#0025 Qix

Okay, today we're looking at Qix (is it pronounceed Quix? Or maybe Kix?) a fun little puzzle, or maybe action game, I don't know, it's genre is classified as “Qix”, so take that as you will. The game was developed by by Space Invaders fame Taito.

Okay, so before I describe this game to you, everyone should go play this, just so you can know what I'm actually talking about. Don't worry, I'm still going to describe the game, but this game is so different from anything that has come before or after it, it's best just to play it for yourself so that you can actually see what I'm talking about. You can play a fairly accurate flash version here.

Okay, did everyone play this game? No, Just me? Alright, I'll try and explain it, but be prepared to get confused.

In this game you play as a small diamond who transverses outer edge of the screen. Your goal is to “claim” at least 75% of the playing field. At the start of the game, the entire playing field is a large empty rectangle containing the Qix, a Windows 98 screens saver that makes beautiful, graceful, delicate, smooth rage inducing sweeps across the screen within the confines of the active playing field. You must claim as much area of the screen as possible by drawing lines that divide said playing field. Whenever you complete a closed shape, the captured area (whichever side does not contain the Qix) becomes solid. You must capture at least 75% of the playing field to move on to the next level. If the Qix touches an incomplete line, you lose a life. If you get touched by a “spark” which are small enemies that transverse the outer edge of the active playing field you lose a life. If you stop in the middle of making a line a “fuse” starts to chase you up your incomplete line. If the fuse touches you, earn 1,000,000 points and are rewarded a crown for being the greatest gamer of all time. No I'm kidding, you lose a life.

This game... Is probably one of the most frustrating games I have played since Lunar Lander. The sounds are kind of creepy, the graphics and colors are functional, and easy on the eyes, but still very rudimentary, the Qix would be cool looking if it wasn't out for my blood. The game is all about strategy and waiting for just the right moment to try and make your weird looking box thing but you can't take your time and plan your strategy because you're constantly being hunted by the hotheads from Super Mario World. Every time I try to divide the screen by any significant amount, just as I'm a millimeter away from the edge to complete the shape the Qix will immediately leave it's tiny little corner it stayed for most of the game and shoot over to my beautiful incomplete line as if I were doing some sort of geometric mating dance. The Qix then laughed at me saying, “What, you didn't think it would be that easy did you”. Effectively killing my dreams. This game is frustrating, and unfair, and sadistic, and made me want to throw my keyboard off a 30 story building and I can't stop playing it.

Yes, for all the flack I've given it, I can't deny that it is actually really addicting and honestly a different experience from anything I've ever played before. And in an age (80's) where 60% of the market is flooded with Space Invaders clones. Anything different, no matter how frustrating is refreshing. I'll even go as far as to call it fun as long as you're a masochist, because while yes, the game is hard, and irritating, finally imprisoning that stupid vector that humiliated you so many times is very rewarding. The game is nearly impossible to describe to anyone who has not played it, and I'm actually curious as to how this was pitched to the producers back then,

“This game is about drawing lines, you have to draw lines across the screen while not getting hit by other lines before your line can be drawn.”

“Does it have explosions?”

“When you die you turn into little ripples across the screen”

“Does it take place in Space?”

“It doesn't have any setting”

“Does it have cute chiptunes?”

“It has creepy ultra low bass vibrations.”

“Is it about killing aliens?”

“it's about math”

“Sounds like a hit, put it into production immediately, I want this in arcades before summer break starts.”

While it doesn't sound like a classic on paper, and I can't recommend it for purchase, I at feel that you should go play it if only because it's unlike anything you've ever played before. And that's not something that happens very often in the video game industry.

Oh, and this marks the 25^th game I've played from the list! Only 976 to go!

Up Next: Scramble

#0024 Donkey Kong

In 1981, a small toy company out of Japan was having a hard time breaking into the gaming industry. They had some small success by releasing home Pong clones, small LCD portable gaming devices, and even a few arcade games such as 1979's Space Fever or Radar Scope. All of which had limited, or no success. The president at the time realized that video games were the future, and that if he wanted his little company to go anywhere, he would have to get in on a piece of this action. So he asked one of his industrial designers if he could create a new game to replace those unsold Radar Scope cabinets. He said he could, and what followed was the beginning of a new era for that small toy company, and almost overnight, new characters were created, a genre was born and this small toy company would one day go down as one of the greatest video game companies of all time. That company, was Nintendo. That industrial designer was Shigeru Miyamoto. And the game, was Donkey Kong.

