Advanced Galactic Empire (A.G.E) (1991)

The E doesn't quite work with the chunky font.

Name:A.G.E. (Advanced Galactic Empire)
Number:212
Year:1991
Publisher:Coktel Vision
Developer:Coktel Vision
Genre:FPS/Adventure
Difficulty:4/5
Time:8 hours 10 minutes
Won:Yes (88W/68L)

I had no idea what to expect when I opened up AGE. Was it going to be a space sim? Was it going to be another game like the original? Was it going to be just as audacious as the original? The only one that ended up being true was being like the original. A bit too like the original at times, if you ask me, and a bit too little like the original at others.

The big question is, is it more advanced than the original? That's a tricky thing to say. The inventory screen has been simplified and made easier to use, which isn't a bad thing, but is clearly simplified. The only shield automatically activates, you have one radar which is always on, and the equipment you use is three slots you get. Despite a rather low number of inventory items, I don't even think you get the entire inventory screen filled, I like that better, but advanced it is not.

Dialog is simplified, you just click on a NPC, and the conversation happens automatically, you get whatever, automatically, no trading. I mourn the loss of the dialog system, but not of the trading system. I don't mourn NPCs being less likely to start shooting at you, or your vehicle being incredibly fragile in general, to the point that touching an NPC could hurt you.

It's hard to describe the rest of the changes one way or another. It's faster, but that comes with the "cost" that some characters are sprites rather than 3D models. They're nice sprites, but they have basically zero animation. (Which fits with the uglier models, so neutral) The most interesting addition is choosing where your power goes, to the shields or to the weapon, but it's basically a binary choice as to if you want to shoot something or not die.

There's an exploratory missile mode, where you go over the world in some sort of missile path. Frankly, it's a bit odd, since it doesn't show you enemies, only locations, and it's not like you need that. You also get the opportunity to pick up oxygen barreling around up there. In practice, it's too fast to be easily caught and there really isn't a situation that you'll be desperate enough for oxygen to check. The various dispensers are enough.
 

I think what AGE has going for it is approachability. It lacks the cooler aspects of the original, but it's also less user hostile. It at least tries to tell you how to play, before throwing you into a world that doesn't want you dead nearly as much as the original. It's still going to try to kill you, but at least it gives you a fighting chance and some sense of fairness. The worst moments of this game do not compare to the worst of the original. In this respect you could call it dumbed down, the lows and highs are shaved off to present a more average title.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since this makes AGE come off like you always have something to do. You do in the original, but that came at the cost that one section was very easy to get stuck on. This is basically just a nice ride from start to finish. As always, that means there's never any wondering where to go, but once you've played it, there's zero reason to replay it. In theory, you could try to go through the prison without first getting the okay from the governor, but I doubt the game accounts for that.

It's also very dense, so it feels larger than it is when you're making progress, but when you have to go back, suddenly you realize you haven't gone that far. Since trips to healing stations were somewhat frequent, this isn't as bad as it sounds, and it makes the game much more denser.

The story is an oddity because the focus is both less and more on it. Outside of dedicated conversation areas, most NPCs just tell you where to go or give you stuff, but inside it's very important. (This is how I'm describing the more traditional pixel art backgrounds) Early on, it seems as though you have to figure out where things are going, only for the game to go for a shocking direction that to me, just felt like a random change, no more interesting than hearing a Foreigner song after a Cannibal Corpse song on the radio. Unusual yes, but not shocking or even something I would note if I didn't have to talk about.

That said, this aspect ties deeply into other Coktel Vision games, because while we got these kinds of backgrounds in the last game, they divided the game up. Here we get a taste of Inca, action sequences broken up by, not really adventure game sections. Adventure game sections are more a part of the actual game here. They look nice, but just serving to give us dialog is disappointingly mundane. Outside of the bar, there's basically nothing optional.

As I've said, these games were considered failures, which makes it odd that they never gave up on it, and never really learned anything about it's failure. You can clearly see the transition between the two, despite a mostly different team. Is failure in this case a hindsight view, and they believed that it could work until the company eventually gave up? I don't know, but something about this story is fishy.

