Game 35: Midwinter 2: Flames of Freedom

Name:Midwinter: Flames of Freedom
Number:35
Year:1991
Publisher:Microprose
Developer:Maelstorm
Genre:FPS
Difficulty: 3/5
Time: 11 hours

I try not to give up on games all willy-nilly. As evidenced by me pretending I'm still trying to win Galactic Empire. Its not a good sign when I'm staring at the screen in in this game, having combed an entire island and missing one of my objectives. I could have always restarted and just done other islands, but do I really want to play this game for effectively the rest of 2020? October is coming up, and I don't want to deal with a horror (two really) game in addition to this, Blake Stone and Galactic Empire...plus whatever else I'm going to be playing. Its too much for any man.

Midwinter 2: Flames of Freedom, so called because Midwinter means something rude in Germany, is the sequel to Midwinter, set entirely off Midwinter and without any winter. You play as a secret agent, sabotaging (destroying everything that moves) islands of the evil Saharan Empire. Of which there are some 40-ish islands. They're planning on invading Verde, the only island controlled by the Atlantic Federation after Midwinter sank. You have to make it so the invasion force isn't going to steamroll the island. You do that by performing objectives on each island. These being buildings to blow up or commanders to kill. You don't know where the objectives are, but you get a contact which will create a web of contacts.

Some contacts may need to be convinced, by using various skills (that the player chose at the start) or by performing a task for them. Some are spies, and you'll get thrown in prison. Where you can also convince your jailer to let you out. This doesn't really trip you up too much, just a loss of a day per action. Since the invasion is measured in months this isn't a good place to be.

That's effectively the strategy portion of the game. What about the action? Well...Flames has an interface like any good shooter would, weapons, health, gas. And controls like any good shooter would, freedom in aiming, shooting, all that good stuff. On paper, its just as good as any other shooter. In practice, you use the mouse's vertical axis to control your speed, space bar to shoot, and a combination of the mouse buttons and horizontal axis to aim. This is not very easy to control. In fact, it's very difficult. Turning is very tricky and up and down even more confusing. If it weren't for homing missiles it would be completely unbearable to actually attack anyone.

Which brings me to the combat. You have a lot of choice here, weapons, vehicles, underwater, land and sea. None of it means anything. The only practical way of dealing with enemies is rapidly turning around and shooting homing missiles. There's only so long you can do that before it gets extremely mundane. Its not really a kill or be killed thing, I didn't get really hurt once. Its certainly possible to get into a situation where you're screwed, but that's unlikely and requires some stupidity on your part. You can literally just drive vehicle to vehicle hijacking each one. A bigger flaw with the combat is that the game stops each time you kill a commander.

See, each time the player enters a different screen, they have to load, probably because the game is big or something. Talking, hijacking, map, and of course killing an enemy commander. Each has a loading time of 10-15 seconds, less for hijacking. And another back again. You have to do this a lot. A lot. Why? The game is basically just a massive space of absolutely nothing. There's barely any interesting elevation and no scenery beyond a stray tree or building. Midwinter's abstraction worked because it was permafrost. Why is this tropical setting so barren? Could it be that making 40ish islands and the surrounding sea resulting in a game that's properly massive was a bad idea?

Before I go to the scoring, I'd just like to mention the special weapons. They're effectively small "I win" devices. Be it for a singular objective or just kill all nearby enemies. You get these depending on how well you do on a singular island. In practice mode, you can get some of these for free, in regular mode, you have to actually complete an island first.

