love space sims. This seems like a good one. Too bad I don't own a 360 and never will.
I can only hope for a PC or a Wii version.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Call me when they make "Einhander 2".
And to think the summary got me all excited.
I guess this is a remake of the Sega CD game Silpheed. Man was that a bad game. Utterly repetetive, the only way to play it is to memorize all the levels and twitch. I love my Sega CD and all but, damn. I'd rather use Sylpheed than play Silpheed.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh man, I played the heck out of Silpheed on the Apple IIgs back in the late '80s.
Since this new version of the game is a 3d space fighter, I feel obligated to point out that Freespace was released as open source some years ago, and people have been working on it ever since. The homepage for the source code project is here:
http://scp.indiegames.us/news.php
Here's a youtube video that shows some gameplay on the OSS version
An old open source project called Parsec.
It was Quake in space with fighters. and absolutely rocked at a lanparty. Problem is that the core guys graduated from college and abandoned it and nobody else is willing to wade through tens of thousands of really "stylized" code to figure it out and get in the right frame of mind.
Granted, a FPS in spaceships is not anything like slypheed, but it reminded me of it and how sad that it lies dormant on sourceforge untouched.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"this game will make you perfectly at home if you have ever had the fortune to hear Minmei sing"
We're not ALL peace-loving pansies who feel funny every time some miniature Asian girl sings, you insensitive clod!
Sincerely,
Khyron
I like basketball!!1!
Yeah, I've gone to great lengths to try to get an old copy of X-Wing and Tie Fighter to work on my current XP setup... to no avail. What's the closest thing to Tie Fighter that's available now for my PC? I've tried to find some kind of decent space shooter, but no luck. Any advice for this poor, helpless Tie Fighter fan???
I'm remembering this correctly, right? A Sierra On-Line import, right? I'm getting a bit burnt out on everything being 3D. Yeah, I know when the PSX came out Sony ordered all games to be made 3D so they'd look different and more modern than the last generation. And yes, there are many games and genres that kick tremendous ass in 3D. But there are some that just don't cut it. 3D sonic was a great example of a huge mistake. That little blue blur was hard enough to control in two dimensions, three just ruined the feel of the game. With today's technology, some bloody impressive side-scrollers could be made. Unfortunately, it's a rare project where gamers are given enough money and their own head to do what they want. When something like that pops up, it's the breath of fresh air that gets cloned and copied until those ideas now smell like the final breath of a toothless bum whose last meal was dingleberries and halitosis.
You know what hasn't been done in a while? A serious bloody side-scroller beat'em-up, the kind that had our jaws dropping at the arcades in the early 90's. Remember the TMNT arcade game? The Simpsons one? Marvel and DC comic-based ones? These modern consoles have four controller ports. I want to see four player side scrolling beat'em-up joy. We're no longer limited by limited sprite animations, these games could go all out. With the gorgeous wide-format TV's out these days, a modern console could stomp the snot out of the classic arcade experience.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Am I the only one that absolutely loved this game? I didn't experience any of the slowdown mentioned in the review. Perhaps the turning problems were due to overloading the ship with heavy weapons? Furthermore, the HUD was perfect for displaying not only mission objectives, but also side objectives, enemy and friendly targets, weapon ranges, overheating levels, etc. I don't think it was overly complicated. As far as your wingmen are concerned, I agree that they were pretty much useless, and only got in the way of my bullets. However, unless you actually shot them down, you don't lose points. I would have liked more explanation of the submissions, however I think this enhances the replay value, as after you beat the game you can go back and try to figure out what the submissions are. paying attention to the storyline being played out in the upper left hand corner of the screen turns out to be important for completing the submissions (I originally ignored the inane chatter my first time through the game, when I actually paid attention the next go-round and saved the people asking for help I unlocked medals like crazy).
I wish that the Thief series would get picked up and modernized, as well, but that seems to be quite a pipe dream too.
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
It scrolled top down, like 1942 or 1943. It was a Sierra-Online import though, yes.
-Richard
Holy crap. How is it possible I've never seen this before?
I know that probably no one else in the world shares this view, but IMO, Freespace 2 was the best damn PC game ever made. Ever. Any genre. Even the voice acting was great. And it managed to create the feelings of fear and foreboding in a video game without even letting the protagonist leave the cockpit.
Many thanks for posting this link.
Who cares if these young whippersnappers spelled the name of the game wrong?
...have contended for a few years now that if Lucas Arts got off their Ass and re-released these games with updated Graphics for modern computer systems (Hell Make a patch that enables the old versions to work on modern systems and upgrades the Graphics, I'd pay for it) they could make a killing. Bring the look and feel up to day with modern Nvidia and ATI cards they could probably come close to Movie quality visuals. Toss in a few new missions would be nice but not required.
Heck just come out with some new games that leverage the 1,2,3 trilogy. Those Jedi Star Fighters would probably be a blast to fly aorund in.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Sylpheed's user interface has really changed in the last year. I thought with so many people switching to webmail, traditional mail clients wouldn't get much attention anymore. Glad to see I was wrong.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Or the updated Sega CD version that came out a few years after (YES I STILL OWN THIS VERSION OF THE GAME!)
= 8585&fromint=1
http://www.stageselect.com/games/game.aspx?gameid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thexder
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
AAARGH! Shut up! You're both murdering the memory of this incredible game!
The original Sierra/Game Arts version was neither 2D, nor was it quite a top-scroller. It was 3D, with a steep camera angle. Almost top-down, but with real 3D perspective. The starfield, and the enemies came at you from the top of the screen, getting larger as they approached the bottom. If you flew your ship to the left side of the screen, you could see the right side of the ship, and vice versa. The intro was a full 3D space, with sweeping camera moves and all, rendered in wireframe. The game used filled polygons, and ran speedily on my 7.16MHz 8088. I remember it as one of the earliest 3D games.
