Big K
20th October 1984Raid Over Moscow
How ironic. I set down to write my review of Raid Over Moscow, and John Lennon comes on the radio singing "Give Peace a Chance". Some hope Johnny-baby, Ronnie Reagan is back in the White House, and the Yankee Doodle Dandies are gearing up for war in space.
Forgive the moralising, but what else can you say about this game, the first piece of Propagandaware. Remember, with modern military technology, there is very little difference between vapourising Russians on a home computer screen and vapourising them on a missile silo screen somewhere deep under Utah.
If Raid Over Moscow was a naff game, then it wouldn't matter. The trouble is that the game is OK. Not brilliant, just fairly good. The graphics are great, and the sound is superb, though the game is in the final analysis disappointing.
It resembles the earlier smash-hit game Beach Head, though it is much more sophisticated. The game opens with a space-shuttle's-eye view of the world, and you have to scramble space planes. To do this, you must manoeuvre them in zero-gravity, I found the joystick controls are not easy to use. It then goes onto a Zaxxon-like screen, following by a screen resembling the last one in Beach Head, and on and on through seven screens.
Like any good game, you get better at Raid Over Moscow the longer you play, but it is a real bore going back to the start with each new game. I didn't find it very addictive because of this. Though it is fine for the first few minutes, I found that I quickly lost interest.
I'm sure it will popular with little boys of all ages, especially those who work on the Pentagon. But ultimately, Raid Over Moscow is insubstantial, Candy-Floss software.