Take on the alien scum and lay waste to their planets in this amusing top-scrolling shoot-’em-up. Whilst not the most original or best looking of this type of game, the action moves along at a nice pace, and the ability to destroy the planet surface structures below is a pleasant addition to the usual slaughtering of waves of incoming aliens. As the game progresses, it does become somewhat surreal – the flying strawberries on the second level in particular! It’s also notable for its peculiar hardware scrolling effect called Rotovision.
Mission Jupiter
(Code Masters, 1987)
Aliens have entered our solar system, and your spaceship has landed on one of Jupiter’s moons. You get out of the ship and start blasting the aliens as you walk across the lunar landscape. Yes, this is yet another average, horizontally scrolling shoot-’em-up, and there’s absolutely nothing special about this one. There is just one long level, divided into ten sections. If you lose one of your lives, you resume at the start of the section you’re on. The graphics and sound effects are both mediocre, although the game has the option to save the high score table so you can preserve your scores for posterity – that is, if you can actually achieve a high score, because it’s also a rather difficult game.
Guess what? You must save the Earth. A spaceship is rushing through space towards our planet. Managing to enter it, you have only one hour to find a way to sabotage the ship and escape. This game is really surprising. Everything is done by clicking on icons (a Windows-like environment on the CPC!). The main interest of the game is the building of your robots (up to eight) that you control to explore the spaceship. The base is really huge and the time you’re given is far too short. To make your mission even harder, you must fight aliens and find the right switches to open the many magnetic gates that block your progress. Fortunately, there is an automap. But the base is never the same twice; rooms are built randomly at the beginning of a new game so it’s impossible to remember your way in this maze!
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Amstrad CPC World.
Mr Freeze
(Firebird, 1984)
Mr Freeze is inside a refrigerator which needs to be de-iced. There is a de-icer in each of the six compartments, which Mr Freeze can reach only by negotiating the platforms and ladders, and avoiding the robots. This is a very strange fridge indeed! Some robots wander left and right across the platforms and can be frightened off with your flamethrower, but there is another robot on the ceiling which moves towards you and fires lasers at you when you climb a ladder; you’ll need to work out how it moves in order to get up and down safely. This is an old game, so the graphics and music are nothing special at all, and the gameplay isn’t all that interesting. It might have been OK when it was originally released, but it hasn’t stood the test of time well.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Amstrad CPC World,
ChinnyVision,
Novabug (gameplay),
Novabug (longplay).
Mister Gas
(Proein Soft Line, 1989)
Mr Gas is a bubble who was destined to enjoy life in a bottle of cava (a type of Spanish sparkling wine). But he’s trapped inside a soda water factory and will end up inside a soda water bottle instead! This cannot be allowed to happen, so Mr Gas must escape. The only way out of the factory is a pipe, but it’s blocked, and you must roam the factory and search for the four objects that are required to turn the rusty tap that opens the gateway to freedom, while avoiding the energy-sapping crabs, birds, robots and ventilation shafts. Sadly, this is a terrible game with awful, monochrome graphics and no sound effects whatsoever, which only adds to the boredom and monotony of searching the (very large) factory for the four objects.
Mr Heli is a coin-op conversion in which you guide a cross between a robot and a helicopter through three different levels. As usual, your task involves shooting down almost everything you come across while you keep dodging a variety of bullets and missiles. The cheerful tune and the cute graphics are likely to fool the player but beware, Mr Heli isn’t an easy game and you’d better use the power-ups that come up from time to time wisely. To sum up, a good shoot-’em-up that could have been better if the levels weren’t all too similar.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
ChinnyVision,
Xyphoe.
Mr Pingo
(Rainbow Arts, 1986)
This is a below-average clone of the classic arcade game Pengo, in which a penguin pushes blocks of ice to kill the enemies, while trying to push parts of a diamond together. As well as throwing ice at the Sno-Bees (the enemies), you can also shake the boundary wall to stun them. However, as soon as you kill a Sno-Bee, another will appear. The early levels are easy, but as you progress, the Sno-Bees move faster and it’s more difficult to escape from them. The graphics do their job, and the tune is very jolly, but every level is almost exactly the same as the previous one and things quickly become boring.
Mr Weems and the She Vampires
(Piranha, 1987)
Mr Weems delves into the realms of the lair of the She Vampires in his quest to destroy the Great She Vampire. There are six levels, each of which bristles with vampires, Frankenstein’s monsters and She Vampires, and contact with any of them reduces Mr Weems’ blood count. Fortunately, there are bottles of blood to be collected, and you’ll also find keys and garlic bombs lying about. You’ve also got to find a wooden box on each level, or you’ll be unable to kill the Great She Vampire – if you manage to meet her. Both the graphics and sound effects in this game are appalling, which lets it down an awful lot. Another thing – it’s much easier to play this game using the joystick.
Mr Wino
(Silverbird, 1988)
Willy Wino is clearing all the bottles away after a massive booze-up. Having recovered from a hangover, he sets about gathering the bottles and avoiding aliens and spikes. You don’t actually have to collect all the bottles, although you might need to collect all the bottles on a screen to open some doors. It’s a simple and colourful platform game that is really rather enjoyable at first, and the sound effects are jolly, too. Once you reach the second level, this enjoyment disappears as you discover that it’s too difficult.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Amstrad CPC World.
Mr Wong’s Loopy Laundry
(Amsoft/Artic Computing, 1984)
Help Mr Wong run his laundry by negotiating the platforms and ladders, collecting the dirty clothes, and throwing them down the chute to be washed. However, it’s not that easy, because Mr Wong is constantly being chased by a possessed iron, a sack of dirty laundry, and a cluster of soap bubbles. Well, it is a loopy laundry, after all! Fortunately, he can fire starch at the enemies to freeze them temporarily, but his supplies are limited, so it must be used sparingly. This is a very early platform game, and it shows. The graphics are very basic, albeit colourful, and the confined playing area makes it quite difficult to dodge the enemies, and each level looks and plays almost identically to the previous one.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Amstrad CPC World,
ChinnyVision.