A&B Computing
1st March 1984All software manufacturers start by stocking a number of standard games. They normally can offer home computer versions of the standard arcade games of Pacman, Space Invaders, Frogger and Galaxians. This game falls squarely into this category.
Little instruction need to be given with the 'shooting gallery' type of game, and little is given. The only instruction on the cassette is to use *RUN in order to load. Loading was accomplished successfully, though the computer turning the cassette motor off after each block has loaded becomes tedious.
Full instructions are offered at the start of the game. These comprise which keys are used to move and fire the laser, and a breakdown on the points scoring for each target. A degree of difficulty between 1 and 6 is available, merely seeming to change the number of targets you start with, and the number of bombs they drop.
The aliens move from side to side slowly dropping bombs from time to time, before diving down at your position. Your job is either to shoot them with your laser or avoid them. As each screen is cleared another screen appears with increasing numbers of aliens in attack formation. Additional lives are added to the initial three at 10,000 and 20,000 points. More points are scored for hitting an alien on the dive, than for picking one out of the formation.
After playing the game for only a short while, it became clear that nothing particularly new was happening. A screen of aliens was replaced with another screen of aliens. Maybe there were a few more, and maybe they dropped more bombs, but all types of aliens were on the first screen. This made the game pall very quickly.
This may be a reasonable interpretation of the original game with good graphics and ear-piercing sound, but the overall games lacks a significant factor, how to retain your interest after more than a few goes.