.KEYWORD hexcon
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Battle across the stars
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY HexCon, from developer Jason Goldman, is a game of skill in which you command a fleet of warships against an enemy fleet of similar spacecraft. Steve Niles shares an entertaining review of this fun, fast-paced Palm OS strategy game.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
Alien war fleets, strategy, hexagonal shapes. These are a few of my favorite things. And they all come together in the exciting Palm OS game, HexCon, from developer Jason Goldman. You can find it at http://www.jasongoldman.com/hexcon.html. HexCon is a game of skill in which you command a fleet of warships against an enemy fleet of similar spacecraft. The skill comes in the maneuvering of your ships based on chess-like movement patterns and relative strengths. It’s a fun, fast-paced diversion with a far more intricately conceived method of play than your standard Palm OS game.
HexCon is the kind of game that really needs a back story. In the opening splash screen, shown in Figure A, we meet the typical sci-fi action hero–all chin, teeth, and hair.
.FIG A Two intergalactic opponents face off.
We’re also introduced to what we can assume is his sworn enemy–your typical bug-eyed alien. That’s about all we know.
Based on his appearance, we can assume our hero might be some advanced form of human, several rungs beyond us on the evolutionary ladder. His chiseled features suggest centuries of selective/adaptive breeding, resulting in the propagation of a race of near supermen, with thick locks of golden hair, dimpled, protruding chins, and broad, sturdily built shoulders. The larger-than-normal eyes suggest a race purposed for space travel, where keen eyesight is necessary to pick out and distinguish the various pinpricks of light that dot the canvas of the universe.
But what of his foe? If we are to believe that this race of supermen are descendents of ourselves, some millennia hence, it would be reasonable to assume they’ve colonized the planets of our own solar system and moved beyond. Naturally, this would lead to an encroachment on other worlds, and if those worlds should be inhabited, then those meeker populations than our own must be crushed beneath the manifest destiny of our species as we spread out and take possession of the universe that is rightfully ours.
However, the time may come when we encounter a race whose will is as strong as our own. It only makes sense that these two titan species would lock horns, doing battle across the stars in powerful faster-than-light warships, fighting for ultimate supremacy over all of infinite space.
.H1 Playing the game
So anyway, from the opening screen, you can choose from One Player or Two Player, or you can resume a game you’ve already started. A dialogue box will then appear, asking you to select the level of difficulty: Easy, Normal, or Expert.
Next comes the Game Configuration screen. Here you select the number of ships in the respective fleets, from three to nine. Once you’ve done that, just hit Start Game, and you’re taken to the battlefield, shown in Figure B.
.FIG B The battlefield is set.
The two fleets are poised on a field of hexagonal blocks. The highlighted blocks represent the range of movement of each ship. The distance and direction each ship can move varies depending on the model. The various ships and descriptions of each are shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Each ship has different skills.
On the main battlefield view, you select a ship by tapping on it. The range of movement will be highlighted, and details on each ship’s power levels will be displayed in the right-hand corner of the screen. "L" stands for Laser Power, "S" stands for Shield Charge, and "H" stands for Hull strength. You can also check out the status of the enemy ships. Tap on a ship, and the target details will be displayed in the upper right-hand corner.
On each turn, every ship has three action points. Moving, firing lasers, and charging shields each use one action point. That’s enough to move your ship into position, fire once, and get the heck out of the way of return fire. In my first game, I forgot about this very important fact. I brazenly flew my ships in close to the enemy, opened fire wildly, and was left without any power to get back to a safe distance. When the computer took its turn, it was able to use all its action points to fire on my poor sitting ducks. My fleet was decimated pretty quickly.
If you have more than one target in range, you can select the one you’re after by tapping on it. To move, you tap once in the shaded block to which you want to move and tap again to confirm. Your ship then zips into position. Enemy ships are in range when they fall within the shaded area and are not blocked by another ship. When a ship is in range, the Fire Button appears. Before tapping on it, I highly recommend sitting forward in your chair, slowly curling your hand into a fist, and uttering, "Fire!" in a stern but satisfied voice, just like Captain Kirk at the end of Star Trek VI. Don’t forget to get that unmistakable Shatner gleam in your eye.
If your ships get damaged, you can use action points to charge them by tapping the Charge Shield button. If your Mother Ship is destroyed, you’ll no longer be able to charge shields.
Once all your action points are used up, the End Turn button will appear. Tap on it, and the computer will take its turn until all its points are expended.
.H1 Strategy
I was expecting to move one ship and fire, and then let the computer would take its turn. However, you get to launch several attacks before all your points are expended. That means you have to think of your fleet as a whole, letting the ships work together by moving them into careful configurations. You’ve really got to think ahead and pay attention to the various power levels.
As you can probably tell, this game is far more involved than a lot of games designed for the relatively small screen of the Palm handheld. That’s not to say it’s too complicated to pick up and put down whenever you’ve got a free moment to play. It’s easy to re-orient yourself, and you can quickly review all the power levels of the ships. Just tap on the power read-out display, and it’ll cycle through each ship.
HexCon is available from Jason Goldman at http://www.jasongoldman.com/hexcon.html. It’s priced at $9.95, and a free trial is available.
Its evident that a lot of thought went into the design of HexCon, which shows when you really get into the strategy of it. They may have even put as much thought into the game as I put into that back story.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on HexCon, visit http://www.jasongoldman.com/hexcon.html.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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