So yeah, Radar Scope, the game that came before this, was a total failure. So much so that Hiroshi Yamauchi, the ever ruthless business man saw that if Nintendo was to succeed, it need something that stood out. They were actually trying to secure the rights to Popeye, but it never really went through, and they took this opportunity to create new a new Intellectual Property. While Miyamoto had several ideas for games, he settled on a game about a Gorilla/Carpenter/Girlfriend love triangle to make it easier to convert from the Popeye game. Bluto became Donkey Kong, Popeye became Jumpman, and Olive Oyl became Pauline. Yamauchi insisted on an American name since most business at the time was still in America. Miyamoto wanted a cool American name for his game, he decided to name it after the gorilla character, since he felt that this character was the strongest. He basically looked in his Japanese to English dictionary for something that would mean “stubborn gorilla” so he named it “Donkey Kong”. The tiny office of Nintendo of America at the time thought that this game would be a disaster and would ultimately spell out their unemployment, but despite their pessimism, the game was an instant success. It invented a genre, marked the introduction of two of the most famous video game characters, and put Nintendo on the map as a video game company.

After the game was released, Universal Pictures decided they wanted a piece of this Donkey Kong pie that was sweeping the nation. They claimed that Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. But that... Wasn't entirely true. See, back in 1975 when they were going to do a remake of the movie, Universal argued that RKO no longer held the rights to King Kong because it was made in 1933 and was in the Public Domain (but if that was the case, wouldn't it be okay to play on YouTube without issue?). They won that case on those grounds and then had the BALLS to come to Nintendo and tell them to fork up some money over rights they never owned in the first place. This wasn't the Nintendo we know today. Back in 1981 it was little more than a couple of offices and a tiny American headquarters. Most businesses that small would have cowered in fear of being sued by such a huge corporation such as Universal, but Yamauchi, refused to back down and took the case like a samurai took to battle. A man by the name of John Kirby (coincidence?) represented Nintendo at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Kirby argued the differences between Donkey Kong and King Kong. He also argued that Universal had no rights to the film as they had successfully sued RKO Pictures in 1975 where they proved that the name and plot to King Kong was in public domain. The court ruled that Universal had no rights to the name and even if they did, that Donkey Kong was a parody of King Kong at worst. And to this day Nintendo holds exclusive rights to Donkey Kong.

Whew! That was quite a history there. But, being Nintendo, I thought the game deserved the justice. So, after two pages of history, just what is this legendary game about anyway? In Donkey Kong you play as a carpenter named Jumpman (later Mario), who owned a pet gorilla named Donkey Kong. But Jumpman was a real asshole and mistreated poor Donkey. The ape escaped and stole Jumpman's girlfriend Pauline. Your goal is to rescue the girl from Donkey Kong while avoiding barrels, fireballs, pies, weird springs, basically, nearly everything in this game besides umbrellas and purses are trying to kill you. You must clime each structure to reach Pauline at the top.

Nintendo, even back in 1981 was being innovative to the gaming industry. This was the first arcade game to have a real story that unfolded onscreen. Yeah, you know that thing that nearly EVERY game has now? Yeah, that started with Donkey Kong (as far as arcade games go at least). Donkey Kong was also one of the first games to feature the joystick on the LEFT side and the jump button being on the right. I remember looking through an old arcade magazine from the early 80's and they actually sited this as the games only flaw when reviewing it. It was also the first platformer, and one of the first to have real music that played throughout the game and not just at the title screen, it was the first game to have different levels that were visually and distinctly unique. Basically, this game was YEARS ahead of it's time, and one of the most influential games of all time.

So how does such a legendary game hold up after 33 years? Maybe this is the nostalgia talking. From spending hours in Frantic Factory trying to get the Golden Banana from the Donkey Kong arcade game, but I love this game. I mean, I love playing new games that I'd never even heard of, but it's nice once in a while to play a familiar game. It was like a breath of fresh air to play something so nostalgic. And the game was just as good as I had remembered it. The controls are simple, yet effective, the levels are creative and colorful, the characters are fun and lively. Overall, it's really fun and playing all the way to the end, no matter how hard it is, is a very rewarding experience.

I've been rambling on for four pages now and I still haven't covered everything this game has done. I honestly recommend playing it for yourself if you can find it, you will not be disappointed. And welcome to the video game industry Nintendo. I'll look forward to seeing you in the future.

Next up: Qix

#0023 Galaga

Two reviews in one week? I'm on a roll!

