Previous Next

This release caused a fair amount of excitement at RGCD HQ; finally, Amstrad CPC owners have a new game for their machines that isn't either another puzzle title or slow-paced flip-screen platformer! Instead, Star Sabre is a highly polished, turbo-injected, horizontally-scrolling space shooter - which (if you ask me) is just what the Doctor ordered for Sir Alan Sugar's 8-bit underdog.

There's no plot or story to speak of here - upon loading the game you are presented with an enigmatic title screen image, some well presented but basic instructions and then its straight into selecting your controller and blasting those unidentified enemy ships out of the sky. Considering that Star Sabre is the first release from a new member of the CPCZone forums, it's technically impressive stuff. The over-scanned wide-screen looks fantastic and the action never drops below 25FPS regardless of the relentless carnage - really it's a wonder that there was any space left for the game in the tiny 64KB of memory after all the double-buffering and code-trickery involved in achieving the silky smooth scrolling, sprite movement and parallax starfield.

So what's the game like then? Essentially Star Sabre is an all-out classic old-school shooter; the enemy craft attack in regular (and some would say repetitive) attack waves - but you'll be too busy with avoiding the deadly terrain (complete with weapon installations) to kill them all. Each level features both separate mid-stage and final boss encounters, and all you've got in the way of help is a couple of basic power-ups that can be gained by destroying the small cargo ships spread throughout the game. Aside from that, it's just your reflexes and your laser cannon against the alien(?) hordes.

There are some really nice (and relatively new-school) touches worth noting too, particularly the scrolling end-of-level boss warning text (which wouldn't look out of touch in a modern Japanese shooter). The level design has been well thought out, with each stage featuring unique and well-pixelled tilesets and enemies, and later in the game the Scramble-like terrain becomes really challenging to navigate. The difficulty curve felt just about right for me (so it's probably far too easy for T.M.R) and whilst playing I was never cheated by dodgy collision detection or unfair design - something that I found really refreshing after spending hours playing through the dreadful Mr. Mole on the MSX.

Three years in development and just recently added to the 'Coming Soon' page of the Cronosoft site, Star Sabre looks set to become a modern CPC classic and it's a game that I've really enjoyed playing prior to writing this review. When you take into account that the game was created by one person alone in their spare time, Star Sabre is a surprisingly solid package with equally impressive design and presentation. Sure, with only four levels it's pretty short in length (as well as being understandably lacking in the audio department), but Paul Kooistra's shooter has got it where it counts; Star Sabre is a blast. We've all got our fingers crossed that an enhanced 128KB release will be forthcoming, complete with more levels and a decent soundtrack, but until then this 64KB version is certain to provide Amstrad enthusiasts around the world with hours of entertainment.

(Note for users unfamiliar with WinApe: Unlike other 8-bit emulators, WinApe doesn't support the usual drag-and-drop automatic loading of games, so here are some basic instructions to get you started with Star Sabre. After starting the emulator and being prompted with the Basic/Burnin' Rubber screen, press '1' on the numeric keypad. Then press both the 'Ctrl' and 'F1' keys together and select/open the Star Sabre disk image from the file explorer window. Type RUN"SABRE and press return. The game should then load. I hope this helps - being unfamiliar with the CPC it took me a while to work this out myself!)