In this era of infinite games, like Zynga Poker (TM)(R)(C) and King's Candy Crush games (C)(R)(TM), sometimes it's nice to wax nostalgic for the games you played in your childhood... okay,
my childhood. Sorry, Glennis Yeager, I tried... but we are a nostalgic species. I believe it was
Howard Suber who said that memory is a powerful force... something like that. Sorry... mixing blogs again. For whatever reason, I never got into
Battlezone, but I know it's got an important place in video game history. This, despite the fact that
Assault clearly has
way, way more features. My favourite was, of course, where you would leap real high into the air... didn't seem to help me much, though.
Vindicators was fun, but I clearly didn't bring enough quarters. #harderthanstickshift Doom and Doom II should've had a vehicle for you to drive around in; alas, you are your own tank in that one. But let's try to get back to
Dimension X already. It's a bit like Synapse's other 3D-ish effort,
Encounter, but you only get one life in Dimension X. That's... not terribly dimensional! No, you get the added level of a ship in need of nearly constant repairs. Part of the reason why I don't like to play the tougher levels on some of these things.
The Last Starfighter's like that too, as is Synapse's flight games
Blue Max and
Blue Max 2001... might as well include 'em both. Game map-wise,
Encounter keeps things simple, as you go linearly from sector to sector.
Dimension X is similar to
Blasteroids or
The E Factor with its two-dimensional game map. The glittering bad guys in
Dimension X thankfully don't have as much variety as the baddies of
Encounter fame... I still have nightmares about
that red one. In between
Dimension X's sectors is a game similar to a portion of the Atari (C)(TM)(R) Star Wars (TM)(R)(C) game where you have to
dodge barriers at various altitudes. This is of course a serious strain on the 6502's capabilities, but programmer
Steve Hales is up to the challenge, and gives all five of the player/missiles a workout. I won't give it a star rating, but it... it was worth a revisit, what the hell.
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