You know, it's a good thing I like space shoot em ups. Because if I didn't and I tried to do this list, I probably would be like “Ugh, another space shooter”. But luckily, I do like space shooters. And in 2001, Game Informer magazine ranked this game as the 19^th best video game of all time. It has received countless recognition as one of the best games from the Golden Age, and certainly the best game of it's kind. I'm of course talking about Galaga.

I always have more trouble talking about the legendary games. Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and to a slightly lesser extent, Centipede, and now Galaga. What can I say about this game that hasn't been said a million times? I'm not sure because I try not to read reviews on the games I play before I review them. I heard it's considered rude by critics and skews your own perception of the game.

With that said, Galaga is a 1981 shoot 'em up developed by Pac-Man fame, Namco. A squeal to 1979's Galaxian. It's still technically a Space Invaders clone. It only has three buttons, two that move the ship, and one that fires. You all know the drill, you shoot enemies that are in block formation at the top of the screen while avoiding getting hit yourself. If you clear all the bug-like aliens from the screen then you get to advance to the next level.

The thing that separates Galaga from other Space Invaders clones is how the enemies behave. The screen starts off blank, and all the aliens fly into formation from off screen. It's actually quite a spectacle, they all loop in doing somersaults and then fly down in different patterns, all enemies behaving differently. The “Galaga” alien being especially interesting. it will use a tractor beam to try and capture your ship. If successful, you will lose a life and your old ship will fight against you, if you destroy the Galaga that is controlling said ship, then the ship will return to normal, and return to the bottom of the screen and fight for you instead, doubling your firepower. I personally didn't really like this because while it does double your firepower, it also makes you twice as big a target.

But the real question here is how good is this game? How is the ultimate shoot em up, the crowning jewel of the Golden Age? It's good. You know, I liked it. The graphics are way better than Galaxian was, these look like honest to goodness 8bit graphics, but I wasn't blown away by them.. Not bad. But, it doesn't really do much to expand on the formula to things we haven’t seen yet. Yeah, the whole flying on to the screen thing was cool, the tractor beam by the Galagas was unique, but it really wasn't enough to set it apart from the millions of other space shoot em ups. So it was good, I liked it. But it would have been better if it was more unique, or added more to the formula.

Next up: Donkey Kong

#0022 Centipede

This story begins every hundred years. It always begins the same way, with a legend awakening. Legends say that a multitude of armored beasts emerge from the dark core of the earth. They swarm to the surface. Drawn by their master. Every hundred years they try to overtake our world and every hundred years we always think we destroyed them. The legend also has it that every hundred years. We're wrong!

I have a lot of history with this game. See, my Mom doesn't play video games hardly at all. One of the only games, and indeed her favorite was Centipede, so it comes as no surprise that one of the first arcade games I ever played was this game. A 1980 shoot 'em up by the now legendary Atari. It was designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, one of the first and only game programers working for Atari at the time. She wanted to create a game that appealed to women. She did this by using a lot of bright pastel colors, and made it much different from the shoot 'em ups of the time. This game also used a trackball controller that made maneuvering the ship easier. And they succeeded. It was the first arcade game to have a significant female player base after Pac-Man.

In this game you play as a dude (garden gnome?) in a machine called “the shooter”. Your goal is to defend the world against an onslaught of “armored beasts” such as spiders, which skitter around the screen seemingly randomly. Scorpions, who poison mushrooms, causing the centipede to go straight down at you. Fleas, which drop straight down dropping mushrooms. And their leader, a really cool alien looking centipede. The centipede snakes it's way horizontally down the screen, when it hits a mushroom or the end of the screen it goes down one notch. When you shoot the centipede in one of it's many body segments, the body segment you just shot will turn into a new mushroom and the centipede will split into two smaller centipedes, gaining speed the smaller they get. All centipedes must be killed before you can advance to the next level.

So how does this game hold up after so many years? Phenomenally. This game took the shoot 'em up genre in a direction that had never been conceived before. The mushroom mechanic along with a all the enemies working together in some way meant that the game requires more than just a quick trigger finger. To truly succeed, the game requires strategy. The increasing speed, the increasing number of mushrooms, and the heartbeat pulse “music” makes for a truly intense, panic driven game. It's one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had on an arcade, and I can see why the game is such a classic. Anyone who enjoys video games owes it to themselves to play this game.

