Is SMEAR a Buggy Port?

A

Aradayn

Spaceman
All right, is it just me or is the Secret Missions port in EA Replay in rather poor shape?

There seems to be graphical corruption in the shield and armor display that makes it impossible to see your armor level and difficult to impossible to see your shield level. ( looks like the palettes are getting messed up ) Also, SMEAR's communication VDU doesn't really work, even though WCEAR's works fine.
( by the way, thank you Bandit LOAF - truly wonderful names :) )

Not to mention that there's the message "SELECT button To Transmit" seemingly permanently stuck in the right VDU.

Does anyone have this game for the SNES? If so, does it have the same issues?
 
I touched on some of this in the review thread. I honestly couldn't tell what was what with regards to armor in either version -- I had to keep myself cycled to the damage VDU to keep track of how I was doing.

I think the SNES version had the same 'press select' error, but I'll have to dust off a real live SNES when I get back to Washington DC next month to be sure (unless someone else wants to).

The communications issue is intentional -- wingman comms were removed in this version. Instead of cycling through many options, you are given the one that's appropriate: either request permission to land or taunt enemy. I dislike the idea from an academic standpoint... but in all practicality, I never bothered to order my wingmen around in any of the console ports. They were just in the way when I was trying to cycle to the Tiger's Claw to land (or very, very rarely taunt an enemy fighter away from a transport).

Your wingmen automatically break and attack when you hit a group of Kilrathi.
 
Thanks for the quick reply :) Yes, I noticed your mention of this when I reread your thread - unfortunately I'd already posted. Oops.

I'm not sure that wingmen auto-attack though. It seems like I have to press 'select' when they sight the enemy and if I don't then they start to complain. For example, just now I was flying with Angel and she said "It is our duty to engage," when I didn't press "select." I wish it was more like WCEAR.

I'm surprised the original game got past Nintendo QA with such obvious bugs. Oh well... at least WCEAR is good. And SMEAR is still playable, even though the lack of feedback increases the frustration level.
 
You can't send them home if they are badly damaged? WC1 is quite the dangerous envoirnment for wingmen, since they don't automatically eject and get rescued when they get iced.
 
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