Review Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers – Style Is Not Enough
Recently, a black-and-white shoot'em'up about the war of humanity against aliens went into release. We talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the game in a short review from a popular online games provider Friv2Online.
Without a doubt, the best side of Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers is a retro 50s sci-fi style with live action cutscenes. The game is about the heroic 51st Squadron taking on an alien invasion, and you won't want to miss the videos - they're delivered with deliberately over-acting and old-school cameramanship.
The design is also admirable, combining classic World War II era aircraft, superb weather effects and flying saucers; the latter look exactly like "plates", in full accordance with the ideas of science fiction writers of the middle of the last century.
The gameplay of the title is a classic shoot'em'up in which the player follows from left to right and pours hundreds of projectiles on enemies. To diversify the gameplay, the developers have prepared several types of aircraft that differ in size and behavior: a nimble attack aircraft effectively evades attacks, but a heavy bomber can withstand more damage. If desired, you can play together with a partner on the same screen.
Before departure, the combat vehicle should be prepared by equipping it with auxiliary weapons, such as a planning bomb or a tail of flame. They are activated by pressing a separate key and have some rollback time. At the same time, modules with passive bonuses are installed on the aircraft: these can be additional "lives", a reduction in the size of the hitbox, a reduction in damage when colliding with the environment, and so on. As you gain points for destroying opponents, new abilities and additional slots for modules open up.
Alas, in terms of gameplay, the style plays with Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers a cruel joke. The black and white palette negatively affects the perception of what is happening on the screen: flying saucers and the environment merge with each other, and the pseudo-3D perspective introduces even more chaos into the visual design, as a result of which the player finally ceases to understand which of the plans is on the front or back, - the enemy is located, and whether it is possible to hit him.
This is exacerbated by the very high requirements for the gamer's skill, especially when you consider that during hot brawls the screen is covered with projectiles flying from everywhere, and damage is done by everything that can cause it, including collisions with opponents and objects.
It gets worse in the "corridor" locations, limited from above and below: here any mistake can cost a life, which will throw you back to the last checkpoint. Moreover, the control points are placed quite far from each other, so you often have to repeatedly go through the same segments.
Have Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers and technical issues, like the inability to select resolutions above 1080p and enable windowed mode, and terrible fonts in Russian localization. So if you want to buy a game for its style (which is, frankly, very good), be prepared to face a number of flaws that can seriously spoil the experience.
PRODUCING THE BULLET JACKET
All our bullet jackets are made from gilding metal, a copper alloy composed of 95% copper and 5% zinc. In order to match our different bullet requirements and meet stringent quality objectives, we buy nineteen different strip sizes of gilding metal and require three times more dimensional and quality control than is considered standard in the copper manufacturing industry. In fact, Olin Brasshas a special alloy exclusive to Sierra Bullets. This enables us to build extremely high uniformity into every one of our finished bullets.
The bullet begins to take shape during the manufacturing process when the jacket material is first blanked and then brought through a series of drawing processes. Special tooling made in our own tool and die shop ensures that the jacket is drawn evenly and that uniform wall thickness is maintained for accuracy. Jackets which have been drawn to the proper wall construction are then trimmed to a length with a tolerance of +/- 0.001.” This ensures consistent weight and proper forming when the bullet is assembled.
After each step, the bullet jackets are washed and rinsed using a special cleaning process developed by our experienced personnel. During each phase of production, roving quality control inspectors check specifications to ensure that the only part to move on is a perfect one. Reports on the quality of parts being manufactured are maintained in every department and are periodically reviewed by shift supervisors.