And, with that we close out 1980. Wow, this was a good year for games. At 12 games, it demonstrates that this this truly is the golden age of arcade games. To end this year, I'd like to take a minute to look back at all the great games I've played from 1980, give some interesting stats, and do my own little “game of the year” thing. Just for fun. Now, without further adieu, here's the list of games I played from 1980:

1. Battlezone
2. Defender
3. Eamon
4. Missile Command
5. Rogue
6. Tempest
7. M.U.D.
8. Pac-Man
9. Phoenix
10. Zork I
11. Warlords
12. Centipede

Here's a graph that shows the percentage of games were made by each developer. Notice roughly 33% of the games were either made by Atari, or Indie developers

This show which genres were more popular in 1980. I think everyone was still trying to get a slice of that Space Invaders Pie even two years later.

The Arcade to PC ratio. Seems about right. No good console games were made this year.

Just to show how big the Golden age was. 1980 produced more games than every other year combined. Note, Space invaders came out in 1978.

And the award for game of the year, 1980 goes to:

Missile Command!

Missile Command tells the grim and horrific story of nuclear war, and that if nuclear war ever erupted, there would be no winners. No matter what you do you just cannot win. Video games even today rarely convey such a deep and though provoking message. If they do, it's usually in a cinematic fashion that might be better suited in a film. But here in 1980, 34 years ago, missile command not only tells a thought provoking story, but tells it purely through gameplay, with no text, and no cut scenes. Proving that not only can games deliver an amazing story, but can do it in a way that other story telling mediums cannot. Without the story, it's a great, fast paced, panic inducing shooter, but with the story, it's one of the best games I've played in a long time. And that's why it's 1980's game of the year.

To wrap things up, If there's one thing I've learned from my experience so far it would be this. If video games were people, Atari would be your 90 year old great grand father who used to do stuff, but that was well before you were born. Now he just lays in his bed while you feed him and change his diapers every day never talking about or really trying to think about him until one day you're looking through an old book about him and you discover that this 90 year old man is really Mic Jagger and all of a sudden you have a new found respect for the man.

That's how Atari is for me. I always knew Atari used to make games, but I never realized they were the Walt Disney of Arcade games. Of the 22 games I've played, 50% of them were made by Atari. Nearly every game made by them back then was a crowning gem. That's something not many game companies today can claim, and zero could claim at the time.

They have been absolutely crucial to the gaming industry and their contributions to games can still be felt even today. But unfortunately, I know how the story ends for this Goliath. And I must say that when 1983 comes, I'm going to miss Atari's presence on this list. So here's to Atari, and here's to 1980. May there be many great years to come.

#0021 Warlords

Tell me if this game sounds familiar to you. It's a game where you play as a paddle and your goal is to hit a ball at a series of blocks, the goal being to break through those blocks at the top of the screen. Sound familiar? Well what about a game where you play as a paddle, the goal being to hit a ball back at your opponent while avoiding missing the ball yourself. If the games you were thinking of were Breakout and Pong... You'd be right. But if you were thinking of Warlords, a game developed by Atari four to eight years later because you read the title of today's review... Yeah, you'd still be right. Yep, it took 'em four years and dozens of clones by other companies, but Atari finally did it. They combined Pong and Breakout into one game and called it Warlords.

In this game you play as one of four “warlords” in one of the four corners of the screen. You're guarded by what looks like, maybe, a brick wall? Topped with... You know I'm not even sure what those six things sticking out are supposed to be. I know what they're NOT they're NOT battlements because there's a big hole in the middle of each that would defeat point of using them as cover. Your goal is to defend this big square from an onslaught of fireballs by deflecting them with only one shield. Your goal is to deflect the fireball back at the darth vaders, whittling down their walls to get to the soft creamy warlord center. Once you hit a darth vader directly, it explodes and is out of the game. You do this with all the others and if you're the last one standing at the end of the game, you win!

Yeah, this is a pong/breakout clone. Like, Atari doesn't even seem to have any shame about it. The graphics are sub par, the “music” is about as good as Boot Hill, the AI's are assholes who all try and gang up on you, the Color choice is headache inducing, the physics are wonky and are even a step down from Pong... And it's probably one of the funnest games I've played so far.

I mean it. This game is addicting, while yes, it's a pong/breakout clone, I think Atari realizes that and doesn't try to be anything else. Once that fireball really gets going and more than one fireball enters the field, the game just turns into all out chaos as you try desperately to deflect the fireball at the enemies exposed area, and it actually gets kind of tense when you realize that you're almost completely exposed and one more hit would be the end. I actually wish I could play this with others as I honestly think it would make a great party game. So yeah, I recommend it. If you want to play a more updated version, there's an XBLA version that came out in 2008 and 2012, but I've never played either version so I couldn't vouch for it. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that this game was ported to the Atari 2600, and is often regarded as one of the best games for that console.

