Assassins PD Games Disk 1 (Amiga)

Covering Amiga games is often a tricky one for me, as though almost anything on the Amiga can be considered obscure outside of Europe, assuming it never got ported to consoles, some Amiga games are very fondly remembered locally, while going completely unheard of elsewhere. So, I decided to start looking into an area pretty much untouched by the internet: PD games (which is what homebrew was called back then, though it actually stands for Public Domain). And the easiest way to get a decent cross-section of that wide, forgotten world is to go through old compilation disks, so this is the first of what will be an occasional series (and I will get back to doing posts about Disc Station someday, honest!)

So, there's five games on this disk, though I don't have much to say about Tanx, the first game. It's a fairly primitive 2-player only Scorched Earth/pre-Worms type thing in which two distant tanks have to aim shots at each other from across the battlefield until one of them hits the other. There's lots of different options like wind speed, gravity strength, hills and mountains, and so on, but it's still not very interesting, to be honest.

Next up is Rollerpede, which is exactly what it looks like: a Centipede clone. There's a few power-ups and some nice music on the title screen, but other than that, it's just a moderately competent version of the ancient arcade game. Surprisingly, it uses the joystick for controls, rather than trying to emulate trackball controls using the mouse, but if I'm honest, I hate using a mouse to control action games, so I'm happy the developers took that decision.

The third game is by far the best, and it's called Amigoids. Again, it's not really an original game, since it's just a high-quality Asteriods clone, though it does have a couple of interesting options. Firstly, you have a selection of three "specials" to choose from, those being the traditional hyperspace, a temporary shield, and a simple instant 180 degree turn. There's no option to use a controller with a second fire button, but they special is mapped to "down", which actually works pretty well, so it's not that big a problem.

The other interesting thing Amigoids adds to the formula is the ability to load new graphics, replacing the score font, player's ship, UFO and the asteroids themselves. There's a few styles included on the disk alongside the detailed default sprites, like Atari 2600-style coloured blobs, faux-vector white lines, childishdrawings of faces, houses and shapes, and one that turns the asteroids into various computer parts and paraphrenalia. The fact that these are loaded from a generic Amiga file window, rather than an in-game menu suggests that the game allows players to add their own spritesheets, should they want to. It's a nice package all-round, really.

Fourth is Cave Runner, a barebones Boulder Dash clone. It's fine, I guess? It's not flashy and it doesn't add anything to the formula, but it is brutally difficult, if that's your kind of thing, and you've somehow already played all the other brutally difficult Boulder Dash clones that exist in the world.

Finally, Avatris, which is obviously a Tetris clone, though it is also a bit of an oddity. Firstly, the game's clearly designed for three players: two on joysticks, the third on keyboard. There'll always be three players, though if you're on your own, you can set all three to be controlled by the same device, so you have one game played in triplicate (since the pieces come out in the same order for all three players). Secondly, it goes back to the stages-with-lines-quotas system of the old arcade version of Tetris, but rather than getting faster, each stage after the first has an arrangement of pre-set blocks already on the field to get in the way. These stages start off so difficult, I've not been able to clear stage 2, after quite a few attempts. Thirdly, and this is the most annoying thing, once all three players are out, the game just stops. There's no game over screen, it doesn't go back to the title, you just have to reset the Amiga. Avatris is an okay game, though I assume it gets exponentially better with actual opponents.

So, that's the first of the Assassins PD compilation disks. It was alright, though when I decided to cover PD stuff, I was hoping for less clones of old arcade games, and more weird experimental stuff that could never possibly be a commercial release. Fingers crossed for the next disk I do then, eh?

Scorpius (X68000)

As you look through the screenshots for this post, you'll notice that they're mainly from the first two stages. That's because this game is brutally, incredibly difficult, and though some of the difficulty comes from stupid, unfair design decisions, such as obstacles that are impossible to avoid without foreknowledge of their location, a lot of it does simply come down to the fact that Scorpius is just a game that just seems to be designed entirely around the player's tears.

It's a horizontally-scrolling shooting game, and the gimmick that gives the game its title is that each of the three ships has a retractible scorpion-like tail that extends from their rear. The tail fires shots from the end, though aiming it takes a fair bit of getting used, as the tail moves in a manner vaguely similar to (though much harder to get the hang of) your dragon's tail in Irem's 1989 arcade game Dragon Breed. You can also put the tail away, and shoot normally, which is the best thing to do in most circumstances. Don't, however, neglect to learn how to control the tail, since it becomes absolutely vital to survival as soon as the middle of stage 2.

The game's big claim to fame is that it was put out by Shinseisha, the publishers of the legendary arcade magazine Gamest. It's clearly was a labour of love, too: the graphics and sound are both of a very high quality, especially when you take into account that this was a 1991 release, it could easily have come out two or three years later and still fit in fine among its contemporaries. Of course, the other side of the coin is that it's definitely made solely for an audience of super hardcore arcade fans. There are no concessions or allowances made for players who don't have either the skill to play well, or the fortitude to learn. I have to admit that I eventually fell short on both counts. Scorpius is just too hard for me! I had to give up after a straight hour's play, I managed to get to the third stage, then losing all my remaining lives within seconds. I'm ashamed to say it, but I was almost in tears.

It's easily much more difficult than even more modern danmaku-style shooting games, but with that level of extreme difficulty comes the physical sensation that comes along with all the best shooters. While reaching and fighting the second boss, I was on edge the whole time,feeling immense pressure and tension, followed by incredible, though brief, relief when the stage was done. All I can say is that if you want that kind of feeling, and you think you have the fortitude to stick with the game, and push through the trauma it inflicts, Scorpius is one you should seek out. No-one will think any less of you if you don't, though.