Astro Attack

Copyright : Amsoft | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Another of the Amsoft collection gets reviewed here at CPC Zone, some will no doubt mention it in the message boards (ah hem) but anyway this little freebie sits you in the center of a large maze in which you are under attack from enemy tanks - destroy them all without hitting the force fields in this pac-man style shoot-em-up.

Graphics

This is yet another of the free games that Amsoft delivered with some incarnations and packages of the Amstrad CPC home computer, as such we shouldn?t be overly heavy with the game but some say we are too soft on Amsoft and should be that little bit harder, well okay. Astro Attack in terms of graphics has it?s good and bad points, first of all the levels are pretty well designed and covered with traps (laser protected doors etc) with plenty of colour on offer for such an early title. The bad thing is that it?s very blocky and almost represents titles written in the CPCs own default language (BASIC) with square bullets and blocky tanks all over the place, it?s not bad but then again it?s not great either.

Sound

Sound is reasonable, there?s no title music on this one nor is there any backing music for the game itself, all you are treated to is a gun shot sound when you press fire and some nifty exposions sounds when either you or the enemies are blown to pieces. It?s not much but it does the job quite nicely for such an early game.

Gameplay

Gameplay doesn?t offer much to keep you playing for long, it?s not a title you would spend 5-10 minutes loading on your real Amstrad and then come back again that very day and have another go - unless you had no other games that is. The idea of the game is pretty simple, blow the other tanks to bits without getting killed yourself and move on to the next level, were you?ll do exactly the same thing - not a lot to be gained other than a high score.
The game itself looks like the arcade classic, Pacman, in terms of level design and even the basic idea - hell if we took out the tanks, put dots around the place and added some ghosts it would almost be the same game, only in Astro Attack your in a tank and you can shoot the others to bits. There are no serious bugs in the game and nothing that will hamper your enjoyment of the title (if you play it long enough at least) but this is one Amsoft title that doesn?t quite deliver the same quality of goods as some others in the series - not bad but not great either.