From another perspective, I don't think they did anything wrong, save for going for something that technology could not yet achieve. At least here. From a playability point, I think these are the best of their action games. These are intriguing worlds and intriguing situations, and if they came out a few years later and were sprite based rather than early 3D, they'd be cult classics. These are ahead of their time in so many ways, the problem is getting over that harsh, ugly initial point.

I think that people at Coktel Vision learned the wrong lessons from these games. Inca is in many ways inferior to these games, the space sim aspect is simple and hardly an improvement over this ground combat, and the ground combat is basically a light gun game. They're not exactly great examples of either. What Inca has is a mood, it so completely defines it's vague Incan setting that no one else can ever hope to measure up to it, even if it's technically better. Whereas AGE and GE don't define intergalactic secret agents the way they do, even if it were suddenly the most beloved games around.

That said, it is hilarious to see the stark contrast between these stunning backgrounds and the utterly bland 3D.

My desire to see Galactic Empire as an adventure/RPG hybrid is less pronounced here. Sure, it'd still be the better choice, but because this one is more straight-forward, what it is is more acceptable. You'd have to build up your additional choices and paths, and while I like that, this felt good enough as is.

For the most part, I'm not sure on a lot of aspects that don't seem to be very changed, yet also seem better. The controls are mostly identical to the original, yet I never had any trouble this time. It then occurred to me that the game no longer hurts you for touching objects, and your shield doesn't slowly drain as you walk. Instead, the only thing you're racing against is your slowly draining oxygen.

Combat seems identical, but gave me less trouble, probably due to the whole power system. There are four real weapons, then grenades and land mines. Land mines are nice, since the AI is your usual braindead AI, so setting up a trap is easy. The actual weapons, meanwhile, I ended up only using the stunner until I couldn't. Higher damage means little when it costs a lot more ammo and you don't know when you can reload. I'm not even sure some there was a purpose to the fusion gun, despite someone handing it to me like it's something amazing.

I feel like the biggest loss in this game, outside of the dialog, is in the mood. No longer do I feel like a secret agent in a strange world with strange sayings, it just seems like another Galactic Empire. Perhaps in being more advanced, it loses that which made it what it is. Music is the biggest loss here, it's rare for me to not complain too much about one track throughout a game, but that added something to the game. Here, no music outside of the intro.

Weapons:
A basic motley of weapons and extras, with landmines that actually work! 3/10

Enemies:
I'm pretty sure that the difference between most enemies is in stats behind the scenes. Otherwise they all seem to move the same outside of a few endgame oddities. Slowly approach, then deal constant damage. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
Basically just story dispensers, but I like how if you screw things up, or don't want to pay tribute, you can attack some and save yourself some stuff. 3/10

Levels:
There's always something to do, but on the odd occasion you get stuck, it can be very annoying. 5/10

Player Agency:
I probably shouldn't be too generous, since even if I'm used to it, it's still a janky control scheme, but most of the crap has been removed. It's still some effort before it gets entirely reasonable though. I still think the inventory is a bit bad even if it's less crap now. 4/10

Interactivity:
Some clever puzzles, but mostly limited ability to do things, making brute force not just attractive, but easy. 5/10

Atmosphere:
The strange French atmosphere of being able to do anything, even if it doesn't make sense, is still there, but considerably less pronounced this time around. 5/10

Graphics:
The 3D is ugly, but the 2D is pretty nice. 3/10

Story:
Intriguing, but very much a case of just following what the game tells us to do, without trying to understand what's going on. No shocking revelations, no sudden twists, just victory. 3/10

Sound/Music:
Some nice sound effects, but otherwise silence. 3/10

That's 36, but I'm going to be nice and throw in 2 points to bring it to 38, one point less than it's predecessor.

None of the reviews are in English, and seem to be a range of middle of the road scores. I'm guessing that this had no appearance in America, as even the British presence is absent. Pretty disappointing, but to be expected. This game wasn't really well documented and that had to start from some point, but at the very least I'm glad I made it through.

That pretty much ends 1991 as far as FPS titles go, but we'll still be around here for a good few titles thanks to both Apogee and Epic's first FPS titles coming up. Well, in Apogee's case, again. In the meantime though, we'll see a cutesy arcade platformer and another Japanese FPS.