Weapons:
There are dozens of weapons, but none of that matters. You're going to go through vehicles until you get something with homing missiles, then hold onto that as long as you can. The aiming is too inprecise to do dumbfire attacks. 1/10

Enemies:
There are a dozen vehicle types, all of which have the same basic AI. The only real difference is whether or not you can capture one on foot. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
This is the first game I've played that has a real nice setting here. There are a dozen characters on every island. In theory, some are enemy spies, some are your allies, and some are neutral. In practice, some are enemies, some are your allies. 3/10

Levels:
There are fourty or so islands and no real barrier dividing them up. You can even explore underwater. Now, I only really visited the one island, but I would have to describe it as Lego Island, without the charm. 2/10

Player Agency:
The entire time I was playing this, the controls were there, but completely wrong. Turning 180 or even 360 was not uncommon. The way looking up and down was also unwieldy. Let's not talk about anything out at sea. 2/10

Interactivity:
There isn't really any interactions with the environment, except blowing things up, I guess. 1/10

Atmosphere:
I don't get a coherant sense of atmosphere here. There's no sense of desperation, no sense of a calm country drive, no sense of violence. Just that I'm there and doing a mission. There is a sense that I get no rest, but that's different from desperation. 0/10

Graphics:
The 2D artwork is really nice, but the 3D somehow feels worse than the proceeding game. It doesn't really look like much of anything. With snow, you have an excuse for why its all white, but all green? 2/10

Story:
The Saharan Empire is going to invade and you have to stop it. Just because the setting is a bit more grand doesn't make it any more interesting. 1/10

Sound/Music:
The music in this is very nice, even moreso in the Amiga version. The DOS version, on the other hand, barely has sound. What sound there is greatly annoying. I'll take the Amiga setting, you're going to want to play that version anyway. 7/10

That's 20. That's 8 points lower than Midwinter and puts it in the same rating as Dino Defender. Does that make Dino Defender bad for a newer game or Flames of Freedom good for an older game? That's up to you to decide, because I don't really have any thoughts on that. What I do know is that Flames is guilty of only trying to make a better game than technology would allow at the time. Its kind of like a Far Cry game made in 1991.

Contemporary reviews were much more favorable. Many seemed surprised that the Amiga and Atari ST could run something this big. Only Computer Gaming World actually cared about whether or not there was content inside that world, and only enough to give it a score in the 60s. There are no modern reviews, because anyone doing this in DOSbox is going to be bored out of their mind on loading screens and I'm sure its worse on a real machine. You can't really escape this by speeding it up, because then the game goes way too fast.

In other news I'm doing Legacy - Realm of Terror over at The Adventure Gamer. If everything goes well any future adventure reviews from yours truly will be done over there. It goes without saying, but anytime I'm doing something over there will be less time I'm dedicating here. I know the last month hasn't had a lot of stuff from me, but I needed a break from the stuff I was playing. Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold will resume after October, because I'm going to play something spooky.

Flames of Freedom: Blub, Blub, Blub

Its been a while. The siren song of Blake Stone has been more appealing than the rather more unrelenting nature of Flames of Freedom. The less said about Galactic Empire the better. Blake Stone is actually the tenth game since then, a good sign for my continued progress. Not to mention I haven't truly made any progress in 3 months. Right, enough whining about that.

I left off in a submarine, in the midst of fighting some zeppelins and a boat. Well, I say that, but its not much of a fight when you can't hit inside the water. By the same token, I can't hit them, so the me and my enemies are stuck in a stalemate. So I steal a zeppelin, from a boat. Figure it out yourself. I didn't realize how much of a joy it was to fly one. I make short work of the nearby squadron. There's another squadron of boats nearby, I might as well solve two problems at once.

As I fight the boats it very quickly becomes apparent that there's another problem, the blimp can't hit anything on the ground. Which leads me me hijacking a boat. A minute or two of combat later, and a boat change, and the unit is destroyed. That's lame...Of course, there's nothing else here, at least on the surface. It occurs to me to actually pay attention to the stated locations of the objectives. That puts the base, and probably the radar station, on the little crescent on the northern part of the island.. That leaves the enemy, if I were expecting a realistic placement of the "Famous Flying Subs" I would put it near there, but I'm prepared to be disappointed.

