Contact Me
| Planet Smashers Review (back to Games) |
|
Planet Smashers is an old-fashioned 2D vertical shooter with a few novel twists that make it different enough to have a look at.
Gameplay You control a space craft at the bottom of the screen with which you avoid enemy fire and destroy the many alien craft. You have horizontal and limited vertical control of the craft allowing you to advance up the screen a bit if you wish (you have a similar area of movement as that in Centipede). This is a wave based game - there are 7 of them, and each wave consists of varied enemies moving down the screen and firing at you as is the norm with this type of game. The enemies are smart and will fire quite accurately at you. There are powerups to pick up and there's a boss at the end of each wave. Pretty average stuff, but there are a few differences that mark the game out from the usual early shooter games. This game is not a "single-hit-and-your-dead" type of game. Your craft has a shield which is depleted with each hit. You also have a cloaking device which renders you invisible to the enemy, but not invincible!. Your craft is shown in outline when you have the cloak engaged. It has its own meter and will wear out with use - the cloak is very useful against the bosses. Your craft is in fact protecting the Earth from the alien onslaught. The planet is protected by a shield and every enemy or piece of debris that gets by you depletes this shield. When the shield is gone, its game over. This game throws quite a bit at you and the playfield is wide - I don't think you could hope to be able to stop everything which makes the game really tough. Having said that , you do get a good level of firepower as you progress, picking up weapon upgrades. It is possible to warp to the end of the wave quickly by picking up 3 coloured capsules in the correct sequence. You are not told what the sequence is, but on the easier level the sequence for each level is the same every time you play. If you pick up a colour capsule in the right sequence it will fill up the warp meter by 1 notch. Fill the meter and you warp to the end of wave boss.If you pick up a colour that is required but is out of sequence, your warp meter will show what order that colour should be picked up in by flashing the relevant segment in the meter. Shooting these capsules changes their colour so there is a plenty of scope for skilfull players to engage the warp quickly. When powered up with rapid fire it can get tricky to shoot these so that they change 1 colour at a time! The available powerups do the usual stuff such as increase your firepower (you quickly get rapid auto-fire which is RSI-saving as this game requires you to shoot a lot!), but you also get shield and cloak repair pick ups. There is also the occasional extra life pickup too, although it flicks between the extra life icon and a death-dealing skull icon which you won't want to pick up - so your timing must be good. Some pickups are blank giving you a random powerup. All pickups can be destroyed so be careful! The bosses and big and tough, are quite impressive for the time, but are dispatched in time honoured tradition. You take out the bosses guns separately before defeating them which is nice. The strange thing about this game though is that you only have one go at the boss in each level - lose a life and it flies by you and its on to the next level. If you do defeat the boss, your "reward" is a meteor shower you must prevent from getting to Earth! I assume the boss getting by you takes a big chunk off your planet shield. (I will check this and amend this review - its hard to keep track of these things when playing!!) There are 2 difficulty levels - on the harder level the enemies are more aggressive as you would expect, but the colour sequence for level warp is different every time you play. There is the usual 1 player mode and 2 player alternate turns option too. In 2 player mode, each player may select their own difficulty level - a nice touch. Graphics Pretty good. Everything is clear and you have a nice status panel at the bottom of the screen showing the warp meter, ship shield and cloak status along with the distance to end of level and the all-important planet shield status, along with your score. The ships look OK, are multi-coloured and are varied. Each level has its own big unique boss. Sound Pretty bad. The sounds are basic and grate on the ears - well worth reaching for the volume control. The game uses the standard 7800 sound chip which is the same as the old 2600 sounds. You are even assaulted with "music" at the title screen! Overall This is pretty good. Ignoring the sounds, this is a fun game with a few novel twists that make it worth getting. It starts off a bit slow but soon warms up once you get powered up and it becomes pretty enjoyable. This game is very tough and provides a great challenge for shooter fans. I wouldn't like to try it with the US 7800 controllers as this game requires precise control and lots of firing! It works well with the European 7800 "NES like" controls. Recommended. |