Star Controller

Skip to 1:51 to see “Fwiffo the Spathi”

On May 22 2009, Nightshadow posted on the UQM Forums about a WiiWare game called Swords & Soldiers. He was reading through the credits and noticed that of all the names under special thanks, our beloved Fwiffo was one of them.

Swords & Soldiers is a sidescrolling real-time strategy game developed by Ronimo Games.  They have created the freeware version of de Blob for PC before THQ picked it up and turned it into a Wii game.

Swords & Soldiers costs 1000 Wii Points ($10.00) to purchase.  It has a zany plot which involves chilis, sauce, an enemy named Lovsbattl and more.  The levels are very short and is great for anyone who wants to play a level for 20 minutes or less.

The biggest factor that made me buy the game is the fact that Fwiffo’s name is in the credits and they have a decent sense of humor.  There are more people in their Special Thanks sections than the people working at Ronimo games and there are so many to thank in addition to Fwiffo.  I’d love to see more developers add Fwiffo under the Special Thanks section in their games.  *cough*  I said… I’d love to see MORE developers add Fwiffo under the Special Thanks section in their games!

If anyone wants to play a WiiWare game and not sure what to get, give Swords & Soldiers a shot.  Any friend of Fwiffo is a friend of ours!

Thanks Nightshadow for posting about this on the UQM forums and everyone at Ronimo Games for their work and taking a few extra seconds to enter “Fwiffo the Spathi”.  It’s awesome when Star Control references pop up by surprise.

Swords & Soldiers homage to Star Control on UQM Forums
Dogar And Kazon pay homage to Ronimo Games

Tags: Thoughts, Videos by Anthony Suarez
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I recorded the Assassins mission and achieved victory. There was no victory cinematic and it only showed Ra-Gar congratulating me. It was a simple mission where I hunted down someone named Hantiir. In the video, I launch a fighter then abruptly left because there were multiple ships attacking my Hyperium Cruiser and its guns were more powerful, so fighters were useless to me for this mission. Like the previous mission, I continued to mash the X button until whatever I targeted explodes.

I noticed a few things after I played this mission.  The first thing I noticed is that there really is no sign on the Alliance of Free Stars.  Apparently the player takes the role of a Hyperium captain.  This could further prove that nothing significant from Star Control I or II carried on to this game.  I don’t even know for sure if the captain is human.

Another thing that puzzled me is the use of the word “shear”.  An example of its usage here is “Captain, we must mop up all enemies here to shear away.”  I’ve never seen “shear” used to describe evading or warping away, so I had to look it up:

Shear
transitive verb
1 a: to cut off the hair from <with crown shorn> b: to cut or clip (as hair or wool) from someone or something ; also : to cut something from <shear a lawn> cchiefly Scottish : to reap with a sickle d: to cut or trim with shears or a similar instrument2: to cut with something sharp3: to deprive of something as if by cutting <lives shorn of any hope — M. W. Browne>4 a: to subject to a shear force b: to cause (as a rock mass) to move along the plane of contact
- Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

If I had an unabridged dictionary, I could probably find a better explanation of this word.

It can be a tedious mission and I managed to get record a victory by aiming and mashing the X button.  There are no powerups and damage the player takes carries on throughout the mission.  This mission could have been more fun in 2-player mode where the second player can take control of the fighter ship launched while the player maintains the cruiser ship.

If have you haven’t read my previous article about StarCon, check that out as well.  It has video of the other mission and a link to the StarCon BIN/CUE image and ePSXe if you’re looking for the emulator.

Tags: Thoughts, Videos by Anthony Suarez
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