I return to the sub I left behind. This is a bit tricky as somehow a small group of hovercraft are on the attack and the sub sunk to the bottom. Interesting situation, but whatever. Soon enough I'm slowly autorouting my way across the island. Fun fact, if you enter the map screen, your autoroute is removed. Hope that wasn't vitally important or anything.

Outlook Island is a little chunk of rock off the coast of the north eastern point of the island. I assume, it could very well be the whole part of the island. Its guarded by submarines and speedboats, which works to my advantage, I wanted another one anyway. After eliminating the commander of the submarines, who looks quite comical, I began to look for the radar station, since it should be nearer to me than the base.

The radar station proves to be a bit tricky to get to. Its on the ground, which means taking out the speedboats, and that means no sub. Fortunately, its no problem sneaking onto one from the water. Speedboats are fast, and on the water that's not necessarily a good thing, but I manage to roll with it enough to take out a few speedboats. I try to take out the radar, ending up beaching my craft. No matter, I have grenades. Now, the base. Oh, and as I get back on a speedboat, you'd never guess who I manage to take out. The commander of the speedboat squadron.

My crossing to the base is rather nightmarish. There's a landbridge, for the monorail there. Which means there's not enough water to cross my sub through. On the other side, I am besieged by minisubs, which are too quick to control and are questionable in their homing capabilities. Then I find out there's something called a crawler, crawls on the sea, I missed it in the manual. The minisub, when engaged with combat with a regular sub, misses more often than not.

But after a loss of the minisub and a lucky acquisition of a regular one, the underwater base is destroyed. Now, where are the famous flying subs? Well, I asked that question too soon.

Quickly the flying subs attack, and boy, are they a pain to fight. My only ability to retaliate against them is in another vehicle, they're too fast when I'm just swimming. Even so, I am forced to hit them from far away, otherwise they'll take out my sub in one hit, and with enough injuries I have no choice but to bypass it in a scummy way. See, whenever you activate a menu, the enemies disappear, so I just rested, underwater, for a few hours until most of my injuries were gone.

And for what? Its not even the right flying submarine squadron. I go to the north, clearing out the seafloor as I go, nothing. I go to the south...as I transition between areas, something interesting happens. Interesting.
My sub is destroyed, beached. Its a quarter mile into the shore. Several enemy boats are trapped inside. I have no idea what screwed things up, but no matter. I quickly get back in the water and find myself a boat. The sea doesn't have him. A lot of boats, but no flying subs. Well, they're flying subs, they have to be somewhere, might as well be somewhere on land.

Upon returning to land, I quickly end up in the sights of a tank brigade. They seem to have homing capabilities, and I don't. But I manage to take out the commander and all is well. Comandeering every other vehicle sure helps. Now, the only question is, where are those damn flying subs?

This Session: 2 hours

Total Time: 11 hours

Flames of Freedom: Groundhog Day

Last time I had freed the island of Lobos...in a simulation. Something that makes this entry less interesting. On the other hand, I beat that partially by taking advantage of equipment given to me by the game. Since my mode of transportation should be the same I can not make the same mistakes I did last time. There's another small problem, I've got to start a campaign, which apparently takes a fresh floppy, something I have no experience doing in an Amiga...or much of anything. This turns out to be less difficult than I give it, and soon enough I start the imaginatively named Operation Eden. I say less difficult, but naturally the game doesn't wish to cooperate. If I didn't pick out the right floppy going into the screen, I'm screwed over and have to reset. And while I possess the means to create a blank disk, I don't have the means to format it. Back...to DOS...
I'm starting to understand why this game is so unloved, considering how difficult it is to start a proper campaign in Amiga and how crap the DOS version is in comparison. At least loading times should be shorter. Oh...god, does this mean I can't just quit in the middle of a mission? Oh, if it does we'll be ending this play session right here. Right, Lobos, I know the story, and so should you.

