Zzap


Hunter's Moon

Publisher: Kixx
Machine: Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Zzap #73

Hunter's Moon

You know you're in deep trouble when a local black hole decides to suck your Hunter spaceship in and then spits you out in whereabouts unknown. And you know you're in *real* deep trouble when your destination turns out to be the heart of the Crystal City Empire. The empire is made up of sixteen star systems of cellular cities, which are maintained by worker cells and drones. Inside each city there's the star cells you need to collect to return to home. Sounds like a shoot-'em-up to me.

Awarding the game a Sizzler rating of 92% in Issue 34, Julian and Steve was ecstatic over the weird nature of it all with Julian enthusing, 'stunning use of colour and the effects and sprites are simply incredible - the psychedelic patterns between waves and in the Off Duty mode are fabulous'.

High praise then for what is an offbeat multi-way shoot-'em-up but flawed slightly by the curse of basic gameplay. The way the city structures form the puzzles of each level still works well now with superb variety in cell shades and styles.

But, beneath the pretty visuals of the title screen and the novel Off Duty pattern generator, you don't get an awful lot of gameplay sophistication. But then at budget price it's not too bad at all. A sort of homage to the sadly missed Jeff Minter games but without being unconventional enough.