City Defence
| Developer: N/A | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Kingsoft | Sound: |
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| Year: 1987 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Arcade | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 alternating | Rating: |
5/10 | |
It’s been 20 years since I started talking about the great names of arcade gaming through their Amiga adaptations. One was missing: Missile Command (arcade, 1980).
The aim is to protect cities under nuclear bombardment, using missile batteries (with limited ammo). You control a crosshair to aim and shoot down the deadly projectiles attacking you, anticipating the travel time of your rockets. When they reach the marked spot in the sky, they explode mid-air, wiping out any hostile objects in a small radius.
The game is extremely stressful, firstly due to its contemporary theme, not far removed from the Cold War context. The enemies aren’t traditional flying saucers but planes and cruise missiles, represented by tiny dots, with no embellishment beyond a pixel trail showing their trajectories, speed, and number (which quickly becomes unmanageable).
Secondly, because it requires fast reflexes and precision, and the smallest mistake can abruptly end the game.
Finally, because it’s simply impossible to win, or even to survive. The levels go on indefinitely, the attacks become increasingly relentless, and inevitably, one little dot escapes your attention, razes a city in one go, or takes out one of your batteries. At that point, you lose your rhythm, ten more little dots hit the ground… THE END.
City Defence is a decent port. They chose to reduce the number of batteries to two (instead of three) to adapt the controls to the mouse (left-click and right-click to shoot with either one). Anyway, everything Kingsoft decides to do is a good idea, just so you know!
Note that this game is included in Missiles Over Xerion (1994), when you launch it from the Workbench. They’ve blessed us with a new title screen for the occasion.
Well, now all that’s left is to track down a clone of Tempest…
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