With Your Host, Rob Remakes

Tag: Shoot Em Up Page 1 of 2

Zeroptian Invasion

You know, I was absolutely convinced I’d put words down on Zeroptian Invasion some time back but perhaps I should have double checked that one sooner because no, no, I had not.

I am really fond of Zeroptian Invasion.

I’ve long nurtured an appreciation of the single screen shooter, from Space Invaders, Galaga and the usual suspects through a whole bunch of home computer games, PD, homebrew and indie titles. In my old age, I’ve lost none of my love for the things and Zeroptian Invasion is no exception.

The opening stage presents the player with a really quite lovely Space Invaders-esque game in a gorgeous 70’s arcade meets ZX Spectrum style. Over the course of a fair handful of stages, it adds a wee bit more complexity to the mix, not a great deal because the game stays wonderfully true to its aesthetic and videogame inspirations, but certainly enough to ensure that it keeps the player on their toes.

Think a modern Gorf, you know? It’s that sort of deal.

It’s the kind of game that had it actually existed in the eighties, I’d have fallen in love with it pretty easily and would probably bend your ear off over even now. Given I’m still every bit as awed by similar games today as I was then, it was pretty easy for me to fall in love with it now, nevermind.

It helps in no small part by it being an absolutely gorgeous game! The sprite work is often wonderful and I’m a real sucker for the bezel artwork too.

I’ve been playing it on the PS4 and Switch. Other formats are available.


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Ye Olde Videogame: Space Cruiser

I don’t really like the whole “old games=hard” thing games has a tendency to default to assuming, mainly because there were a lot of old games and amongst them, a lot of kinds of old games. From the humble text adventure to the platformer to the shooter, difficulty and approachability tended to be rather all over the shop!

So, you know, not that different to now really. Saying old games were all hard is a bit like saying new ones are because Dark Souls exists. It’s silly.

That said, some of them are absolute monsters and I had forgotten quite how monstrous Space Cruiser was/is. My main recollections of the game shrouded in the mists of a lot of life having been lived since it sat in the cafe at the local swimming baths alongside Hunchback and Scramble, and I don’t think I ever really consciously paid it much attention on MAME in more recent years – not out of any particular dislike or concern, just I hadn’t really thought about it in a lifetime.

Partly out of necessity (a dude needs his old games) and partly after finally letting the wisdom of Yak from a few years back sink in after one of my more grumpy moments about the Arcade Archives range (“if we won’t pay a fiver for an arcade game, who will?” and as ever, man has a point), I’ve been grabbing some stuff from the all too tiny bunch of old games you can buy on the PS4 and trying to not just stick to another copy of Scramble or I, Robot either.

I definitely wish the games had more pleasing bezel artwork instead of whatever that is.

So yeah, that’s kinda meant if I’ve got a fiver spare or whatever, taking a punt on some half remembered thing because, well, why not? The worst a game can be is not to my tastes. As I’m going through a bit of a space shooty (and in particular, space shooty with a simple coloured scrolling pixel starfield if possible) phase I figured why not eh over Space Cruiser.

Oof. I know my reflexes and co-ordination are far from what they used to be but still, oof. I’m definitely spending more time losing lives than progressing on this one. Enjoying myself, mind!

I have no idea what the term du jour for this sort of thing is but it’s a bit Moon Cresta, even down to having a ship docking sequence. Think one screen at a time, bunch of aliens flying around in some formation – not rigid like Space Invaders, more chaotic like the latter parts of a Galaga stage. A very dawn of the eighties blast.

Coloured pixel starfields are the best starfields.

It’s got some lush presentation going on, some definite showy-offy bits. A short animated sequence of your spacecraft launching opens the game, your progress is marked in an on-screen map at key stages and my personal favourite thing – the colour cycling asteroid blasting stages that start off fairly reasonably paced but quickly descend into a glorious nightmare of, like, a whole few colours cycling pretty fast.

It’s as effective a simple trick here as it is in today’s games, though obviously needs a hefty epilepsy warning just in case.

There’s definitely the occasional thing here where I’m like “Ref! Ref! Come ‘ed, that was a foul, easy” (the first time I got wiped by the first stage’s high speed red ball, I swear I swore swears no-one should swear) but in space, no-one can hear you appeal to an imaginary referee so I just had to get on with it.

You can try Space Cruiser for yourself through MAME or on a bunch of consoles as a title in the arcade archives series. It’s pretty good.

Here’s me failing repeatedly to make any sort of decent progress. Like I say, this game is hard.


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Super Destronaut DX 2

I’m not saying I really enjoyed the first Super Destronaut or anything but the time from spotting Super Destronaut DX2 had launched on the PlayStation store to me scraping together a few quid to buy it could be measured in minutes.

I can’t say I was disappointed either.

A chaotic scene from Super Destronaut DX2, amidst a shaking screen and chromatic aberration, the player's spacecraft destroys one of an incoming wave of colourful glowing enemies.

You can probably see why, right? It glows.

It’s a game that doesn’t need much of an explanation, it’s a very traditional shoot ’em up, think somewhere between Space Invaders and Imagine’s Arcadia (you can pick which format) – waves of enemies find their way onto the screen, you shoot them. That’s the deal, that’s as much brainpower as you’ll need.

Because everything is super big and super chunky, it looks absolutely fantastic in motion. It’s far, far, far from the most challenging game ever made (the other one, really) so it very quickly turns into a game of sitting back and enjoying the light show as the firework-like explosions tear across the screen.

A screenshot from Super Destronaut DX2. An almost Factory Records yellow border surrounds a play area, the play area is a wireframe landscape with wireframe structures in the distance. At the forefront, waves of very colourful, very chunky simplistic pixel enemies are blown apart by the player's chunky rocket ship.

Much like other Petite Games stuff, Super Destronaut DX2 manages to hit a lovely sweet spot of just enough challenge to feel like I’m in control of the action and way more than enough shiny to satisfy my flashy-light addiction. It rarely demands too much of my skills but really appeals to my love of glowing pixels.

There’s a couple of modes to mix things up a bit, nothing drastic (best score possible in X minutes and the like), more than enough to stop me getting bored and I am, as anyone who has played stuff I’ve worked on before now, certainly a fan of that sort of bite size arcade gaming so it works for me.

All told, it’s a very Rob-will-like-this game and indeed, I do like it. A lot.

As usual, I’ve been playing the PS4 version. Other formats are available. I can’t really see there being much difference between them.


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