In Strike Base the earth is once again threatened by alien forces. The player controls Admiral Leighton who has to coordinate and lead the defense battles on four moons with different geographical features (lava, mountains, forest and underground). Every mission begins with the tactical map where the actual combat situation is shown. Then the player has to equip the vehicles with the appropriate weapons, defenses and other tactical items like satellites or teleports. In every mission the player has a predefined set of the four vehicle types at his disposal (two tanks, a bomber and a battle glider).
After these tactical preparations begins the action part of Strike Base: The player controls the vehicles in 1st or 3rd person view and shoots at the alien troops, e.g. rocket launchers, tanks or mines. Of course the player can only use one unit at a time, so he can set waypoints for the others. The vehicles are almost completely mouse controlled, the keyboard used solely to control the speed. Destroyed enemies leave refreshments for the player's equipment, it can also be stocked up at the base.
The 15 missions have varied goals, e.g. destroying all enemies, finding escape capsules or destroying specific hostile units. A mission is lost when all units are destroyed or the enemy conquers the player's base. There are four difficulty settings which affect the number and strength of the enemies but only on the two higher settings can all missions be played.
Strike Base is a decent 3D space shooter that features good graphics for its time, created from an unusual mix of Voxel, 3D vector, and bitmap technologies. The typical save-the-world plot: you are pilot of prototype fighter Strike Base, the last hope for mankind against the alien invasion in 2218AD.
In addition to nice graphics, Strike Base features expandable weapons (similar to R-Type but less intricate), the ability for you to fly or drive 4 vehicles simultaneously, and 4 completely different worlds. I find the game very difficult due to impossible odds, but fortunately you can lower the difficulty level from the main menu. The mouse-based interface is easy to learn and use, and there are plenty of enemies, both ground-based and aerial, for you to destroy. All in all, Strike Base is not a revolutionary action game by any means, but it is fun regardless. Perhaps the most striking thing about this game was that it was coded entirely by one programmer, Markus Oberrauter, who succeeded in convincing Max Design to publish his game. The novel combination of various 3D graphics technologies also lends the game a different look than other space combat titles. Worth a look, but not really attractive for long-term play.
Max Design was a Austrian game developer(located in Schladming). They released some games which gained cult status particularly in the German-speaking countries. The company closed in 2004.
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DOS - Strike Baseby bloodyAries822 views
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