Sol Negro
(Opera Soft, 1988)
Bully and Mónica are both cursed. Every full moon, one of them turns into an animal, while the other regains their human form. This prevents them both from being together, so they wait until there is a total eclipse and they can visit an underwater temple where the curse can be removed. In the first part, you control Bully, and you must find the key to release Mónica (who has turned into a hawk) from her cage and reach the temple. The roles are reversed in the second part, where you control Mónica, who is accompanied by Bully (who has turned into a fish). What a strange story for a game! Well, the graphics are very nice indeed and really detailed. Unfortunately, even with twenty (!) lives, the game is still frustratingly difficult, particularly in the second part.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Axelino,
jgonza (part 1),
jgonza (part 2),
Metr81 (part 1),
Metr81 (part 2).
Solar Coaster
(Optyx, 1987)
Yawn – it’s yet another Galaxian clone. This one has only four levels; three of these feature a formation of aliens hurling laser beams at you, while the fourth sees you fighting against the aliens’ mothership. We’ve seen it all before. The graphics are actually not too bad and are quite colourful, but the sound effects are nothing special. The game itself is a bit difficult; while the alien ships whizz about the screen and fire at you (and those lasers seem to home in on you), your spacecraft moves rather slowly – but practice makes perfect. Even so, there are better games than this out there.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Xyphoe.
Solar Empire
(Players, 1990)
The evil Dargons have enslaved the galaxy, and you must free as many planets in the galaxy as you can. How do you do this? You must find an asteroid and shoot it, allowing you to steer it in a particular direction. Captured planets will be liberated if you manage to crash an asteroid into it. It seems like an extremely drastic method of liberating a planet, but I’m not responsible for devising this game! Obviously, you have the usual aliens to contend with, as well as the fact that your spaceship is very snake-like in both appearance and manoeuvrability. There are also several dials that tell you the nearest location of various objects. The graphics are quite good, although the screen is mostly empty space. However, for some reason, I don’t really warm to this game much.
Solar Invasion
(Virgin Mastertronic, 1989)
Returning from a visit to the intergalactic zoo to bring some exotic Praxalite aliens to Earth, you discover that your cargo has escaped and the aliens are threatening to overrun the Solar System! It’s now your job to destroy them all and prevent this from happening. You start at Pluto and work your way towards Mercury. Each level contains one huge alien that will take many hits to kill, but they also produce many smaller aliens that must also be shot before they grow too large. This game requires the Magnum Light Phaser lightgun, but it’s not much fun to play. It’s a Spectrum port, for a start, and while the music is good, there’s no time limit, and the aliens don’t fight back at you, so it’s quite easy to get close to the end of the game without much hassle – although things become much tougher once you reach Mercury...
Defend Earth’s solar system in this shoot-’em-up. The game begins with a mission on Pluto. You start off at the controls of your space fighter. Immediately you come under attack from the enemy. The controls and scrolling are good and the sound effects are decent. You rendezvous with a larger ship in orbit and are tasked with landing on the planet’s surface. This is a bit of an acquired taste and can be frustrating due to the controls. Once you have landed you take control of a tank with three directions of simultaneous fire and the ability to hop over crevices. The graphics are in Mode 0 and, as mentioned before, scroll well. This game offers some good horizontally scrolling action.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
XeNoMoRPH.
Playing Xain, you must travel to various human planets (three in total) infested with alien intruders. In this slow and jerky scrolling shoot-’em-up, you move along, taking out enemies with the occasional power-up available. Each planet has a boss to fight once you make it to the end of the zone. The graphics are quite good in this one, although at times a little too garish, but the sluggish movement and scrolling just ruin this one game-wise. The in-game sound effects are nothing to write about either.
Solo
(Opera Soft, 1989)
One morning, a little eight-year-old boy called Carlitos was ready to go to school. He walked out of his house and into the streets – and was confronted by hordes of armed men shooting at him! Fortunately he had a Gunstick with him... This is the very surreal story behind this target shooting game, which can only be played using MHT’s Gunstick. As the scenery scrolls along, you have to shoot the gunmen and avoid shooting any innocent bystanders. Your ammunition is limited, so you will also need to shoot boxes to maintain your supply. It’s fairly standard stuff, although there is a lot of action going on; there is little time to rest! The graphics are very detailed and well drawn, although the tune on the menu is merely OK. Despite the silly story, this is a fairly good game.
Wealth beyond avarice is yours for the taking in King Solomon’s mines, but first you must navigate your way through a labyrinth of monster-filled chambers in this conversion of the Tecmo puzzle arcade coin-op. To proceed, you need to obtain the cunningly placed key to unlock the exit door. Reach it via the blocks that are arranged before you and lay your own to bridge any gaps between you and your goal. However, the monsters can condemn you to fall to your death by destroying the blocks beneath you. Thankfully you can kill them the same way and use fireballs against them that you can pick up along the way, along with reams of bonuses that are littered all around. A rather difficult challenge but a delightful-looking game.
Sonic Boom
(Activision, 1990)
Fly the highly sophisticated and well armed fighter jet, the Sonic Boom, engaging it in six different conflicts across the continents of the world. Nothing original in the plot, then; it’s another vertically scrolling shoot-’em-up. However, it’s quite good, mainly because of the beautiful graphics and the fact that the difficulty level is such that you can complete most of the six levels without too many problems – although it’s perhaps a little too easy. There aren’t many power-ups to collect – extra firepower is more or less all you can get – but the variety of end-of-level combats you face is interesting.
Sootland
(Zafiro, 1989)
What sort of a name is Sootland? I don’t know, but it’s one of those target shooting games where you have to aim your crosshairs at the bad guys before they shoot you. This one is an American western-style shooting match, and there are three levels, each with four screens. All you do is scroll between them and find the cowboy popping his head through the scenery – they only appear one at a time, and when you’ve shot him, you have to find the next one, which means more scrolling. This goes on and on, but you just don’t know how many of the bad guys you’re supposed to kill. The graphics and sound are both pitiful, and it’s such an unbelievably awful game.