Because I know what I'm doing, I'm heading straight for the mountain region, hopefully to knock off some enemies. As I advance more and more, I begin to wonder where the enemies are. I check my map and when I return I remember why I stopped playing the DOS version. Awful static. But at least I know where I should be looking.

The one leader of an enemy squadron I know of quickly loses his two helicopters, but enemy balloons and biplanes join the fray. As my ammo runs low, I jump from copter to another copter, then finally a plane. And let me tell you, flying a plane in this game is terrifying. I jump into a jeep at the first opportunity I get. Hopefully I can drive off the enemy planes with this. I also suspect the static issue is something in the music failing to turn off as modes are changed. This is basically confirmed as I start up autoroute.

So I handle the talking as I did the first time. My contact takes me to his master/serial killer, who takes me to the resistance fighter, who tells me of the secret base and takes me to the island's nurse. Here's where things change up a little. When I'm at the nurse's little island, the name of the island I'm on changes as do my objectives. Interesting. I guess this means I can actually hop islands? No matter, the nurse heals me and tells me of enemies nearby. I think its a target at this time, but I can't actually check.

Anyway, I just swim back. Its not that hard. I can rest up to full health while swimming. However, going full speed tires my guy out real fast. So it takes most of the night to reach the "mainland". Upon which I encounter hovercrafts. Sure would have been nice if you boys were out last night. Anyway, I grab one and start blasting. Now, despite my enjoyment of all this combat so far, I need to figure out where the other two objectives are and I don't have a boat or sub. I don't know if hovercrafts will give me scuba suits when I leave them.

What continues is mostly uninteresting. My autoroute is interrupted twice, once by a need to rest, and the second by some trucks. With those, and a rearming out of the way, I meet the farmhand my contact knows. Unfortunately, this guy needs persuading. Fortunately, he tells me of a traitor. Knowing me, I'll mess up somehow and end up talking to her. He also tells me of someone he knows, someone I remember screwing me over last time. Oh, well. Not everything can work out to my favor.

At this point, I saved and quit. Despite what this seemingly irrelevant act seems like, it is important. Saving going wrong would just be another headache, but fortunately it goes well. I go back to a town I passed on my way down, whereupon I succeed in getting someone to tell me about the people she knows. A very helpful act, but I am no closer to my objectives. I return to my previous plan, but encounter some enemy troops on the way. Bringing me to the street musician. She just offers me more information, the location of a belly dancer and a teacher. Something tells me this tangled web of thieves, whores and farmhands will give me little practical information. I guess I have to bite a bullet and get something out at sea.

One contact is near the sea, the side I think I need to be on, anyway. The lovely person stabs me in the back. I think so anyway. When I check my pictures later, oh, this was the traitor. I thought my pilot friend blew up the resistance center? After a couple of days, I break out. Leaving me on the northern side of the island with no weapons and more importantly, no transport. Transport shows itself soon enough, but I still have no weapons, and no way of traveling on the sea. And this transport isn't even moving anyhow. Time to start swimming.

My efforts pay off. I quickly get on a boat and shoot other boats. Submarines appear and I can even capture them from the boat. Unfortunately, subs are still easy to destroy deathtraps. Eventually I secure myself one, save from the prying hands of the enemy. And I begin to destroy underwater buildings. There are a ton of them. Well, two. This is going to take a while, isn't it?

This Session: 2 hours

Total Time: 9 hours

Flames of Freedom: Hopping Islands

All right, last time I had found out where to hit one of my targets. Now to hit that target. Plus, now I've figured out how to make screenshots in-game. That's gonna solve some of my problems. Now, where am I...?

...Sigh...No boat, a ton of swimming enemies. I might just have to restart anyway. I see another problem. Underwater base. I can probably get a boat assuming I can find a stupid pilot, but a sub or a flying sub isn't going to be easy. I'm seeing why this game didn't get a sequel.

