Avara

The HECTOR, your mech

Greetings to those all out there who play Avara! Avara is a 3D network game where you run around in a mech, which you can configure to your tastes.

Made by Ambrosia Software, it is naturally only for mac. It's distributed as shareware and gives you a 30 day trial period to try the game.

The graphics are quite simple. Nothing complex. This makes it the perfect internet game. In actual game play, you can pick out of playing the games built in missions, or play a network game with someone else

The HECTOR is basically a turret on legs. You can jump, walk, turn, all while moving your turret independently firing a small array of weapons. You can crouch too by holding the jump key down to stay really short.

arctic research lab

The arctic research lab, one of the built-in levels

On a personal note, I'd like to add that when new to playing a net game with someone, and you try a game, your opponent will probably try to bombard you to hell with grenades. How? He/she just made one key have the arm grenade command AND the fire command.

Within the game, one can find many sorts of enemies. The UFO is a flying thing whichg shoots at you with not entirely great accuracy. Still, it can pound you and there are different levels of armouring for a UFO. A guard is just a turret which sits somewhere and shoots at you. A parasite is a weird thing that clasps on to you an drains your shields and energy, then it blows up, damaging you. You can shoot them before they get to you, but if they do latch on, using a booster will fill it up while filling you up and it explodes without draining too much.

It's shooting at me!

Missions can vary from killing everything in sight, to escaping a complex. When killing everything, and you're timed, it's important to choose your mech carefully. Do I need lot's of missiles? Grenades? Do I need to be able to jump further or do I need lot's of armour? These factors will contribute to whether you succeed, or not in your mission. A good example, and the first you'll probably see, is the recycling plant. In this, you need to escape the complex. Enemies are sparse and once you kill them, they're gone. The problem is the way to escape is riddled with all these jumps and moving things. A light hull would be the best as after you unload all your weapons, you can move easily and with agility.

I'm in Anak City and... DIE UFO!!!.

Sometimes, you need to do something specific, like in one case, you have to destroy the tractor beam generators holding down a ship. This level is filled with all sorts of tough enemies which take time to destroy, plus you can't let the ship die; it must escape. After releasing the ship, it will fly away and a teleport pad will appear, which you use to get out of the level.

Net games can still be slow with the simplicity of the game so you might need to change a few things. Shrinking the size of the play window is a good idea and fiddling with those options in the network menu might help too. Also, you'll need to get level sets. These are just map files which you put in the same folder as the Avara app, or at least that's what I do. But it gets crammed. If you know any other way to organize your level sets, email me. Anyway, one can find lot's of level sets at Avara: The Web Site. It's the official Avara web site I think, and it has all sorts of files and other things.

Overall, Avara is one of the most entertaining and addictive net games I've found. To find out more, visit the Avara Web Site or Ambrosia Software for more information and take a look at some of the other stuff too. They make great shareware games!

This page built and maintained by Alex Wong.

If you find any problems or wish to make a suggestion, you can e-mail me at me_al@hotmail.com.
Last updated: 6-24-98