SWIV 3D - ADG Episode 276

Doom isn’t the only 3D game which plays like a 2D game! ;) Today on Ancient DOS Games, Gemini’s taking a look at SWIV 3D, a three-dimensional take on the SWIV/Silkworm series of shooter games with this one in particular developed and published by Sales Curve Interactive (SCi) in 1996. As you’d likely expect, this game plays well but is VERY difficult and also surprisingly long, with 18 levels, many of which take over a half hour to beat and that’s IF you know what you’re doing. Suffice to say, if techno music and difficult shooters are your jam, and you don’t mind having a bit of exploration thrown in, then this game’s definitely gonna be one to check out! ------------------------------------------ Additional Information and Corrections: * Apparently my memory failed me as I THOUGHT the prior SWIV/Silkworm games used a helicopter and tank duo and as I was rushing to finish this week’s video given current living situations and failed to double-check that point, as prior memories of other similar games like Seek and Destroy had a helicopter and tank so I just assumed it was the same but NOPE! The old SWIV/Silkworm games use an armed jeep. Go figure. :P * So... this game ACTUALLY runs in a 320x400 resolution... That resolution is so incredibly rare for DOS games to use since it’s non-standard and not the highest 256-colour res VGA is capable of that I not only wasn’t expecting it but it completely flew over my head that it was even running that way! The better question now would be if it supports 320x200 at all... hmm... :o * I didn’t catch that I used the same segment of gameplay TWICE IN A ROW during editing... I was really struggling to find relevant clips of gameplay for the stuff I was talking about as despite the hours I put into this, most of the relevant things happened while I WASN’T recording... plus scrubbing through the footage took way longer than normal because I had to record it externally, not using DOSBox’s built-in features, resulting in files which don’t scrub nicely. :/ * One of the bugs I encountered but didn’t go into in the video because I wasn’t sure what was causing it is sometimes, when opening up the joystick axis controls, typically if I had just launched the game and did not create a new pilot profile, it would glitch out the graphics and hang the game. If you need to adjust your joystick axis controls you should either start playing the game properly first or create a new pilot profile first. * One thing that’s a little annoying about the audio in the game in general is it’s not very well balanced, with some of the music being up to 8 dB louder than other tunes, which makes a HUGE difference. Couple that with sound effects which get far too quiet far too quickly with only a little distance from the camera and it can be a bit of a nuisance. For those so inclined you may want to use an audio editor to jack up the volume of certain music tracks in any CD image files you create to help balance everything out better. ------------------------------------------ Pixelmusement Website: ADG on Pixelmusement: Alphabetical Index of ADG Episodes: Kris’ Patreon Page: @Pixelmusement on Twitter: