The graphics are cool. The music is decent On these strengths, the game itself is a missed opportunity. It plays like the gazillion platformer collect em ups. The problem is that it's too basic. The enjoyment of old school platformers/collect em ups rested with the items/puzzles system they employed and the desire to unlock more of the world through solving these things. Dizzy - any version spanning from the zx spectrum to the nice take of it on the megadrive would be a good example. This game appears to cater to that when you watch the promo vid, but in reality it's not much more than a lot of very basic push button x to open door y on the same screen stuff, some rudimentary combat that has little purpose other than to become annoying, and five or six items that once collected unlock all boarded doors, all key card readers etc to parts of the world you've already passed through, but couldn't unlock the door to on the first pass. This results in it being not much more than the chore of revisiting earlier levels to find the one or two doors you had to pass on previously. Like the gameplay, the story is quite forgettable. A weird mix of a nod to something like the statement of the movie, they live, and a lot of talk about the fact you were going to settle down and have a baby. Maybe worth poicking up on sale for something to do the motions and complete for the sake of it, Short, too easy, not much variety and ultimately not much to do.
Koronis Rift..... As a grizzled old dog and techno scavenger who played through the 80s, this reminds me a lot of Koronis Rift, just with the aspects of that game shifted around a bit. The space combat reminds me of the surface combat of the rift. The ship interior, ship UI and stuff like the nav and planet fall cycle all reminiscent of Rift and Rescue on Fractalus in some way, without it actually being a spin off of either game.. I like it. It's not pushing any boundaries and it's not trying to. The graphics do the job and fit the retro vibe perfectly. As redundant as they might seem now, these are the sort of graphics and interfaces you'd have only dreamed of back when you crawled the surface of some barren 3 fps fractal generated planet surface. They're cool in their way, but probably not for anyone after 120 fps and meta realism. Gameplay is basic but good, with an adequate mix of planning and action. The interface is simple. It does the job and works. As a whole the game can be quite challenging and unforgiving if you mess up. It's a good one to play when you just want to fire up something and chill for a while. Like a quick game of past finder, or the rift - before the world moved on, before you knew what was going to happen before it ever happened, before social media and selfies and in a time when the idea of escaping the planet in a cobra mk3 by the year 2000 was a believable and exciting idea, you'd generally master the art of having a vivid imagination and filling in the blanks to immerse yourself in a game. This reminds me so much of those times and i can fully appreciate it for what it is because of that. Coming from the perspective of said grizzly old dog techno scavenger, i think if you've arrived here from a similar place, you'll likely enjoy this. Given that i just picked it up for less than a mastertronic / mad games cassette would have cost in 198x, i'd say it's well worth the price for a quite enjoyable retro trip to add to your collection.
