Quartz
| Developer: N/A | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Firebird | Sound: |
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| Year: 1989 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Shoot’em up | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
5/10 | |
Is anyone allergic to primary colours?
Quartz is an octo-directional scrolling shooter, and “free”, at least in its first phase. You shoot big coloured balls (the hadrons) to release smaller coloured balls (the quarks), which you shoot as well, generating items to collect (the neutrinos). Once you’ve gathered enough, you’re transported to a more traditional level, where the scrolling follows a single axis, either horizontal or vertical, in one direction or the other.
Although the visual effects (animations, parallaxes) are technically impressive, I find the overall aesthetic garish and uninspired. Mentioning Andy Warhol on the back of the game box excuses nothing.
The execution speed is more than honourable, but of course, this didn’t happen without compromises: no elaborate landscape in the background and a reduced field of vision. Moreover, the rhythm is broken by an irritating interruption every time you acquire or use a bonus.
An original idea: the ship’s energy bar slowly regenerates if you manage to avoid taking damage for a certain period of time.
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