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Crazy Comets is a conversion from the brilliant,
but rarely seen arcade game Mad Planets. It's
a shoot em up in the first degree, with no game objective
other than to stay alive for as long as you can by blasting
everything in sight out of sight.
The
scenario is thus. The Universe is out of control and
is contracting into chaos. Matter is turning into energy
in a chain reaction of disorder. Sounds pretty dire,
doesn't it? Not to worry though -- all you have to do
is destroy anything that wings your way and save the
day.
The
game is played in space on a single screen and you have
a rapid-firing space ship capable of moving anywhere
on the screen to repel what is thrown at you. When you
begin a game, demented planets come hurtling from the
side of the screen at high speeds. They start off small
and, if not shot quickly, grow into huge great spinning
planets which need to be shot many times before they
blow up. A small planet only requires one shot once
to destroy it, but as they get bigger, they can absorb
more laser fire. Consequently, destroying them before
they grow too big is very important.
The
planets bounce around the screen pretty fast and they
try to home in on you. This is not so simple for them
as they can only change direction either by bouncing
off the sides of the screen or by following a curve.
Still, with three or so of these large worlds bounding
about the screen, it's very tricky work dodging them.
There
are two types of planet -- a World and a Nova. A world
has sea and land on it and when pumped with enough bullets,
explodes harmlessly. Novas on the other hand are pock
marked with craters and start getting glowingly angry
when you shoot them. This is the danger time because
soon after they go completely bonkers and home in after
you very fast indeed, leaving only split seconds to
shoot them.
Sometimes
a little comet will come on screen -- shoot it quickly,
for it comes after you swiftly if left alone for more
than a few seconds. There are also little rockets which
usually float out with a comet. Run over these and you
receive a 200 point bonus for each one safely 'rescued'.
There are a certain amount of planets which need to
be destroyed on every round. Once you've destroyed that
number, you automatically advance to the next, much
harder round. On higher rounds, planets appear and grow
a lot faster and the little comets hassle a lot more.
You earn an extra man every 10,000 points, and you really
need them after round ten!
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