IRON SOLDIER 2

**A JAG WORLD ORIGINAL**

After a long time of waiting and hoping ("Will it be released or not") I finally recieved my copy of Iron Soldier 2. The screenshots on the box are the same that you can find on the Telegames website. Ok, enough of investigating the box, lets see what's inside.

First Impresion:
After opening the IS2 box I was a little bit confused about the CD-ROM inside. It is the type of CD-R that you use for your CD writing at home. Actually, there is no "IS2" cover in the CD case, just the cover from the CD-R manifacturer. After opening the CD-Case I saw a real nice CD-R with an IS2 logo on it, so no one can tell you that you've bought an illegal copy of the game. Unfortunately there is no plastic overlay for the controller but the one from IS works well with the new game, too.

The Intro:

After a few seconds of loading the rendered FMV-Intro starts. It shows your IS walking through a city and destroying tanks, helicopters, and so on. Nice-Really Nice! No comparison to the FMV sequences from Blue Lightining. It really looks great and makes you want to see more of the game. Sure, it's not that new, you have seen this kind of intro in a lot of PlayStation games, but in this quality it's new for the Jag-CD.

After the intro the main menu appears. You can select to start a new game, load a saved game, or set options. After choosing "Start" you will be presented a screen where you can select what mission you want to play. There are 20 missions in total, but only the first five selectable. This screen almost looks like the mission select screen from Iron Soldier.

As the different wepons and game options are ready to be downloaded in the games manual
at Telegames website I will not describe them here. All I will say is that you select your mission, you get a breifing, and then select your weapons (Just as in IS1.) After this the action starts.

The game play:

In the last two days I played the first 5 missions of the game. My first impression when I started mission one was: "Where are the changes?" But after playing it for a while I found a lot of small changes that have been made in comparison to IS1. The enemies seem to be more intelligent, as they do not ony attack in a single way, but they change their strategy depending on the situation.

There are missions where you have to find supplies, new weapons, and one where you have to protect a convoy from being destroyed. The areas where the action takes place are not too small (as you can see on the map in the briefing.) You often have to walk around to find you targets. The IS is controlled in the same way as the robot in IS1. This makes it easier for IS1 owners to play the game. To my mind the controls are very well chosen, they allow you to react quickly, and they are not difficult to learn. This is a point that should not be underestimated, as I hate to go back to the manual in the middle of the game to find out how to do somthing.

Graphics:

That's the point where you'll find a lot of improvements. All buildings in IS2 are texture-mapped, as well as the enimies. To my mind the textures used for the buildings are a little bit dull, and they could have been done better. The enimies really look great though. If a helicopter flies in front of you, you can see a very detailed surface with logos and individual structures on it.

Your IS moves very fluently, I only have experienced a little slowdown when you blast a building. Otherwise, the game must be running on a relitively high frame rate.

There are also different backgrounds that should not be forgotton. You can see cities, mountains, etc. in the horizon. They look nics, but they aren't very complex (If you rotate your IS you will see the backgrounds will repeat after awhile.) The ground consist not only of one color, but they are also partially mapped with texures.

Sound:

Sound is really great! You can listen to it over your surround-sound equipment, so that helicopters come from behind! Great effect. There are the usual FX during the game, as well as great in game music, that fit the theme of the game better than those used for IS1. I have a problem with the sound on other Jag CD games: Digisounds are often over modulated, you can hear distortions in loud passages. Luckily this problem does not appear in IS2!

Overall:

To my mind the game was worth waiting for. It is not so obviously different to the old IS as I has expected but there are a lot of changes that enhance the playing fun. There are also two points I did not like about it. 1.) If your IS dies you will always see the same FMV Clip. It doesn't matter if you are killed by a tank or a mine, the clip always shows you getting blasted by a helicopter. 2.) There is a problem in the weapon-selection screen. If you have collectedd a number of weapons and equiped your IS with them, you will not be able to remove them correctly after you have completed a mission. For example, you can click on the grenades to be removed, and the shield will start to blink. Then, you have to remove the shield before you can remove the grenades. I have already reported this bug to Telegames and they said they will forward it to Eclipse.

(c) 1997 Markus Schuetze