Look at this, they're even at the doorstep already...and he's just as slow as I hoped. Now, boat combat. Boat combat is horrible. You can't hit targets under the water. Your missiles explode if they touch the water. Now I'm not an expert in aquatic warfare, but I'm pretty sure that's the stupidest thing you could do. So much so that I'm pretty sure this is a result of in-game incompetence. No military that has survived WWI would not do that. Here, nobody must have ever thought about it since they have flying subs anyway. So I have a valiant fight with a boat. Takes a lot of damage, good thing too, since dodging seems impossible and turning is slow.
After my inevitable loss of the boat, I start to consider how badly I'm screwed. Open waters, low energy, tons of enemy vehicles that want me dead. Dunno if this game is going to break how the first did it, I'm not going to hold my breath. Another boat acquired, but I'm running on fumes. I thought I rested at the end of the last session? Does hiding out not rest me up? Checking my map to make a route, and I can definitely foresee I'm about to get screwed. I've made a grand total of very little, there's still seven boats, no subs though, must be more confusing crap here than I thought.  Well, might as well kill them all. I'm already screwed.
More fighting ensues, resulting in me losing another boat. This is going to be a long game. As I stand still, hoping to regain some strength, I just how my health is doing. Apparently I'm only down some 33% and some minor injuries. Not bad for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. But now there's not a boat nearby, and my injuries prevent me from reaching my top speed. So I do the only thing I can do, autoroute to land.

As soon as I arrive, I encounter a neutral NPC. Fortunately, I think I can persuade her. This turns out to end badly for me. As soon as I try to seduce her, I am captured by the secret police. Imagine my luck when I find out my prison guard is also a woman. At which point I am beaten. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I screwed up during character creation. Well, guard number two looks like a dweeb, so I'm sure I can beat him up. I'm right, shocking. Now, where am I?

North-western side, nice, nice. Not too far from one of my objectives. Unfortunately, I don't have a craft capable of going underwater and I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy finding one. So I walk back to Patrick Wilson. He doesn't have a boat, but he does offer me a hiding place. I guess I'm going to be swimming.
Ah...good, they've found me. Thanks a lot bud, see if I show up as a character witness in your trial. They've got tanks, which means poor offense from yours truly. Multiple direct hits, dumb-fire. Of all the games to have realistic tank combat, its the one that moves slowly. Right, take the tank to the see, then flee to the enemy base and hope I don't screw up.

I am interrupted by boats. Getting out of autoroute in the middle of combat is annoying. You are kicked back to the regular screen, followed by entering the map and then clearing your route. Now I'm on a boat. This is going to be fun. Somehow I managed to kill most of the fleet I was engaged with. As I'm doing this, a new color appears on my radar. I have yet to see a light blue icon recently. Not a good sign. But as quickly as it appeared, it disappears. Must be something on land, and that's of no concern to me right now. Nevermind, to the secret base. Hopefully a sub takes some bait.
I'm shocked there's nobody here. What kind of defenses are these? Just the one set of boats that fled from my superior boating skills? What kind of crap is that? Spoke too soon, now to capture something...I hope. The boat lets me leave with a scuba suit. I think they're called frogmen. Doesn't matter. Underwater, the enemy has a flying sub, which is too fast for me to capture for once, and a regular sub.

The sub, as I didn't notice during my first test drive, is confusing to boat. You don't see up and down like every other vehicle, you go up and down. After some misses due to the missiles on a sub being useful, I hit the building. Score. Now to drive off my enemies. Or get shot. Underwater, enemies seem to be able to hit you almost non-stop, with little change of dodging or counter-attacks. Swimming speed underwater also doesn't help, so you can just quickly change together a series of captures.

