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CIPHOID
9
Monarch
Software, £9.95 cass, joystick or keys
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O
Flashly-looking, lousy-playing shoot-em-up |
Land
of Hope and Glory blasts out prior to loading the game
and you wonder whether British software could be making
a real comeback. Then you start playing the game and
you know why the Empire was lost.
The
scenario is the crusty old 'defend earth against the
invading alien force'. Ho-hum. You are in control of
a phaser turret on the moon and will face alternate
waves of fighters and a mothership. There are three
sectors or viewpoints of the moon's surface, with the
earth on the far horizon.
The
fighters come in at one of the sectors, and your view
scrolls very jerkily to face them. You now control a
cursor and have to blast the incoming craft. In the
first wave there are 15 ships which can shoot back,
depleting your 50 shields with each hit.
The
beautiful moon landscape with the Earth
in the background merely flatters to deceive.
Your
display gives you a readout of the sector, wave, ships
left to shoot, energy and score. A panel also gives
you messages as to your status. Once the energy falls
too low, you cannot rapid-fire your laser, but only
in double-shot bursts.
Once
the first wave is destroyed, you jerk to another sector
where a mothership (or is it a base-star from Battlestar
Galactica?) has to be hit ten times in the centre.
This ship fires nuclear shells which inflict heavy damage
on your shields although they can be shot as well. On
later waves the damage per shell increases so things
get a lot harder.
The
second fighter level has 25 ships and the number increases
by five for each successive wave. When you do die, two
nuclear shells zoom into the earth. This promptly disappears,
except for a two-pixel line on the horizon suggesting
that the bottom half is still there.
The
fighters, mothership and explosions are nicely depicted
but the sound effects are monotonous.
BW
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