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Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds for PlayStation 1
Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds for PlayStation 1 is an action game in which you deploy British vehicles against an invasion from Mars. You drive, fly and sail through a world based on H.G. Wells' book and Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation. Giant fighting machines face much smaller human equipment. You control a vehicle directly and can switch to other available units. Their different weapons and movement characteristics determine the best way to approach an enemy position.
The fourteen missions demand more than destroying opponents. Sometimes you need to transport civilians, defend a location or protect a convoy. You also collect materials that can be used to build new vehicles. The map helps you track the units present and decide where your attention is needed. A heavily armed vehicle helps with an assault, but other assignments instead call for transport or support. Success therefore also depends on the people and objectives you have to protect.
This is an adventure for one player using an ordinary PlayStation controller; you can use the directional buttons or supported analogue controls. Completed missions give you passwords that let you continue later. Write down those codes before stopping. Arrangements of music from Jeff Wayne's album accompany the battles and give the invasion a recognizable sound. This PlayStation version revolves around directly controlling and switching vehicles, rather than building an extensive strategic empire on a PC world map.
Region and language
Our PlayStation 1 games are PAL editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds for PlayStation 1 includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds
The background to this game begins with The War of the Worlds, the novel H.G. Wells published in 1898. Jeff Wayne turned it into a musical album in 1978, with narration, singing and recognizable themes for the human and alien sides of the invasion. That musical world later also provided a foundation for computer games. The machines' appearance and the sound thus referred not only to Wells' text but also to a separate musical interpretation of it.
Pixelogic developed the PlayStation adaptation, released by GT Interactive in Europe in 1999. A PC game with the same title already existed, but the console received a different game structure. Directly controlled vehicles and self-contained assignments replaced the broad overview of a strategic war. The human side remained central. The player had to respond to the Martians' superiority using varied fighting equipment and could switch between available vehicles when an assignment called for a different approach.
The soundtrack brought melodies from the album into a more electronic game environment. Familiar themes received new arrangements supporting the action without making the game a literal performance of the entire record. Events also followed their own route: defense and evacuation assignments turned the invasion into a series of playable crises. The result stands between vehicle action and tactical preparation. The title thus refers simultaneously to a nineteenth-century story, an album from the seventies and a distinct PlayStation game.
Similar games for PlayStation 1
WarGames: Defcon 1 resembles The War of the Worlds because you control one vehicle at a time and can switch to other units during a mission. Both connect shooting with military objectives. WarGames pits human NORAD units against WOPR's machines and gives orders to the remaining troops their own role. The War of the Worlds instead uses the invasion from Mars, with historical vehicles, civilians and Jeff Wayne's musical world as its background.
Future Cop: L.A.P.D. likewise combines direct vehicle action with tactical choices, but your central machine can itself change from a walking robot into a hovercraft. In The War of the Worlds you switch between separate vehicles with different tasks. Future Cop moves the fighting to a violent future Los Angeles. Its Precinct Assault section also revolves around breaching an enemy base, whereas The War of the Worlds connects its assignments to a campaign about the invasion.
G-Police, like The War of the Worlds, lets you aim weapons from a directly controlled vehicle while carrying out protection and attack assignments. There you mainly remain the pilot of a futuristic police aircraft above Callisto's domed cities. The War of the Worlds divides your attention between various vehicles on land, in the air and on the water. As a result, not only your weapons change but also the position from which you try to reach a threatened location.
Panzer Front shares The War of the Worlds' attention to armored vehicles and assessing enemy positions. However, it builds its battles around Second World War tanks and requires attention to aiming, distance and terrain. The War of the Worlds uses a fantastical invasion with alien machines and a much wider collection of human vehicles. A mission there can also involve evacuation or collecting materials, rather than mainly finding the best position for your tank.
Soviet Strike, like The War of the Worlds, connects shooting action to assignments that can involve civilians and friendly units. You fly a combat helicopter and monitor fuel and ammunition while working through objectives on the map. The War of the Worlds instead lets you switch between different types of vehicles and uses collected materials for new units. Soviet Strike chooses a political action story with filmed briefings; Jeff Wayne's game places the conflict in a musical science-fiction world.
