Home Computing Weekly


Martian Raider
By Romik
Commodore Vic 20

 
Published in Home Computing Weekly #10

This is one of those "fly your space ship over the surface of a planet and kill everything you see" games.

In essence, as you fly your space ship from left to right over a constantly changing landscape, you are assailed by one of three forms of enemy.

These are either missiles launched from the surface, UFOs or meteorites.

The surface of the planet is littered with cities, missiles and fuel dumps. Bombing or lasering any of these items earns you points.

You have three ships, each with a limited life span (time left is indicated by a horizontal bar at the top of the screen) and can gain extra time by bombing the fuel dumps. The ships can be controlled by either a joystick or the keyboard.

Overall I felt that the quality of the game was a little shoddy. The animation tended to be jerky and the display of information minimal.

Each time a bomb hit the surface, a square chunk (obviously a missing character) was removed. Whilst this didn't effect the play at all, it indicated a lack of attention to detail by the author. In today's cut-throat software market, such details matter.

The pace of play was fast and life could become rather difficult, especially in the UFO phase. But I felt that the incentive to win was lacking and the game really amounted to a test of endurance. Not a bad game - but not a *great* game.

A.W.

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