Curiously, during this quite long combat, I manage to eliminate a whole squad of flying subs. Takes a ton of missiles, not to mention taking the boat in reverse a good chunk of the way to land. I finish off this grand combat by escaping the enemy subs to land, the boats having broken off. My final capture is some speed boat. It is faster, and it has the same arms, but can also go on land. Which makes it 1 out of 3 objectives, seven hours in.
Which, obviously, leads to a minor problem. I still have no idea where the other two fellows come in, and I'm not entirely certain anything I do here is permanent. So, I'm going to take advantage of the special equipment the game gives you. First item, Black Widow, which targets my next target and kills them, after 40 minutes. Second item, Flying Fox, which destroys the next building or village on my list, after 2 hours. In a long game, this gives me very quick, very simple results, should I be running low on time. After a short period of driving around, it starts loading and a new tune starts up. Lobos is liberated. Is it just a theoretical thing or is it real? A return of the intro cutscene happens. The island turns pink, two others liberated...Each island gives me something material and a secret weapon, no doubt due to my selection of difficulty. It then returns me to the main menu. So, that's a good test run then. Next time, the real thing...and I'm going to have to play this mission over again. This is going to reach 80 hours isn't it? Right, next time, Morpheus tries to figure out how an emulated empty floppy works.

This Session: 2 hours

Total Time: 7 hours

Flames of Freedom: African Wolves

There were some unpleasant facts I had to face at the start of this session. I could play the game with crap sound...or I could try the Amiga version. This would make it the first multi-floppy game I've played on the Amiga. But sure enough on the second attempt everything goes smoothly. No graphical downgrades*, but some obvious loading times. Hopefully that won't screw with anything. Even the sound is a marked improvement. There's also the issue that I won't be able to save in-game, but I can work around that.
Testing with the vehicles end up showing the sound is greatly improved. The music amazing, the 3d scenes don't make dogs within a ten mile radius start barking. There's even the odd background sounds. There's some minor control issues. However, considering my previous talent at the shooting in Midwinter, I think I'll be choosing the novice setting here.

We're also going to pretend I didn't forget to crop these shots

I start the campaign off at Lobos, the western-most fortress. The fortresses different from regular islands in that these supply the Saharan Empire's armies just as much as the mainland. I completely cut off the mainland, and nothing will change, because these places are still in operation. I have three tasks here, one, kill the admiral of of their flying sub unit. Destroy the radar, and destroy their underwater base. This won't be easy...probably. I'd just like one moment of pause, while we consider the island named after wolves have nothing to do with land. I will arrive by helicopter and my armament will be quite pathetic.

No, seriously, can't I get some more ammo? Sigh... The journey to the island takes 36 hours. I have two pieces of information to help me. There's an insider on the northern most village, ignoring the big crescent thing. And an enemy to kill west of the big spire. Which tells me nothing. This island is clearly very empty in terms of population, having two villages of a very small population.

It takes a while to get to the upper village. My helicopter is fast, but going fast in this game isn't the best experience. Its not like the first game with the skiing. Its not even snow. When I arrive I hit upon a minor problem. Landing. So I very gently put down my helicopter...and it crashes. Okay, time to talk with my contact and maybe commandeer a vehicle or two.

Talking with my contact proves...interesting. I first ask them to give me information about people, at which point she tells about a farmhand and a street musician. Which feels very 21st century revolution. Both of these people are on the other side of the island, which is not someplace I plan on going unless necessary. My other option is secret journey, in which they lead me to someone who's whereabouts need to remain secret. In Achebe's case, his option looks like a serial killer, but stopping him can wait for later, there are more important things right now.

His master is the Harbor Master, better to dump the bodies at sea. No one's going to blame you if bodyparts mysteriously wash up on shore. He shows me where some enemy squadrons are, not that I needed to know that, but any information is good information. There's a lot of them, but they're out at sea. He takes me to see a member of the local resistance. He looks a lot like me, but without the sunglasses. He wants me to destroy the control tower at Jubilee Plateau. Its at this point I realize I have a tiny problem, I can't destroy this building or the other two I need to. The Admiral? That guy is going down. Don't need a rocket to kill a man. I also realize I don't have transportation. There's a garage here, but it only refuels, not give me a vehicle. Fortunately, I see a truck approaching. It is mine now.

