Maybe this is the reason? They probably just didn't have the right to call it Silkworm 3D or something like that. Your original point still stands though... the name makes no sense at all.

I can't speak for the whole world, but from what I know, the original Silkworm got a lot more of a 'following' than Swiv which was released at a very bad time (when the arcade games market on computers was very weak and dying). Could have been different in the real Arcades of course...

Well, the concept 'vertical 3D' could make sense, if it were used to describe a vertical-scrolling shooter rendered by a so-called '3D' engine (no computer game is actual 3D of course, but I think you get my point). However, I see that in this game you are free to move around in any direction, so the name Swiv 3D indeed makes no sense at all...
But if the game Swiv was much more popular than the original Silkworm and thus the name 'Swiv' started leading a life of its own (losing its original meaning), you can't really blame the designers for calling the follow-up 'Swiv 3D', after all who said game names should make sense in the first place?

Actually, I didn't explain it. I explained Swiv, but not Swiv 3D which makes no sense at all to me. Note the question at the end of the initial post.

Ignorant.

Mr Creosote; you explained it yourself in the very first post of this thread. Unless I manage to play the game I can only guess a better explanation than yours, since I didn't even heard of that game yet until you posted about it.

Tuss; I don't understand where the problem is. Must be a sentence construction problem.

In Lucky Luke stories, they do - see issue number 37: Canyon Apache

Apache and Comanche were tribe names, so unless you are saying the whole lot of them stood on a cliff, your statement makes no sense.

Well, well - so what about "Swiv 3D" then? You said the names all make sense to you...

Do I really need to? sheesh.



Apache, Comanche; taken from the name of American natives who used to stand for hours on an elevated terrain, acting as long range scout. Those scouts usually then used smoke signals to alert their tribes. Anyways, the point is; fast retaliation and/or recon.

Strike Eagle; do I need to explain?

Flasher, Silversides; the submarine probably was reflecting light easily, reason for the name.

Rasher, Barb, Tang, Trigger; name says it all.

Spadefish, Swordfish; fish names.

Drum; name probably taken from the noise the engine was making. Or something similar in relation to the musical instrument.

The master of explanation is back. Why not share your superior knowledge with us fools who can't make sense of the names?

Those names make perfect sense to me.

As for silkworms; this is the only natural way to get silk on earth.

According to the manual of Silent Service, those are names of submarines of the 2nd World War. Silkworm doesn't have much text on the whole anyway, no story, no development Still, better than 'vertical 3D'....

Are you sure those are submarines? Sound more like Santa's reindeer to me.

Anyway, you're right about the military's lack of logic in names (as in other things), and I guess Silkworm is probably the name of the unit, or something, though the game (as far as I remember) never even mentions that.

Military has never been known to come up with logical names. Take helicopters (Apache, Comanche, Werewolf), planes (Strike Eagle), submarines (Flasher, Rasher, Barb, Tang, Silversides, Spadefish, Trigger, Drum, Guardfish,....) - so why not call a small commando unit Silkworm?

Well ... ahem ... yes. I meant in the context of the game . I still don't see the connection between small insects that produce fine natural fibres and arcade shoot-em-ups featuring jeeps and helicopters.

According to my dictionary, it is a caterpillar that spins silk around itself. Sometimes, it's worth looking unknown words up

None of the names in that series make much sense: what the hell does Silkworm mean? I could never tell. And when Swiv came out, I remember a lot of people thought it stood for SilkWorm IV and were left wondering what had happened to parts II and III of the game.

So, I guess they're just keeping up with a grand old tradition of stupid names. Still better than most Japanese games, though...

Edited by Dizzy at 20:31 on January, 04th 2003

I recently heard a really stupid name which inspired me to open this thread: Swiv 3D. I know the Amiga classic Swiv which was said to be an abbreviation of SilkWorm In Vertical (it is a follow-up of the horizontal shooter Silkworm). So far, so good. But what is vertical 3D???

All similar cases welcome