30th January 2003, 7:08 PM
Well. Good... you got it. It is in fact Netstorm: Islands at War... what clue gave you the name? The game's name ('internet-focused'), or the developer (my refrence to irony -- the developer's name was Titanic, and it went down after its first release... :) )? Or a good guess?
Anyway, Netstorm: Islands at War is a very fun RTS with strong puzzle-game influence... I've had it since I got it in December 1997 and still wish it'd succeeded in retail... the game is so unique and fun... but it didn't. I've never seen another game even remotely like it before or since... which is really too bad. It was a good idea... the game is based on floating islands, and you get one as a base. Your units that move are all workers -- the military units are all tower units. And you build bridges, Tetris-style (see the second picture) to build them off of and connect to other islands and mines so ground workers can go mine stuff.
It also had a very intresting online system where you start a island (game) with only the base units and as you win games by killing enemy priests (leader units), you could add more units to your inventory of units. It made getting started as a newbie hard, but was pretty cool how you actually had to earn stuff in multiplayer... gave me a reason to want to keep playing -- to get those cool (more powerful) units... :)
If you want to try it, this site has the full (abandonware -- Activision, the publisher, isn't selling it anymore) game download. Plus instructions on how to connect to the server... Activision took theirs down so its a fan-run server not listed by default.
As you can imagine with a name like 'Netstorm', the game is internet-focused and the single player campaign isn't very good... not that it matters much.
http://www.netstormhq.com
Oh yeah, and IMO its still one of the better RTSes out there... though I am sure nostalgia helps, IMO anyway its still fun. :)
Oh, its your turn now DMiller... how about something tougher than Fire Emblem?
Anyway, Netstorm: Islands at War is a very fun RTS with strong puzzle-game influence... I've had it since I got it in December 1997 and still wish it'd succeeded in retail... the game is so unique and fun... but it didn't. I've never seen another game even remotely like it before or since... which is really too bad. It was a good idea... the game is based on floating islands, and you get one as a base. Your units that move are all workers -- the military units are all tower units. And you build bridges, Tetris-style (see the second picture) to build them off of and connect to other islands and mines so ground workers can go mine stuff.
It also had a very intresting online system where you start a island (game) with only the base units and as you win games by killing enemy priests (leader units), you could add more units to your inventory of units. It made getting started as a newbie hard, but was pretty cool how you actually had to earn stuff in multiplayer... gave me a reason to want to keep playing -- to get those cool (more powerful) units... :)
If you want to try it, this site has the full (abandonware -- Activision, the publisher, isn't selling it anymore) game download. Plus instructions on how to connect to the server... Activision took theirs down so its a fan-run server not listed by default.
As you can imagine with a name like 'Netstorm', the game is internet-focused and the single player campaign isn't very good... not that it matters much.
http://www.netstormhq.com
Oh yeah, and IMO its still one of the better RTSes out there... though I am sure nostalgia helps, IMO anyway its still fun. :)
Oh, its your turn now DMiller... how about something tougher than Fire Emblem?