This leads to what I like to call, problem number 3. The map doesn't tell me where the secret base nor the radar. This is going to take a while, isn't it? So let's take an autoroute. Which in case it isn't obvious, is fast travel. Straight off, I see a minor problem with this. I still have to be at the screen. At least, that's what I think at first. Then I hit F4, thinking that'll turn autoroute off. That makes me go faster. So, right at my destination.

Then I start fighting some hot air ballons right off that autoroute. This seems really easy as long as I don't screw things up. My missiles seek out flying enemies, I guess its a SAM truck. They fire rockets at me, but I'm sure they're missing. Eventually...I get taken out...or not...? The menu I'm taken to just tells me I took out six out of eight balloons. And it shows me the normal return menu...

Its back to normal. More balloons, and some tanks, helicopters. You know, I don't think they're going to buy this is a simple rebellion if one guy with a truck is crushing their military might. Also, I'm running into the very real possibility of running out of ammo. That could be a problem, because neither me nor the truck are capable of fleeing this area. Better be a garage nearby. But as my bodycount keeps racking up, I notice that some of the icons on my radar are different. It takes a while to check the manual, but nope, I'm not doing anything wrong.

Then things go wrong. They destroy my vehicle. This is going to suck....I can commandeer a moving vehicle? I can do that. Huzzah. The tank actually seems worse than the truck in combat prowess. That's right, its slower, less missiles, and any damage absorption seems pointless. It gets blown apart in short order. After a short panic run around, dodging missiles, I jump in another truck and blow my enemies away in short order. In-between loading screens and checking the manual, I don't think I need anything else here. Oh...good. Escaping proves difficult. Because I think the enemy damaged the truck I'm driving. At first I thought it was just slow as balls, but no, its screwed, like a boat. Maybe that was the problem.
Now I'm no expert in such things, but I don't think that's how vehicles brake down unless the steering is locked one way or another. This also happens if the player injured. I wasn't aware they were shooting bullets laced with alcohol or shooting flashbangs. Whatever, this doesn't affect autoroute. I can rest when I'm done with James. He offers me knowledge of where the secret underwater base is, blows up an important piece of enemy infrastructure and takes me to see a nurse/nun. Which turns out to be a wise thing, as the nurse offers me the location of the enemy sub squad. There's a lot of subs. She also heals me.
I start to understand that I might have screwed something up when starting the game. Instead of campaign, I think I chose raids. Might as well see this one play out to the finish.

This Session: 3 hours

Total Time: 5 hours

*Technically, this isn't true, but the dithering is good enough that the graphical limitations are ignorable.

Flames of Freedom: Agoraphobia

With E.S.S a bust and Galactic Empire continuing to confound me, its time to take another look at Midwinter. Flames of Freedom is the sequel, but you wouldn't know that by looking at the title. At first glance, this is less a strategy game and more a straight combat game. The introduction tells me that Midwinter found a kindred spirit in the nearby island of Verde and formed The Atlantic Federation. Midwinter disappeared beneath the sea and Verde changed their name into Agora. There are more islands, controlled by the Saharan Empire. The islands provide slaves, and the Empire is looking to expand its territory. My job, as the top agent of Cobra, AF's spy agency, is to incite revolt among the people of the other islands. They're not to happy to be part of the Empire. Naturally the Empire can't know I'm doing this, as that means they'll attack sooner, rather than later.
Dunno why they'd kill off the island from the last game, but what do I know?

As I start up the game, I am assaulted by screen after screen of gorgeous pixel art. Looks like Alone in the Dark. Ah, what a shame it isn't. Right, now unlike the original, I make my own character, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time I've done such a thing in a game I've played here. A surprisingly customizable character. A lot of facial features. Changing the head without changing the features results in someone who looks like they were putting on blackface, but forgot to finish the task.

