Please login to submit a screenshot

When a game is a long time in production, the feelings around the time of its release are fairly mixed. On the one hand there's the excitement that it's finally going to arrive, but this is tinged with apprehension and reservations on whether it has been worth the wait. Ocean's long-awaited (over two years in fact) space battle saga, Epic, is a game which fits into the category. Can the incredibly long wait really be worth it in the end? Well... not really.
The story behind the game is basically a reworking of Battlestar Galactica, with the human race fleeing disaster in a massive fleet of ships. After and admittedly impressive introduction sequence – a massive fleet of animated ships flying away from the doomed planet – you have to take on a series of missions as a pilot on the experimental Epic fighter. The fight mission is pretty much a direct steal from Galactica, with the player having to blast a path through a minefield before the fleet can pass. Next it's a series of attack runs on the Rexxon bases, destroying their communication systems, supply lines and defence systems. Later in the game, you must take part in space battles along with other fighters in the human fleet, ending up with a massive attack on the Rexxon Emperor's personal space cruiser.

Elitist?
Originally it was planned to make Epic a wide-ranging, Elite-style 3D space shoot-'em-up, trading and strategy game. What it has actually turned out to be is a pretty bland, simplistic 3D shoot-'em-up with a few fancy polygon spaceships.
The fact is there are so many annoying quirks that leave you screaming at the screen. For example, when you try to lock on to a target using the waypoint computer, it will only guide you to one particular target out of all the ones available, even if you've already destroyed that one!

Some of the missions are a bit of a mystery to begin with, so you have to guess what you're supposed to be doing. Where are the nice animated computer briefings? Left out of the Amiga version, it appears. Added to all this, perhaps the most galling aspect is that the game is incredibly easy to finish. Pretty much everyone who has played the game, to our knowledge, completed all the missions within two hours of first starting the game. Doesn't really seem to be worth the money, does it?

Don't believe the...
So after all the hype, the long delays and the promise of a massive space saga, all we have is a futuristic, toned-down version of F29 with less missions and less than challenging gameplay. Sorry, but adding a few in-between animations (which take a while to plod through, many of them being repeated) doesn't improve things. Digital Image Design started the project so long ago, but have been working on newer (and better) games, leaving little time for finishing Epic. However, Ocean decided they still wanted to release the title, but Digital Image couldn't get it together in time. So we're left with a rushed job to get the thing released. The result is an out-of-date shoot-'em-up.
Maff Evans

Amiga Format, Issue 37, August 1992, p.71
THE EAGER PUBLIC SPEAKS
Epic managed to enter the charts at number three last month, which shows a lot of people have been looking forward to the game. But has it been worth the wait?
Within three days of the game being initially released, a large number of level codes flooded into Gamebusters (there were 11 just this morning), along with letter describing how disappointed they were on spending £30 for less than two hours entertainment (some even returned the game and asked for a refund). A few letters said they enjoyed the game while it lasted, but they would have liked a bit more of it.
Mr JS Smith from Sheffield had terrible trouble with the game, finding that it wouldn't work on his 1.3 Kickstart machine with 1Mb of chip RAM. Chris Chant's letter is fairly typical: "I bought Epic and completed it the very same day!" and David Rad from Merseyside summed it up: "It's a pity that they gave a cheat for it in the box." Very true!
A case of a lot of presentation, but not enough gameplay.


Epic
Ocean * £29.99
The nice intro promises lots of depth, adventure and action, but little comes along in the actual game.
The control and direction-finding leaves you growling with frustration.
The animation sequences get repetitive after a short while, not really making up for the lack of gameplay.
Thirty quid. Two hours from start to finish. That's more expensive than going down the arcade and playing coin-ops!
A lackluster game that falls pitifully short of its original aim.

verdict: 34%

Title Epic
Game Type 3D Combat
Company Ocean/DID
Players 1
Compatibility Not AGA
Submission Andy Thomas (andy@adamantium.demon.co.uk)

Review
Epic promised everything, but delivered very, very little. Perhaps the
first example of a truly hyped game. Basically, this was touted as the
ultimate space combat Sim. What it turned out to be wasn't even close. It
was unplayable without the cheat active and of course that made for no
challenge at all. In the space battles you had extremely limited pitch
control, (you could only get your ship to steer very slightly in the up
and down dimension) and then you just couldn't go any further. 2D
space battle syndrome.
In fairness to it, the 3D engine, whilst limited, was pretty nippy.
The actual quality of the graphics themselves wasn't bad either;
weapon fire was suitably OTT and colour coded so that you knew what
you were firing. Planet attacks involved reasonably detailed terrain
and targets, but again, the cheat mode meant that you could simply
blast away at everything with abandon. In fact, the ground combat
aspect showed up the inadequacies of the 3D engine far less than the
space combat segments.
Even the ship designs were derivative. Battlestar Galactica was the
clear source for many of the ships, and even the launch sequence for your
fighter was ripped off that show. I think there was also some cruisers
distinctly similar to the old style Klingon battle cruisers seen in the
Motion Picture. Yes, sure, the 3D graphics were OK but the weapons were
pointlessly extravagant and the way you finished the game was straight out
of Star Wars. No surprises, no originality, no appeal. In case you're
wondering, I only bought it when the price had dropped, just to see for
myself if it really deserved the horrific reviews it was getting. It was
entertaining for me if only for the "spot the ripped off spaceship design"
element, but beyond that, one to avoid.