Up next: Centipede

#0020 Zork I

And the award for the nerdiest sounding title for a game goes too... Zork! Which sounds like a combination of “Zordon” and “dork” and is a text adventure created by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels and Dave Lebling, and published by Infocom.

No this isn't my screenshot either, but it's how the game always starts.

I know what you're asking yourself right now, hey Ultimate-Gamer, weren't Eamon, M.U.D. and Rogue all based on and inspired by this game? Why yes reader, that is true, and while the game was technically released in 1977, the game we're playing today is the PC port that came out in 1980, this version took the original game Zork, and split it into three separate games that, individually, could be run on the PCs of the day. Thus, today's game is Zork I, the first of that trilogy of games that came out for the Apple II, the Commodore 64 among others.

Zork is a text adventure where you're placed in the vague role of “Adventurer” and places you in front of a white house with no real instruction. Turns out this white house is right on top of the last entrance to the Great Underground Empire. Your goal is to collect treasures from this underground dungeon and place them in the trophy case in the house. You do this by navigating the dungeon, fighting monsters and solving the puzzles that present themselves to you.

Game shines not because of its gameplay, because let's face it, from a gameplay standpoint, if you've played one text adventure you've played them all. Or even it's story. The game shines because of the sense of adventure and attention to detail that these creators so lovingly packed into this game!

For starters the only NPC in this game is a thief with a stiletto who steals your belongings and tries to kill you if you follow him. On paper a thief who goes around and hinders your quest sounds like a pain in the ass, but I actually had quite a bit of fun with him. After I got tired of him stealing all my treasures, I decided I'd go and corner him and MAKE him give me my stuff. He bowed to me and brandished his stiletto and we began duking it out and it turned out to be the only fight in the game that actually posed a challenge. Once he was dead and I got my stuff back I realized that he had opened the golden egg he stole from me. I was not able to open it on my own. That's really cool to have a character like that who actually has an effect on the game.

See another thing I like about Zork are the complexity of the puzzles. The entire game's challenge is based around them. You adventure through this big underground empire picking up little trinkets in order to solve them. Being a fan of puzzle based adventures myself after I got used to the format and had a good map going I realized just how much fun I was having with it. Going from puzzle to puzzle seeing which one I could solve. Like, maybe if I rang this little bell in the “loud room” maybe it'll have an effect. It's a very rewarding experience when try something and get a new message indicating that it worked! Even better when you receive a treasure for it. But even though the puzzles were fun and challenging, they're still not my favorite part of the game. My favorite part is actually a very small part of the game, but it's always there... Always waiting...

There are only a few monsters in the game proper. A troll, which dies very easily, a cyclops who is indestructible unless you solve the puzzle surrounding him. And my most favorite monster, the Grue. The grue is a monster that lurks in darkness and fears the light. This thing follows you, without you even knowing it. Constantly stalking you, waiting for your lanterns battery to extinguish and as soon as you're in pitch blackness it strikes, killing you instantly. So you can imagine my terror when I first went down that trap door not realizing that I left the lantern in the trophy case. I heard the trap door close and someone locking it from the outside along with the message.

“It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.”

Oh shit.

I didn't take two steps before something before something slithered into the room and devoured me.

Wow game. Way to play at my nerves. It was honestly a pretty creepy experience, to realize that you're in deep and there's nothing you can do but wait to be devoured in the darkness. So this marks the first time in video game history that a game actually managed to creep me out. 1980, Zork I. Speaking of being creeped out, does this game's setup seem familiar to anyone?

That's right! Anyone who's played Silent Hill, or Amnesia, or any survival horror game will feel right at home with this game. I don't mean that this game is a survival horror game, or is even scary. It's not, the grue may be the exception, but the game still has an overwhelming sense of humor and never takes itself too seriously. No, the familiarity comes from the way that you collect items from different rooms in order to solve puzzles that keep you from progress. Usually multiple puzzles are offered to you at the same time. You'll be going along and find a grate under a pile of leaves that cannot be opened. You continue anyway, keeping the grating in your mind as you progress through the game until you find a dead person with a key around his neck and remember “Oh! This must go to that grate I found earlier”. See the connection? I just find it amazing just how far back that style of gameplay actually goes. And here I thought it started with computer adventure games in the 90's.