Wow. IIgs memories. Maybe in name only, but.
-M (Had a IIgs briefly between Amigas...worst decision ever...what a piece of junk, except for the sound card, which was done by the SID chip guy from Commodore)
The original version (developed by Game Arts, sweet soundtrack by Mecano Associates, and published by Sierra Online) was probably the first 3D game I ever played. Check it out. It was 3D, with a 3/4 camera angle. That game blew me away as a kid.
I keep it for the exclusive use of playing old space simulator games like tie fighter and X-wing. I gave up trying to make it all work in XP/vista.
Gawd those were great games.
That sort of game is usually called "2.5D". It was a game with 3D graphics that gave the impression of a 3D playing field but only allowed 2 dimensional movement.It was a pretty fucking good game, though, and it's one of the reasons I keep my Sega CD kicking around.
This poo is cold.
space shooters ain't dead...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
The Slipheed that *I* remember was the Sega CD version, from the 1990s.
:D
Great intro and a total blast.
Time to break out the CD and emulator.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
...not a space shooter.
Go here and play it in your Web browser. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This seems like a game belonging in the era of the System 360 as stated in the review.
Ordo Militum Unix.
Odin Sphere
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It reads like a Penny-arcade Tycho wanna-be. Sheesh.
Shooters have faded, but they will come back. Like always.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
game.giveawayoftheday.com is hit or miss but today its hit and it relates to the subject of space shooters.
r /
They've got a game available today called Space Interceptor that is actually pretty cool. It is reminiscent of Colony Wars on the Playstation.
The only trick is you have to download it and install it today(July 20, 2007) as that is the whole shtick: a free game per day.
Here's a review of it:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/567/567710p1.html
Here's where to get the game
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/space-intercepto
read it as "Project Syphilis Review"
On the other side of the aisle, if you have a PS3, you might enjoy Super Stardust HD. Features great old-school shooter action. You have 4 basic weapons: Rock Crusher, Gold Melter, Ice Breaker, and Bombs. Each of these start off really weak, and you build them up to 100% (or 200% for a short time) by collecting powerups. Your playing field is the orbit around a planet; you face everything from asteroids (which break up when you shoot them, of course) to things like green space centipedes, floating mines, intelligent balls of ice, and more.
Gameplay is simple: left stick moves your ship, right stick fires your weapon. L2 gives you a short speed "nitro" boost in a direction (during which you're invincible), R2 drops a screen-killing bomb. Simple, effective. Story? Characters? Besides the gorgeous HD graphics, this game is oldschool: it doesn't bother you with needless details. Your goal is to shoot lots and lots of things while listening to electronic music tracks and trying to get as high a score as you can. Survive longer, get a higher score multiplier, beat your friends' score on the global scoreboard. That's it. And it's great. And it's $10.
This game gets a score of "Electrum Monkey," which is about 4 out of 5 for those of you who need numbers.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
You may be in luck... have you heard of the Freespace 2 Source Code Project? Basically, FS2 is now open source; not only can you play FS2 in full for free, you can also modify it. Gamers are having a field day with it. I'm pretty sure there's work being done on an X-Wing game, though my sights are fixed more closely on a total conversion based on the new Battlestar Galactica series.
What's wrong with R-Type, Gradius, Xevious, Darius, Exed Exes, Life Force, Last Hope, Parsec(haha), Raiden(my favorite) or Ibara (although not really a "space" shooter).
Why bother playing this new shooter when there are so many old shooters with tight controls and frantic gameplay?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I don't even know what to say. How much computational power is it going to take to make frame-dropping a thing of the past?
(This is both rhetorical and sarcastic. I understand the situation both technical and economic. But still, I wish developers would stop assuming frame dropping is OK. It stopped being acceptable after the Nintendo era, IMHO.)
A correction to the article.
This game is a 3D space shooter. (StarFox, Shadow Squadron, Star Wars Arcade, Darxide)
This game is not a space shooter. (Ikaruga, Thunder Force, Darius, the original Silpheed)
Completely different genres there.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I remember this game from when it was called Wing Commander.
Unfortunately, I've already killed Burhak Starkiller and destroyed the main Kilrathi starbase.
Seriously--what's here that wasn't in WC and/or Freespace2? (BTW, FS2 still rocks and is *fully* worth building a ghetto-fabulous fresnel-monitor-hood for.
what about the friendly folks at freeallegiance.org :D
mmo space shooter thats an rts where you are one of the units... no plot lines there either, but a lot more fun and its free. Granted the source code was released by Microsoft, but don't let that fool you, many hardworking coders continue to tweak it!
The HUD in the pics look remarkably similar to the one used in Allegiance as well....
Insert witty sig here.
Actually, I was enthralled with this game. It has more eye-candy than any other shooter, but the gameplay of a sim it seemed. I was constantly rolling around, dodging and targetting in dogfights, while dipping between giant battleships around me and avoiding their huge lasers as they exchanged fire with other large battleships far away.
The controls were very well done, the only exception being the tutorial that the demo has doesn't allow you to inverse your Y axis (the only travesty I can really think of, since it will probably scare quite a few folks off), but you can remedy that immediately after, or on the title screen options, and everything else just flows together.
I dont care about the story or acting, but the gameplay is great for a fan of the old XWing/TIE Fighter or Wingcommander games. I picked it up at the store the day it came out and I'm immensely happy with it. I really do recommend most people try it out, and if you come from the same PC Gaming background I do, be sure to invert your Y axis and set your camera to cockpit view before you play. The game is great fun, very intense, and has lots of sub-objectives per mission to add some fun replay value as well. Everyone should support this development team and project because not enough games like this are made today.