Sunglasses and mustaches, how very '70s

I make someone that doesn't look like complete crap. It is scarily easy to make someone look weird with just one wrong piece. It seems like the pieces are divided into white pieces and black pieces, if you have a black piece on a white figure, it looks like they're coal miners, vice versa, the half-blackface thing. Now, its time to train. The game offers practice modes of every part of the game. And there's like six modes. This is quite impressive. Strategy, escape, land, sea, air, amphibious and firefight. The game's manual tells me that I can't just coast like in the first game. Not in words, but in the implication of the end-game...and the mid-game. Hopefully the fighting improves to compensate.

Strategy is just a theoretical look at what your actions will accomplish. The gist of it is go after the strongholds, which are dark green. Its really just a planner for the main game, unless they were clever and had it not give you the actual result. After all, such simulations are the first thing to go out the window when reality arrives.

Prison. It appears that the in-game characters use the customization system. Interesting. I quickly discover that my character can't beat his way out, but can romance his way out. Okay, workable. I could try bribing, but I don't plan on wasting money on such rabble.

Land, wonder how...oh...good. Six modes. A jeep sounds good...and as soon as the game starts up every goes south fast. The opening midi was pretty sweet, now it is a horrible high-pitch whine I believe is engine noise. The driving controls don't make much sense and my camera angle seems to not follow my vehicle at all. With a curious speed that didn't seem to make much sense. Checking the manual, and sneaking past the part where they tell me what I need to do to capture an island, I eventually make it to the controls section. Its like the base game at first. Speed up/down and turning are controlled with the obvious mouse axis, but looking up and down? Left and right mouse buttons. Esc is get out of vehicle, space is shoot, and F1 is the actions menu. I didn't find those last keys in the manual, it only tells you movement. The reference card lets me know all the important stuff, weapon selection, that every freaking F key up to F10 is used.

So, continuing, the shrieking sound continues, but if you go in and out of the 3D mode, it seems to get better...although I'm pretty sure now my speaker is just putting out a pitch my ears can't hear. Changing sound to pc speaker solves this, although now I have to contend with a bad rendition of the theme. I still don't understand driving yet. Changing weapons doesn't seem to work. However, as I wander around, I come across another person. You'd think there'd be something to explain this kind of stuff, but oh well. Rowana agrees to help me and gives me the blimp in her pocket. No joke, she has a blimp in her pocket. This is going to be a bit weird, but oh, well.

Air is like A-10 Tank Killer, the original version, if the controls were difficult to operate. I'm pretty sure there's some difference between modern mice speed and DOS mice speed. Plus after a certain height you stop seeing the ground. Which makes things a bit more terrifying, to say the least. I'm sure I'm going to have as much fun as I did with the original flying vehicles. I say that, and as soon as I start operating the helicopter, the pain disappears. There's also the jetpack, which is even more terrifying.

Water...well, I don't seem to be able to properly do water. When I do the speedboat, the logical starting choice, it automatically crashes. When I get out, I end up swimming...on land. With all the twisting turns you'd expect. When I swim on the ocean proper...well, that's just terrible and I doubt I'd be able to get far. I feel like this is a pretty good way to get someone seasick...or confront their fears about being seasick. I question the usefulness of sea vehicles at this point, but I'm sure I'll come around later.
The amphibious vehicles are fine. As fine as they can be considering the hours of terror that are about to arrive.

Fighting. As mentioned previously, I can't just scoop up some explosives and drive over to the Saharan Empire's HQ. I have to fight. When the fighting starts, the game makes it clear this isn't going to be fun. It might be, if the game didn't stick me in a flying sub and force me to use that. Did nobody think during testing that a new player might want to drive a tank, walk around, or heaven forbid, use a vehicle that I can probably find? I feel like this game's going to have a bit of quality issues. That's not getting into minor things, like how everything feels like vaguely European islands, with trains, buses, and green grass.

This Session: 2 hours