Armor Attack
A top-view maze game that nicely brings the horrors of war to the 9" Vectrex screen.
You get to drive a jeep around and blow stuff up real good -- mostly tanks and
helicopters. Well, actually, only tanks and helicopters. That's
all you get to do. Drive around and blow up tanks and helicopters. It's fun, though.
The graphics are swell, particularly the helicopter. It just needs more variety.
Rating: B
Bedlam
Tempest in reverse. Your generic protaginist-type spaceship thing sits in the middle
of a geometric shape, blasting at the enemies that emanate from the corners. In later
levels, these shapes spin and contract, which doesn't do much to alleviate the fact
that this game is a real snoozer.
Rating: C-
Berserk
A pretty good translation of the classic arcade game (known for making parents edgy
due to it's somewhat reckless violence). The graphics are detailed, which is nice,
but the constant redrawing of these complex images not only slows the action to a
crawl but produces a nasty screen flicker effect that will probably give you a
seizure. And maybe it's just me, but it seems as though Evil Otto makes his appearance
sooner than in other versions of the game.
Rating: C
Blitz! Action Football
Not nearly as bad as I would have expected, but bad nonetheless. It's overly
simplistic and slightly confusing, and let's face it, there's many things the Vectrex
does well, sports games are not among them. Your players' AI is pathetic, but the
programmers make up for it by allowing you to maneuver the ball while it's in the air. So
much for realism. Running plays have problems as well -- the CPU opponent can basically
give itself a burst of speed and tackle you whenever it chooses (although it usually
gives you some leniency). If you think this is something you'd like, however, here's
the instructions.
Rating: C-
Clean Sweep
Pac-Man with a vaccum cleaner in the starring role. No, really. Whereas Pac-Man was
capable of stuffing infinite power pellets in his hellish maw, Clean Sweep's vaccum
character can only hold a limited amount of money (Clean Sweep's equivalent of
Pac-Man's power pellets -- the scenario arbitrarily takes place in a bank), meaning
you'll have to empty it out in the middle of the screen periodically. Weird jawlike
creatures will be pursuing you during all this, but there's powerups lurking in the
four corners of the room that will enable you to turn the tables on them (natch).
Rating: B-
Cosmic Chasm
One of the Vec's many, many Asteroids derivatives. This one is more in-depth than
the others -- you guide your little spaceship though some kind of moon base -- each
cavern in the base is filled with enemy drones and an expanding core, and if you
follow the map and blast through enough caverns, you'll come the the power center of
the base, where you have to set a time bomb, then high tail it out of the base.
Somehow, Cosmic Chasm manages to be both fun and tedious at the same time.
Rating: C+
Dark Tower
Hey, if they found this one, maybe Tour de France and Mail Plane will be next. Dark
Tower (based on the board game of the same name) is a 3D adventure/RPG that's well-made
and involving, and sort of repetetive. You'll spend a lot of time wandering through
four different forests searching for gold, keys, and wizards, and periodically
dying for no apparent reason (the "plague," which usually strikes in the Dead Tree
Zone. I think we could have lived without a random death mechanism). The battle
sequences are fast-paced and entertaining, and Dark Tower's graphics are great. It's complex enough that you'll want
instructions, too.
Rating: A-
Fortress of Narzod
A very well-executed Galaga-type shooter with angled walls that your bullets ricochet
off of. Trust me, this will cause you to die of your own hand more
than just once. The graphics on this one are great, but frequently dying by your own
bullets will get frustrating sooner or later. It's a good concept, though, and the
backgrounds are much better than the average Galaga clone.
Rating: B-
Heads-Up Action Soccer
A decent but stunningly generic sports game. With a few minor graphic changes this
could easily be Heads-Up Action Ice Hockey or Heads-Up Action Basketball. I guess it's
servicable if you're into this kind of thing, but there's severe flaws in the CPU's
AI that are easily exploited. Repeatedly stealing balls and making goals will get
tiresome if you're the only one that's doing it.
Rating: C
Hyperchase
Not terribly hyper, and there isn't much chasing either, but it's kind of fun and the
graphics are okay. Extremely titchy control means you can expect to crash a lot,
especially when you shift to fourth gear and you tear past everything at very unsafe
speeds. Nice background graphics on this one.
Rating: C+
Minestorm
The excellent Asteroids clone that's built into the system. It's also one of the few
Asteroids knockoffs that's actually better than it's predecessor. The graphics, control,
and sound are all above average, and there's a number of deadly enemies. A great
choice for the system pack-in.
