UCHUSEN GAMMA
» PLATFORM: MSX » DEVELOPER: JUAN J MARTÍNEZ » DOWNLOAD: KIKSTART.ME.UK/UCHUSEN-GAMMA-MSX » PRICE: FREE DOWNLOAD, CARTRIDGE £TBA
The Galactic Empire is in a pretty sorry state after its emperor passes away and doesn’t name a successor. The military has stepped in but isn’t doing a particularly good job and some of the outer colonies are constantly under attack, with cyborg raiders from the Mion system causing devastation wherever they appear.
The Empire isn’t going to help, so the task is left to one Gamma model spaceship and a pilot itching for a major if somewhat one-sided battle.
Trying to take on an entire attacking force single-handedly might seem foolhardy at first glance, but the Gamma is at least a well-armed craft. The primary weapon starts out at a reasonable strength and items occasionally dropped by cyborg raiders as they’re destroyed will power it up further. The secondary weapon is a very limited stock of extremely useful, screen-clearing Nova bombs, these are best saved for emergencies and more can be gathered from downed enemies.
The only problem is that these useful toys are only released by blasting a chain of enemies, and
although that’s sometimes easy to do, properly taking advantage of all the potential weapon enhancements on offer involves learning attack patterns and working out the optimal time to blast your foes in order to effectively keep chains going. As an extra incentive, enemies destroyed as part of a chain are worth more points for those who don’t feel that saving the beleaguered colonies was enough of a reward already.
Uchusen Gamma is a technically impressive title which offers silkysmooth background scrolling with a significant number of enemies and bullets overlaid onto it but, more importantly, a lot of thought has gone into the gameplay as well. It’s possible to simply dive in and blast away at the enemies but, along with figuring out where to build chains for power-ups, the secret for long-term success revolves around learning how each attack pattern moves and when the enemies will launch bullets in order to simultaneously keep the Gamma in range to attack and out of harm’s way. >> Score 92%