Everygamegoing


Rig Attack

Author: Dave E
Publisher: Tynesoft
Machine: BBC/Electron

 
Published in EGG #013: Acorn Electron

Rig Attack

Tynesoft, towards the end of the Electron's life, was one of its most prolific publishers, and its games like Circus Games and Superman: The Man Of Steel that everyone remembers. But Tynesoft came from humble beginnings, and beginnings don't get much more humble than Rig Attack, one of its very first games.

The game puts you at the controls of a helicopter, somewhere in the middle of a North Sea peppered with hundreds of rigs and fuelling stations. The task is to drop bombs on enemy submarines, but the helicopter's fuel is limited. So the game is one where you must sit on a fuelling station, move up and away from it, search out a submarine, bomb it and then return.

The submarines you encounter glide through the sea below you at different depths, so you must hover above them and accurately time when you drop your bomb. The submarines also randomly shoot bombs themselves, so you need to be ready to be out of the way if need be. Watch out for the deadly last bomb fling that happens after you take out the submarine; it can take you unawares!

Rig Attack

The game is played from the side and the controls are the simple ZX*? ones, with Return to fire. There's absolutely nothing more to the game than that described above, and you'll be bored of it in two minutes flat. The submarines continue to attack forever, and there's no increase in difficulty, even if you play it until the end of time.

To be honest, I don't see a lot of use for the physical release of Rig Attack other than as a doorstop. I mean, ok, it's not so bad that you can't play it, and graphically it's really very pleasing. But with no incentives on offer, it just feels unfinished. The £9.95 release price (equivalent to about £27 in today's money) for this in 1986 was laughable, and with an inlay scan printed on very cheap quality paper, you really feel sorry for those who shelled out good money for this. Especially considering that, just a few months after release, it was doing the rounds on the Microvalue 1 compilation for £3.99 with three other games thrown in for free!

If you're a Tynesoft collector, it's one of the harder titles to find but it's generally known to be not very good meaning you shouldn't expect to pay more than £2 for it.

Dave E

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