Moon Buggy

Copyright : Anirog | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

As sector commander of the moon base defences, you are on routine patrol duty. Your patrol craft, a highly manoeuverable A.T.M.B. ALL TERRAIN MOON BUGGY) is capable of accelerating and de-celerating rapidy. It can also jump over the moon rocks and across the craters. The craft is fitted with high speed laser missiles. The moon base outer defences have been penetrated by the alien attack forces operating from the huge star cruiser stationed just beyond the horizon.

A CPC conversion of an old Spectrum game, Moon Buggy is in fact a home computer version of the old arcade standard â??Moon Patrolâ??

Graphics

Nasty flickering sprites are almost enough to make you want to turn off the power without investigating any further, such is the poor nature of this gameâ??s graphics. Mode 0 does the game no favours as the designs are nowhere near detailed enough and make the whole game look amateurish. The buggy in particular looks poor and reminds me of a treat from a Kinder surprise egg... except less road-worthy...

The sense of movement is, however, well implemented thanks to some smooth scrolling in the background but the lack of variety in these as well as the almost identical potholes and traps that you come across makes it feel like you are playing some video game broken record.

One plus point is the animation of the moon buggy with its suspension causing to bounce along and eventually split the wheels from the buggy when you crash. A nice touch.

Sound

Lacklustre effects for shooting and driving are way below what should be expected. As seems to be the case with most early games, the sound is the forgotten element. Poor.

Gameplay

Moon Buggy is a fairly faithful version of Moon Patrol and unfortunately this means it falls foul to the same pitfalls as the arcade game. Basically put: thereâ??s not enough variety in the game to provide any kind of lasting interest. This stands up well to a quick blast for your 10p in an arcade but when the game is put under the spotlight of constant replay - it soon comes up short.

Drive along, shoot the planes overhead, jump the pits and ehâ?¦ thatâ??s about it! The invading aliens appear to move in different attack patterns each time you play which does make the game a little more challenging but after an hour so youâ??ll have seen just about everything that you want to from the game.

Some element of skill is required and experience soon teaches you when to accelerate for a big jump (and leave yourself open for attack) and when to leave it until the last minute.

Itâ??s not that Moon Buggy is a particularly bad game - in actual fact itâ??s a fairly good conversion and captures the high points of the arcade well - it just doesnâ??t any long term appeal and this more than the shoddy graphics and poor sounds is what condemns this game.

One for nostalgiaâ??s sake more than fun I think!