Overall, this game was a lot of fun. Maybe even better than Eamon. It was the first game where after an hour of gameplay, not only did I not feel like I completed everything, but that I had only barely scratched the surface of what this game was all about. I am very tempted to go back and actually finish the game properly and you should to! The game is vaporware, meaning that the company that owned it is now out of business and Zork is now Public domain. Download the entire trilogy here and give the precursor to everything from computer RPGs to survival horror games a shot!

Before I wrap this up, I just wanted to comment on something I noticed. Right now there's a big split between console gamers, and PC gamers. Little did I know going into this challenge just how far back the split went. Ever since Pong made playing video games easy and accessible to everyone we had a split between people who played more cerebral and intellectual games on PCs and people who played reflex testing shoot 'em ups in the arcades, and then later on video game consoles. While neither one is bad, it's just interesting just how gaming culture can be so vastly different just because of the type of devise we play them on. Even to this day the debate continues on whether PC gaming or Console gaming is superior, though, nowadays, the difference is less jarring as most PC games are ported to Consoles and vise versa. Personally, while I grew up a full fledged Nintendo console gamer, now I belie that PCs offer more variety as well as more options, but consoles will always have a place in my heart... Especially since smash bros 4 is coming out soon.

Next up: Warlords (I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this one off...)

#0019 Phoenix

So today I played Phoenix, a 1980 shoot 'em up Developed by the late Amstar Electronics.

Look, I'm going to be honest here people, this game didn't impress me. With games like Gaxian, and Tempest, I just felt that this game was trying really hard to be Galaxian, while at the same time having it's own unique voice and it just... Didn't work.

Okay, so let's take a look at this game. You play as a weird looking red ship and you're job is to kill these stupid birds that fly around the screen and try to kill you. Just like that other game. In order to advance to the next level you must kill all the birds on the screen, the enemies getting harder with each level.

I have to give the game credit, I truly do feel like they're not just trying to rip off Galaxian, and are honestly trying to set themselves apart from all the other Galaxian clones that were filling the market. The most striking difference between the two is the fact that the enemies progress. This is something I haven't seen much on the list. As you progress from level to level the birds go from flying around at random and trying to suicide bomb you, just like the other game, to more different birds that fly around and try to suicide bomb you. But after the second level, the enemies actually change completely. Now they're these little eggs that fly horizontally down the screen at you. Soon they hatch into large birds that can only be killed by shooting them in the middle. This took me slightly by surprise as I didn't expect such a dramatic change in enemy, especially not from such a blatant clone of that other game. You do one more round of the weird egg birds and finally you get to the boss. Yes you heard me right, a boss. An honest to goodness boss, the first boss of an Arcade game in history. And while the boss doesn't pose too much challenge, it was still refreshing to see so much variety from a shoot 'em up game.

Another thing that Phoenix brings to the table is it's shield mechanic. At any point in the game you may press a button and activate a shield that protects you from anything for about two seconds. You cannot move while the shield is in place, but you're also completely invincible while it's up. While it's a good idea, and one that hadn't been tried yet, it wasn't very well implemented. The shield often doesn't react in time. A lot of times I'd find myself in harms way and pressing the shield button only to find that I had apparently pressed it too late as the bullet hit my fragile craft and exploded into a dozen or so little parts.

The last thing that Phoenix tries to do is set a different tone than that other game. While that other game has a bright and heroic feel to it, what with it's bright colors and catchy little tune at the beginning, Phoenix tries to be a more atmospheric with it's classical opening theme played in a very melancholy minor key. It's very pretty, and changes the tone quite a bit, but I never got that “creepy” vibe that they seemed to be going for. Instead the music seemed to clash with the bright colors and cute little egg birds.

Overall, while I do have to admit that Phoenix does sound good on paper with it's shield mechanics, it's advancing enemies and different tone, the end result is more of a mixed bag, and while I did enjoy myself, it still just reminded me of clone of that other game. I personally think that had they pushed the game a little further, they could have had something great. Something as simple as fixing the shield to work correctly, changing the color scheme and making the music less mysterious and more unnerving would really serve to put the game on a different playing field than that other game. I realize a lot of people really like this game and I'm in no way saying that Phoenix is a BAD game, I just wasn't impressed, and thought that it had a lot of unused potential. If you ever happen to find yourself 1980's and wander into an old arcade, give it a shot and see what you think. Then go find Christopher Lloyd because you don't know how you got there or how to get back to 2014.

Next up: Zork I