Output Stream of Consciousness

Link: http://www.netstormhq.com

Looking through my shelf of game titles, I found a game that I remember having immense troubles with on a particular level. That game was Netstorm.

It's a quirky title - a meld of RTS and puzzle game. You have a priest who can build workshops and make energy sources, and you can build generators, shielding towers, and weapons, harvesting storm crystals with the ultimate goal of paralyzing the enemy priest, fetching him, and sacrificing him on a storm altar to win the round and new technology.

Your temple lets you build bridge segments. The bridge segments have to "dry out" to be of good quality. If you use them too quickly, any nearby explosions will cause your bridge and anything connected to it to fall into the abyss. There is a Tetris-esque component to this part of the game, especially if you're trying to hook the bridges up to other islands or storm geysers, and you have to leave yourself enough side bridges so that you can hook generators and weapons to it.

The strategy is interesting in that there are multiple specialized elements in addition to the non-specialized "sun" element which lend some strategy. Ice towers are not very strong, but they re-form. Thunder cannons are extremely powerful, but they can only face in one direction. Sun disc throwers are very weak, but can kill whirligigs in flight and can attack at any angle.

Since Activision abandoned the game in 2002 (shutting down all servers), Netstorm HQ has stepped up to the plate. Best of all (save for the fact that others have had to step in to support it), it has become abandonware, and you can download the game from there (minus the music that came on the original CD, I believe).

I bet I will get stuck again on that same darned level, though. Grrr.