Nice Me: But the game's good, right? I mean, when you actually fly a mission, it's fun, right?
Cynical Me: It's not without its charm, granted.
Nice Me: And the control mechanics are clever too, aren't they? Bar a trace of inertia, they're really simple. It's dead easy to get the hang of flying around in dogfights. It's like piloting some kind of helicopter/jet hybrid...
Cynical Me: That's because you practically are, you nonce. Psygnosis have used a modified version of the G-Police engine for Red Sun, and they've left the control mechanics pretty much as they were in that game.
Nice Me: Well, I did think the bits where you fly a mission on a planet's surface were a bit familiar...
Cynical Me: They are, aren't they? Right down to the poor draw distance. I'm not berating Psygnosis for recycling the engine - everybody does it these days - because it's actually not a bad idea. The dogfighting in G-Police and its sequel was actually quite enjoyable, but they tried to be too ambitious with the cityscapes. The pop-up fractured any sense of game reality. Obviously, the space-based sections in Red Sun don't suffer from that problem and, in general, they've kept the detail levels on the planetscapes fairly low.

Nice Me: But I thought you didn't like it?
Cynical Me: I didn't say that. It's entertaining, though hardly spectacular, and I don't at all resent the time I've spent with it or will spend with it, providing something better doesn't arrive this week. Some of its levels are thoughtfully designed, and it doesn't look too bad either, but I'd find it hard to get overly excited about a game that - like many of its derivative ilk - barely and rarely deviates from the ageing Wing Commander brief. Bit of FMV-based soap, bit of shooting... it's all too familiar. I, as a consequence, feel contemptuous and - on the occasions where the movie sequences lapse into sub-sub-Babylon/Trek/Wars-style pap - even faintly nauseous. Incidentally, I have problems spelling that word, and Microsoft Word suggested 'anuses' instead. Which was oddly appropriate.
Nice Me: Heh. Heh-heh. Heh-heh. You said 'anuses.' Heh-heh...
Cynical Me: Heh. Heh-heh. Yeah. Heh-heh.
Nice Me: Heh. Heh-heh. Colon Wars! Heh. Heh-heh.
Cynical Me: Heh. Heh-heh. Cool. Let's go put that in the standfirst. Heh. Heh-heh.