Rating: A
Polar Rescue
A terrific first-person-perspective submarine sim. It looks great, it sounds great,
it plays great. The bleak colorlessness of the Vectrex monitor actually makes it more
realistic than it would be on most raster-scan systems. The docking sequence is sort of
tricky, but the travelling and battle sequences are good. Polar Rescue is complex
enough that you might want instructions.
Rating: A-
Pole Position
Another grand prix sort of racing game, this one being a little slower and cleaner
than Hyperchase. Crash your car a few times, it's fun. Enjoy the big, spastic explosions.
Unfortunately, it's too generic for it's own good. Given the choice, you'll probably
turn to Hyperchase when you need a vector-based racing game, despite it's screwy
controls.
Rating: C+
Rip Off
Rip Off, indeed. Once again, we're treated to an Asteroids knockoff. The twist in
this one is that you have several triangular objects in the middle of the screen that
the various enemies are trying to steal. All you have to do is keep these enemies
from stealing your rare, valuable triangular things. Interesting concept but it
comes off pretty dull.
Rating: C-
Scramble
Cool conversion of the Konami arcade game which later evolved into Gradius. It's a
side-scrolling shooter with nice, varied terrain and enemies. You have limited fuel
for your ship in this game, and for some strange reason you collect additional fuel
by blowing up fuel drums. The physics of how that works is beyond me. Once
past the initial stages, the game turns into one of those auto-scrolling obstalce
courses that are so remarkably annoying. It's executed well, though.
Rating: B
Solar Quest
Another day, another Asteroids ripoff. This one seems to have merged with Space Wars.
Unless you crave these kind of games, there's nothing too new or exciting here. To
be fair, it is well programmed.
Rating: C+
Space Wars
A fast paced, neat looking adaption of the first video game ever made. You and another
spaceship are locked in a duel near a very, very small sun. Despite everything being
really little, the graphics are nifty and it's brutally addictive. The sun has gravity, a
second person can play, it's all pretty damn cool. The CPU makes a worthy opponent,
which is always nice to see in games of this type.
Rating: A
Spike
Another winner. Spike plays like Donkey Kong in 3-D and there's voice synthesis. It
isn't good synthesis ("Heeeghk! hhhlp, ffpiik!" "Hho nhho, Pmaaaally!"),
but it's there. Vox notwithstanding, Spike is very entertaining and very well
drawn, especially Spike himself. Here's instructions in
case you need 'em.
Rating: A-
Spinball
A pinball game that, oddly enough, plays a lot like real, tangible,
genuine pinball, from the physics of the ball to the jumpy bounciness of the bumpers. And, just like
real pinball, it gets distinctly uninteresting after a while. But, that's not really
Spinball's fault per se.
Rating: B-
Star Castle
Maddeningly addictive, just like crack. True, it's an Asteroids replication, but it's
one of the best of its kind. Your goal is to blast away at the three rotating walls
in the center of the screen and destroy the energy cannon within. The energy cannon
has slightly similar goals, and trust me, it's lasers are a helluva lot bigger and
faster than yours. However, it blows up reeeeeeaaaaal good when you shoot it. The
sprites are tiny, but you'll love it anyway.
Rating: A
Star Hawk
This is about as fast and simplistic as it gets: you have 60 seconds to blast as many
alien invaders as you can. It looks good, but the gunsight control is screwy (especially in game 2) and the
premise gets old pretty rapidly.
Rating: C
Star Trek
Blast at ships from a first-person perspective, just like in Star Hawk but with more
variety. The goal is to find and destroy the Klingon mothership, which seems like a
bad idea to me 'cause if you destroy all the Klingons, fanboy trekkies wouldn't have
their language to obsess over. It's fast-paced and entertaining, and the graphics
are swell (the Klingon boss is particularly well drawn, although it goes down in
flames pretty easily). In case you need 'em, here
are instructions.
Rating: B+
Vector Vaders
After a twelve year drought, somebody finally made a new Vectrex game (see kids, this
is why it pays to know Assembly...). It's a good port of Space Invaders, with nicely
drawn graphics that tend to slow it down a little (but when you're down to only one
enemy, boy does it rip...). Overall, though, it's pretty cool, and it's very faithful
to the original. Here's more info on Vector
Vaders and its creator.
Rating: B
Web Wars
An above-average pseudo-3-D shooter that often gets compared to Tempest. It isn't
anything like Tempest. In addition to blasting the standard-issue
mindless enemies, you have to capture wierd little creatures and deal with some scaryass
Cosmic Dragon. It gets intense in later rounds, but by that time you'll be kind of
bored by the monotony. You might want instructions for
this game.
Rating: B+
Dissenting opinions are welcome. Email me if you
have comments about these games.
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(c)1996 Brian N. Pacula