Independence Day (PS1) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
219A playthrough of Fox Interactive's license-based flight combat game for the Sony PlayStation, Independence Day.
Played through on the normal difficulty level.
When it was released in the summer of 1996, Independence Day was massive. Like other 90s Hollywood classics (Titanic, Jurrasic Park, etc.), Independence Day was one of those films that you just couldn't get away from. Commercials, merchandise, the interviews - the cutting-edge, special effects laden blockbuster was everywhere. And of course, where there's a buck to be made off of an action movie. a video game is sure to soon follow.
And follow it did. Released shortly after Christmas, this 1997 "flight sim" (sans any legitimate simulation elements) promised all of the action and excitement of the feature film packed into an interactive experience for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Windows 95 PCs.
It came loaded with grainy clips pulled directly from the film (or what appears to have been a VHS copy of the film - the quality is sorely lacking by PS1 standards), in-flight voice clips of Will Smith as your wingman, and a recreation of key scenes from the film. Wow, what an exciting time for 3D gaming.
Or not. At least not using Independence Day as a gauge. Fundamentally, it's a basic arcade flight-sim (think Top Gun on the NES) with some multimedia window dressing thrown in for appeal. It wasn't particularly exciting, nor even very good, but given the pedigree of developer Radical Games, it's far better than we likely expected it to be.
The missions focus on a couple of major battle scenes from the film, and these are then recycled across several different stages with a new city providing the backdrop. The objectives dont change much - they all boil down to "blow up X, destroy Y, and then take out the spaceship when it reveals its weak spot." It's a simple idea that has the potential to provide some solid, mindless fun.
And it would be, but it suffers from a few major flaws that really hurt the experience. The controls are way too sensitive, and if you aren't careful, you can easily send your plane straight into a building or the ground, and there's no way to manually select your target, so you'll often end up shooting at the thing next to your target with no real choice in the matter. These two design issues really show themselves during the frustrating final stage - that stupid alien craft is it's own worst enemy, I swear.
The graphics also make the game much harder than it should be. The terrible draw distance means targets suddenly appear right in front of you without warning, and it doesn't take too much action to drag the framerate into the toilet. The game never slows down, but the choppiness makes the already difficult controls completely unwieldy at the worst possible moments.
It would've been nice had they at least attempted to provide background music doing the missions, as well.
While Independence Day was hardly a good game, it usually manages to hold at mediocre. It didn't impress anyone back in 1997 though, and it certainly won't wow anyone today. It's an interesting relic of a bygone era, but if you want a good, arcade-style flight-sim on the PS1, go play something from Namco's Ace Combat series instead.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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