Uchuwars
I found this shmup when I visited Babarageo for the banner game reviewed recently on JIG. The instructions are in Japanese, but it didn't take long to figure out what to do.
Uchuwars is a classic-style shmup with weapon power-ups and bombs. Control is with the mouse for movement and left click to shoot—you can hold it down for continuous fire; the low RSI factor is nice. Bombs are used with [B] key on keyboard.
You start with 5 shield and 3 bombs on each level, and whatever weapon level you had from the previous level. In addition to weapon power and bombs, supply ships also can drop shield points (recovers one shield). Once you lose all your shield points, it's game over. Actually, you just get returned to the splash screen.
On the splash screen, clicking on the little square next to "STAGE" will cycle through the stages you've been to, and you can retry those stages with the weapon power you had upon entering those stages. If you're up for extra challenge, after you've chosen a stage you can click the square next to "POWER" to lessen your firepower.. :)
The only downside I found so far is that bombs are not very effective, and you can have, at most, 3 of them.
Overall, I thought it was a nice casual shmup with nice execution and a good look-and-feel.
A very kind cheers! to Alan for submitting this review for Uchuwars!
Bombs:
are actually rather important. They clear the screen of normal enemies and all projectiles, making them a last resort for survival. This is particularily useful in later levels when some of the shots will actually circle around and follow your ship
Yay! What a wonderful shooter! I LOVE these old arcade style games. Great find, Alan!
The beauty in these types of games lies in the simplicity. When you only have one or two weapons, one of which is a last-resort weapon, and every enemy is affected the same way, a very special kind of gaming occurs. Holding down the fire button and avoiding enemy shots is pretty much my bread and butter; I may not be very good at it but it's incredibly fun.
Thanks for the find!
Great Find Alan. Awesome Game!
My highscore is 98810!
Can you beat that?
KojieroSaske: thanks for the tip! About those shots that circle your ship..
Did you know you can also make them go away by leading them off the edge of the playable screen? This is useful when there's not too many.. so you can save your bombs last-ditch defense.
lyman: mine is 333640! :)
I'm not really sure what my high score is? I think it's like 1,073,000 or something but that can't be right. It says that under Hi-score but I think that's cumulative or something.
Something that bugs me about this game is that occasionally the game freezes my ship along a particular axis. Sometimes I can only move vertically, sometimes I can only move horizontally. I'm not sure exactly what causes it.
I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.4.
Has anybody else had this happen?
It needs a pause. A volume control would be nice, too. But definitely a pause, so when I realize there's no way to turn off the sound, I can kill my mp3 player without myself dying in the game.
this game is quite similar in style to a game for nintendo's gamecube called Ikaruga. it's kind of a short play, but a very nicely done game. check it out if you can.
Nice game! Anyone gonna tell me how to get past the boss at the end of level 8? He's the big red ball with two orbiting metal balls :)
My high score is apparently 1071860.
From what I can tell, the only way to damage the boss on level 8 is by shooting at the metal orbs. The red mass itself seems to be indestructible.
The problem is, between dodging the flames shot out from the red body and shooting at the metal orbs, it's very easy to die off fast.
The easiest thing to do is make sure you don't lose any shields before getting to the boss, or at least trying to. You can use bombs to take away crossfire up until the second big box-ship. After that, save them for the boss.
I find it also helpful to memorize where the next enemy will come from, so that when it finally appears in sight, if you've already begun shooting in it's direction, it will be at half-life or near-dead.
I still haven't beaten the boss though. I managed to destroy one ball but was dissapointed when the other one was still swinging away, mocking me...
I have a habit of trying not to use my bombs ever and sometimes I even forget about them haha~
http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/3172/untitled7wv1.jpg
1417250! :D
Finally beat the game! And it only took about 20 tries on the level 8 boss. Great game. Going to try out some of their other games shortly.
For level 8 boss:
It is absolutely necessary that you save 3 bombs and as many shields as possible. (I had 6.)
When the warning sign comes up get as close to the front as you can and begin shooting at the first orb moving from right to left. When it starts shooting fire immediately move to the back and begin focusing your attention on the second orb coming around.
When shifting from left to right to meet the approaching orb maintain fire on the main part, as you will need to destroy that too.
If you stay in the back and read which direction the fire is shooting you can do a decent job of avoiding it. In the event you do get hit you can use it to your advantage. You should save your bombs for when you get hit. After you get hit you get about 2-3 seconds of invincibility. When you sense the invincibility is almost up fire a bomb. This will give you a total amount of about 7 seconds to unload on the orbs.
Keep firing away and good luck.
I swear it's not a 'shop.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-3/965547/uchu_wars.jpg
I've found that if you play in Opera and zoom to enlarge the flash, it causes enough slow-down to make enemy weapon fire easier to dodge; especially with the final boss.
Sometimes, in addition to the usual powerups, I see a little...creature? Pilot? Baby chicken? after I blow up one of the larger ships. It seems to boost both shields and bombs. Has anyone else seen these things, and if so you you have a better idea of what they are and what they do?
I decided to try playing again, and I'm still getting that problem with the ship freezing along an axis.
Things this game needs: Fix the axis-freezing bug. Implement a pause feature. Volume control.
Jake: is your pointer going outside the play area when your ship gets stuck on one axis?
Miscellaneous level 8 tips:
-At the beginning, stay far back to avoid getting hit by the spinning things. Shoot toward the center so you can quickly kill the powerup guy before it starts filling the screen with bullets.
-When the wave of eight squid-like guys start appearing, get right up in their face, but slightly off to the side so that one of your side guns is hitting them as well. You should be able to kill most of them before they start firing at you. After those guys, use a bomb if you need to clear out any of those bullets that follow you around the screen (an extra bomb appears after the next big guy)
-Try to have six shields and three bombs for the boss. There is a bit of luck involved, but the main technique is concentrating fire on the two revolving orbs. It's easy to get so caught up in dodging fire that you forget to shoot the orbs. Whenever you get hit, you have a second of invincibility. During this time, get right up next to the nearest orb so that all your fire is concentrated on it. Try to time your bombs so that you don't have to dodge the big rock that the center part shoots. While your bomb is going off, again you should be concentrating your fire on the orbs. Don't shoot the center object; it blows up automatically after you kill the two orbs.
-If you need a quick break from dodging, you can sit in either of the upper corners, and the boss won't fire any little rocks at you, although you still have to deal with the big rock and the orbs. This is generally not a good idea since you can't shoot at the orbs, but you may find it helpful. I believe you can also move completely behind the main part without getting hit, but again you can't shoot at the orbs, and the orbs can still shoot at you (and the big rock still fires).
36460 was my score on the 4th try. (took me ages to get the stage one boss)
40450 my 5th try!
how to get lvl 9 power on level 1 in 3 steps
1 die on level 5
2 click power till its on 9 WARNING! dont click level!
3 click start
voila! level 9 power on level one!
it seems like my above cheat/glitch works on any level.
so you can die on any level and increase lvl 1 power to hightest available level
Can someone explain to me why
andy the game master!!!
Has posted a glitch, then
and the gamemaster
says:
It seems like MY above cheat/glitch works on any level
Does this make any sense?
Looks like the link for Uchuwars is broken...
[I'm fairly certain it's just a temporary outage for Babarageo. Try it again later. -Jay]
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