Previous Next

A new game from Realtime is something special, and the newest game, Starfox, is the most special.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away... the Hyturian solar system was a peaceful place. Well, the inhabitants had learned to settle their differences.

Like any good, friendly community, the peoples of Hyturia wanted to defend themselves, and to this end they built a vast protective cube called The Rubicon. This protected the space lanes from evil pirates and all the Hyturians could trade in peace.

Unfortunately, as any Novienian will tell you, impenetrable barriers aren't...

After the traditional period of peace, which only happens in pulp science fiction stories when things are about to go wrong, something went wrong. A ninth planet, with no regard for the laws of physics, appeared. Its inhabitants had no regard for the laws of common decency and went about blasting Hyturians to kingdom come.

Fortunately, the Hyturians had an unpleasant fellow in their midst: Star Admiral John da Silva, a kind of latter day Long John Silver - one leg, no parrot. He had built a spaceship with which to defend the solar system. The ship was called Starfox and all he needed was a pilot.

You step into the pilot's seat of the Starfox. First task: To familiarise yourself with the controls. The ship is glass-fronted - struts divide the top, bottom and two side screens. Rails along the struts indicate damage status.

There is full joystick or keyboard control, with an auto locate device to turn you towards an enemy when you are in mid-battle, plus a number of keyboard-only options, such as battle status and holocube select.

The holocube is your map of the solar system. It starts as an empty box with a yellow corner as a reference point - after all, in space there is no up or down. Your ship starts in the centre. The sides of the cube are measured in units, each side being 100 long.

As you trek through space, the details are logged. Alien convoys are shown in blue, planets in red. To determine where your ship is in relation to another object it is possible to rotate the cube.

To find your feet you will want to fly around for a bit, find a few alien convoys and blast them. You are armed with a simple Mark I laser. At the beginning of the game, this is quite adequate - a simple zap and the alien antagonist explodes into a large fireball.

Things get tougher and you will need stronger weapons. The computer informs you as to which weapon is required to destroy an individual attacker, and this is the crux of the game.

Once you have used the improved weapon, and the alien knows about it he (evil aliens are always male) will develop such a device with which to assail you.

Of course this takes time, so the aliens need a whole level in which to work away in smelly alien laboratories. But at the beginning of the next level you had better be prepared for a well-equipped alien to come gunning for you.

As time goes on you enter an arms race. If you run too far ahead of the enemy, he will catch up at the end when you run out of new weapons.

The ultimate weapon is the smart bomb. This must be used at the end - if utilised too early, the foe will attack you with something you can't defend against.

Armaments are available from the eight planets of the solar system. To reach them you must fly down a warp hole, find a base and reverse into it.

In a fixed orbit you are unable to loop the loop or fly backwards: You must fly forwards and turn. The rear view scanners and useful for this, but be warned that the scanners are more powerful than your forward vision. The base may appear behind you with the message "Base In View" but when you turn it has gone. With the courage of your convictions you should fly forwards and the base will appear.

To complete a level you must destroy a number of aliens, perform a task, such as finding an electrical storm, and ferry a passenger.

The passenger will be involved in a big trial. A captured alien has been charged with genocide. You have to get him, the judge and a witness to the right place for the trial to progress.

One thing you cannot get from planets is fuel - this is delivered from motherships which ply between planets. if you see one it is worth checking the holocube to determine the location in case you need to refuel later. You must stop to refuel, and this is a task which is impossible - indeed, forbidden - while you are in battle.

The disc version shows the mothership. On tape, the fuel just appears and descends to your refuelling bay. There are quite a few features which have been added to enhance the Amstrad disc, not lease a comprehensive cheat mode - Reaktor is keeping secret.

While dealing with the space fiend, you have a number of aids. You may select from one of three weapons, you have picked up from a planet. When the enemy hits your shield it is shown as a red blob.

If you are using a weapon which does not wipe out the alien with a single blow the other ship will be weakened, but if you should flee from the convoy it will recuperate.

I found fighting difficult, the controls being a mite sluggish and the crosshairs too low. You need to look over the framework of the craft's nose to get a full view.

Starfox reminds me more of Starstrike II than of any other Realtime program, but I'd say it is more fun. Realtime claim that it is the most difficult project it has undertaken. The whole concept was put together by James Poole at Ariolasoft, who started with the idea: "Wouldn't it be strange if you could have a game where the enemy could have smart bombs."

Familiarity has bred love at an initially hostile Realtime: The two companies seem to work well together, but then both are professionals.

There is some ace programming in Starfox. For example, the explosions are fast and smooth - they hide stars and look great when you hit one ship and another flies through the ensuing explosion.

There is a lot of mathematics involved, but then the programmers met while studying Maths at Leeds - so if you want to be a top programmers you'd better not forget all that O level stuff you spent the summer swotting up on.

However, the men from Leeds don't want to make life unnecessarily difficult and use an advanced assembler, based on the Apricot, called PDS. The software alone costs over £600, but they feel it soon pays for itself in the time saved when programming. Ariolasoft is clearly happy with the assembler and a number of the company's programmers use it.

At £9.95 for the tape, and £14.95 for the disc, Starfox may not be the cheapest game to have entered the portals of the ACU office this month. But it is the best.