Incoming: The Final Conflict (1998)

Played this game first around 2000; I had a fun experience blasting alien crafts, despite doing it on an aged PC didn't have enough GPU power for textures and proper effects. Even in all the white-surfaced blockfest shooting, it was a beggar's joy.

Fast-forward to the recent years, I've bought this bundled with Incoming Forces on GOG and decided to revisit one of my childhood highlights. And it was a buggy experience on modern machines... I came to remember that playing with a mouse was out of the question, since you have to steer with keyboard, gamepad or joystick.

When it came to gameplay core, there is a story background behind the campaign scenarios but beyond that, you'll just have to follow your objectives and blast away if needed. Through the events of defending your planet and counterattacking, you'll get to man turrets, tanks, helicopters and combat aircrafts of human or alien design. Objectives involve mostly shooting down enemy vehicles or destroying buildings, but even navigation, escort and defense add to the variety of arcade action.

There's even a tactical mode added in as optional feature, allowing you to command allied units to defend and attack. Alas, as much as I'd appreciate the extra dimension in Incoming, modern PC's inevitably speed the gameplay flow to a crazy pace. You'd be required to stop the time in order to designate orders in your own pace and then switch back to the frantic battle scenery going on.

Some of the last levels break away from the usual objectives and I can't say that I'm not a big fan of navigating through the underground labyrinth, which its vastness break the pace with too scattered objectives. I was also puzzled by the sudden change to mini-missions in the old locations towards the end, but I could take that as a symbolic wrap-up for fighting alongside the allied bases you were charged to defend and close chapters with.

Incoming did not age as well but despite the shortcomings with the modern PC's, it was worth revisiting it one last time and look into the following games to complete the circle.