Computer Gamer


Psycastria

Publisher: Audiogenic
Machine: BBC/Electron

 
Published in Computer Gamer #23

Psycastria

This game generated a lot of interest when it first came out on the BBC as it is very much like Uridium, except it's a bit cut-down. However, Beeb people are used to cut down games as long as they run fast and on the BBC it does run very fast. However, when it arrived on the C64 it was a bit slower, still quite a lot like Uridium, but was still cut down.

So why buy a clone of Uridium, that isn't as good, for around the same money? No, I don't know either. On the BBC it was all right as there wasn't anything else to compare it to. You can't compare Psycastria and Uridium on the Beeb, because there's only Psycastria.

What about the game? Well, you are in a left/right flying spaceship that looks like the Uridium ship, and moves like the Uridium ship, and moves in the same way as the Uridium ship. You are flying over sixteen different enemy ships, that look very much like the sixteen Uridium ships, except the graphics are not so good. And you have a time limit to shoot up certain sections of the ship until you can land at one end o it on a very Uridium-esque landing strip.

On the Commodore 64, Psycastria is plagued by some awful software-synthesised speech. A feature it could well do without. Psycastria on the Beeb is a good game, merely because there is nothing to compare it to. However, as the C64 version is plagiarised from Uridium I can see no reason why you should buy this rather than the Hewson game.