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Axis Assassin is a shoot em up in the most traditional
of standards, its sole aim being to destroy everything
and stay alive, kill or be killed.
The
battle is fought against the Master Arachnid (a sort
of big cheese spider for those who don't study biology),
controller of a swarming army of marauding killers out
for your blood. The game takes place on the MA's web,
which looks more like a grid from the Atari arcade game
Tempest than a spider's residence. You can move
up and down the grid freely and jump from lane to lane
(unlike the arcade game).
At
the commencement of a screen, the playing area is set
up and a Web Spinner weaves a set of webs across the
grid lanes. Yon can't go through a web but you can shoot
them. If you don't, then your movement gets rather restricted.
After the Web Spinner's job is done then the onslaught
of the spiders begins . . .
The
essential thing is to stay alive, not so easy since
there are several different types of gruesome zooming
up and down the web at mega-speeds. The Web Spinners
make an appearance in large numbers and constantly weave
webs in an attempt to trap you in one lane. Robot Drones
whizz up and down the lanes trying to ram you and if
they do then you lose one of your five lives.
Kamikaze
Hunters patrol in a similar fashion, but they switch
lanes and try to track you. On harder levels they do
this at such high speed that dodging them is next to
impossible and reflexes are the only thing to guarantee
your survival.
Spores
travel the length of the lanes and split into two Mutant
Guards that zoom around and make a general nuisance
of themselves. The most deadly sort of denizen though,
is the Xterminators. These are indestructible and can
only be dodged.
There
is a useful level-select option that allows you to choose
your starting screen. As you progress through the levels,
the grids start to change pattern, ranging from U-shaped
ones to zig-zags. On very high waves the whole
grid blacks out and the only things you can see are
the aliens.
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