Laser Squad Nemesis
Sam goes 'old-skool' with this strategy-by-email extravaganza
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Okay class, hands up who was around in the glory days of the C64 and the Spectrum. Good. Now hands up those of you who played the seminal Laser Squad on one of these machines. Excellent. Now, once more, let's see the hands of those of you who would love to see this game updated for the modern age by the very same people who coded the original. Well boys and girls, teacher has a special surprise for you today. Let's have a look together at: Laser Squad Nemesis.
The aficionados out there may well be familiar with this game as it's been under a public beta test for many months now. Yet for those among us who have just learned of its existence here's a quick rundown. LSN is a PBEM, or Play by E-Mail, game. There's no single player experience, although there is a hotseat mode for those who want to have a game with someone in the same room. You see, LSN is really meant to be played over the net against other people you may not even know. There's a league set-up so you can judge your abilities against those of everyone else, as well as friendly matches you can be play just for the fun of it. To ease you into the game there's a tutorial which will teach you the basics and explain the interface but will leave it up to you to find out how best to win the fight. In this respect the excellent support website for LSN really comes into its own. There's a wealth of both developer and fan-made guides and hints along with a popular and informative forum.
Now LSN ain't gonna win no awards for its stellar graphics or meaty sound effects. To keep the size of the files down to their minimum LSN has very few sounds and basic isometric 2D graphics. This makes for tiny files that accompany each player's email, but in this day of impressively specced machines I hope that a future version may beef things up a bit. Saying this, the graphical work that is on display is of a high standard. There's a nice 50's style retro feel to the units and backgrounds and the whole thing is done in a tastefully arty fashion. The animation is simply simple yet all this bears no negative effect on your enjoyment of the game. The developers have done enough to make the game aesthetically appealing to the player so they can concentrate on outwitting and outgunning their opponent.
Finding those opponents is one area where LSN could do with some improvement. You can send out an open email from within the game looking for an adversary. Setting out what style of game, the name and size of map and number of force points, (to purchase units) then filling in the little space to personalise your call for war - then the waiting begins. Now sometimes I would get a reply within minutes but other times I would get none at all. You can pop over to the forums to have a look for foes for yourself yet I found myself wishing that there was some sort of game room to match up players: waiting for people to respond to your challenge can try the patience. Some sort of IM integration would also go a good way towards resolving some of the niggling problems that LSN has. Another complaint is that you are held hostage to the whims of your opponent. If they choose to abandon the game or take 10 days to post their turn there's not you can do about it. Something to bear in mind if you get angry with people slower than you. One thing that is inexcusable is the games insistence on the presence of the CD. Codo will make their money through subs, and having to dig out the disc every time I want to take a new turn, which may happen at any point in the day, is a real bloody big pain in the arse, and definitely the biggest cause of annoyance. Sort it out guys.
Comments
need to find an email address
Wonderful review.
Couple of points for readers
"One thing that is inexcusable is the games insistence on the presence of the CD"
The publisher required Codo to have this on the retail very as anti-piracy. If you do buy the retail version you can use your 3 month, on a downloaded version of the game (without CD problem).
On the next release of an official release, the version on the retail disc will become obsolete and the problem will fade away.
As for the opponents wanted, there is a list on the official site that you can view to see who is waiting for a match.
Hope to see you on the battlefield
LSNer : welshtroll
Yep, played this a lot in beta and it's quality. Go Codo!
After playing for the last 18 months now I can honestly say that the fun and anticipation of recieving turns is still there, how many games hold that kind of attention ?
to get opponents just visit the chat room in the forum or post on opponents wanted, ask for a quick game and someone will reply!
If you post in the opponents wanted section you will get a post within a few hours, no matter what time of day it is. As for people not playing their turns, this rarely happens and most people never actually experience this.
I guess I must have been very unlucky, (or very boring to play against) but I had five matches time out. Annoying, but there's always more fish in the barrel.
Played this for about two months now. I find as long as you have got 6-7 games on the go you will always have a turn to play during those never ending tea breaks. You can send messages with your turns and some of the comments and observations are a peach.