Game 428: Night Gunner

Digital Integration was a minor British developer best known for flight sims like Hind and Apache, and are credited with distribution on several UK budget re-releases. They didn't produce many whales of their own, and their earliest bona fide whale is 1989's F-16 Combat Pilot, but 1985 seemed a good year to introduce the company with Commodore 64 racer Speed King and their backlog up to it.

Their first game, Night Gunner, was originally developed for the ZX81, and like most ZX81 games is a barely playable piece of crap.

It's Star Fire, just with a WWII bomber theme. That makes the third Star Fire clone I've played that was made by a British bedroom programmer in 1982, and this is the worst one yet. To hit your targets you have to tediously nudge them into the center of your screen with painfully unresponsive cursor keys, awkwardly mapped to the 5-6-7-8 keyboard cluster (as it is with a real ZX81 keyboard), and whenever you push them it's not always clear whether the input was accepted or not.

I'd just move onto the next one, except that the ZX Spectrum version of the same game appears to be substantially different.

Alas, it's still not a side-scrolling shmup where you play as a flying wizard.

You will definitely want to emulate a joystick - the keyboard layout makes no sense even by ZX Spectrum standards.

 

It's still much like Star Fire, though this time the crosshairs move instead of your point of view, and it's all the better for it, even with more responsive controls than in the ZX81 original.

 

You still need to hit your targets dead-center, and now you have to lead them as well, but at least you have rapid-fire. Ammo is finite but I never ran out of it. Perhaps it becomes an issue on later missions. 

On the higher difficulty levels, your plane takes damage FAST, and this affects the plane's speed and handling. It's usually not even worth trying to shoot down the defenseless blimps, because you really don't want to let the fighters stay alive for a moment longer than necessary.

Once the plane reaches its destination, you switch to bombing mode.

Somehow the bombing is at day.

 

Here, there's no reason not to slow down to minimum velocity. You can't hit all of the targets, but the more accurately you bomb, the more points you score. The time limit is irrelevant; you'll certainly drop your bombs before time runs out, at either which point you turn around, return to the tailgunner seat, and try to survive the trip home.

Subsequent missions follow the same format - gunning, bombing, gunning - but get more difficult. Enemies get faster and more numerous, bombing targets become mobile ones like tanks and trucks, and sometimes it is a dive-bombing mission, which is far more difficult.

 

Once a targets appears past the horizon, you only have a few seconds before it passes under your firing line. If you aren't already diving when you see it, it's too late - and your altitude drops fast!

The tape liner claims 30 missions, but I couldn't get anywhere near close to that.

GAB rating: Below average. The ZX Spectrum is luxurious compared to the ZX81, but destitute compared to the Atari 800. With functional controls and visuals and some gameplay variety, this is one of the better action games I've played on an ultra-budget micro before, but that isn't saying much; only three such games have managed average or better (3D Starstrike, Gridrunner, Jetpac).

Game 427: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Dr. Jones' expression looks like he got his tenure revoked.

I’ve long considered the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to be underrated. It’s not the best by a longshot – that would be Raiders of the Lost Ark; the sidekicks in Temple are crap, the plot a bit weak, the Kiplingesque pro-imperialist connotations troubling, and there’s almost nothing of redeeming value in the first two headache-inducing acts which consist mainly of a relentless barrage of ridiculous action set pieces, culturally insensitive grossout gags, and Kate Capshaw’s endless whining and screaming.

But when Indy & co finally reach the titular temple and adjoining catacombs where the bulk of the action happens, it gets good. The stunts, the deathtraps, mine carts, lava flows, dynamite explosions and cave-ins exemplify the adventuring spirit of the films almost better than anything else in the entire trilogy. Plus, Thug leader Mola Ram is a way better villain than any of the Nazi bureaucrats that Jones squared off against in the other films. They're in over their soon-to-be-melted heads when it comes to anything magic, but Mola Ram commands magic with the panache of a Mortal Kombat boss. They wear their dinky little totenkopf insignias, Ram wears a giant yak skull headpiece with a smaller skull embedded inside.

Atari's Temple of Doom, like their Star Wars games, thankfully cover only the good parts, and Willie Scott and Short Round are almost nowhere to be seen (or heard). Unlike Atari's chronologically confused Star Wars games, Raiders of the Lost Ark had been adapted earlier as an Atari 2600 game by Howard Scott Warshaw, and from a cursory look may have been more baffling than E.T. This comparatively straightforward action/platformer is certainly better thought of as a standalone adaptation of the film than a sequel to the earlier game, absolving me from having to play it. Last Crusade would, of course, be handled by frequent Atari partner Tiertex, with the coinciding adventure game done by Lucasfilm Games.

My below video is on easy difficulty, which unlike Return of the Jedi will enable every game scene, and it's difficult enough - I can't complete medium without cheats, even when starting with six lives.

 

Difficulty selection is its own level, handled in a manner that makes me think of Quake - not just in how the higher difficulties are gated behind more challenging diegetic actions, but also in setting the stage for the game's gloomy, oppressive atmosphere even before it technically begins.

Regardless of difficulty, the game unfolds over four cycles of three scenes - the catacombs, the mineshaft, and the temple.

In the catacombs, you traverse the treacherous, maze-like paths in search of the children imprisoned here, avoiding traps, pitfalls, and Thugs, who are relentless but usually subdued with a good whip crack. They're also some of the least self-preserving enemies I've ever seen in a video game, routinely walking off ledges and into lava pits, spikes, pulverizers, etc. And the Atari voice synthesizer makes their vaguely offensive chanting sound like the Swedish Chef! Indy's voice doesn't fare much better either, constantly yelping "woah!" and "ayeee!" in a manner that sounds less like Harrison Ford and more like Pitfall Harry Jr.

Rescue the children and you can leave via mine cart.

The mine cart scene is for certain where I lost most of my lives. The cart moves fast, controls aren't always responsive, and limited screen space means danger often pops up quicker than I can react to it. There's always an explosive barrel right at the end of the scene, and you must whip it to blow up the tracks behind you or you will almost certainly be taken out by a pursuing cart, and if there's one close enough behind you this might happen (and has happened) anyway.

Succeed, and you enter the temple.

These stages are pretty simple. The Sankara stone sits on the altar by an unstable platform. Snatch it but time it carefully so that you don't get dumped into the lava, and use your whip to keep the Thugs away (and likely drop them into the lava). Take too long and the wooden bridge burns up, and you'll need to take the long route around. Mola Ram may show up to blast fireballs at you too.

 

But I was right at the top of the screen!

The stages repeat but get increasingly longer, more complicated, and more dangerous. Ram starts showing up during the catacomb stages as well.

The fourth cycle concludes with the bridge scene instead of a final temple.

Whip his fireballs before they get you, but watch your back too - Thugs will attack from behind, and you can't whip in both directions at once. The closer you get, the shorter the intervals between fireballs, until,

 

Alas, fortune and glory is fleeting - one last level remains, and this time death is your only exit.

Golden idols are hidden in this massive bonus stage, but the Thugs are more numerous than ever, the vampire bats small and difficult to hit, and the maharajah and his geographically inappropriate voodoo doll will show up and ruin you as he pleases. Eventually you die, and enshrine your high score for the world to see.

GAB rating: Average. From a look and feel perspective, this is a solid arcade adaptation of Temple of Doom, and captures the film's dark and twisted setting well. From a gameplay perspective, it feels unpolished and frustrating, with off-feeling controls and over-reliance on cheap kills. It's functional, but could have been a lot better.