Katakis turned 20 this year, reason enough to make it this week's Game of the Week and to play this cool European horizontal shmup again (or for the first time, if you haven't before).
Katakis was the second game by Manfred Trenz (remember Turrican?), with music by Chris Huelsbeck. Considering the limitations of the hardware, Katakis is graphically impressive and features a fantastic soundtrack. The game was quite obviously inspired by R-Type (pod, charge shot), and Darius (weapon system); both games are even mentioned in the credits. The bosses are a bit of a let down (SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD!), but the levels are varied and challenging (and there's 12 of them).
Oh yes, the memories. Chris' soundtrack was really awesome back then, but if I recall, he nicked some tunes from various movies, such as Delta Force. I still loved it to bits, much more than R-type on the 64 in fact.
Remember the level with the computer boards and chips in the background, as if you were inside a living computer or something?
I played this recently and was a bit annoyed by the boss at the end of the first level. Can you defeat it without being heavily powered up? I couldn't see any way of avoiding being killed if you're not sufficiently armed to the teeth.
soniq-man wrote:I still loved it to bits, much more than R-type on the 64 in fact.
Rafael
Wasn't R-Type on the C64 infamously rushed? From what I remember, they hired Trenz after they saw the job he did with Katakis and then only gave him a few weeks to knock out the C64 version of R-Type.
More or less. It also had something to do with the similarity between Rainbow Art's Katakis (orb on the ship nose, level design etc.) and R-Type. So while Activision paid money for the Irem license, they saw Katakis ripping off their "IP" and forced Katakis off the market (that's why it was relaunched later as "Denaris" with some changes). Then they thought : Oh, what the hell, why not have them also program our own game, seeing how good Katakis was.
And that's why Hülsbeck ended up doing the R-Type music for both this and the Amiga version.
Quite funny considering the same publisher (Rainbow Arts) also cloned Super Mario Bros. around the same time and had to take Great Giana Sisters off the shelves to please Big N.
MadScientist wrote:I played this recently and was a bit annoyed by the boss at the end of the first level. Can you defeat it without being heavily powered up? I couldn't see any way of avoiding being killed if you're not sufficiently armed to the teeth.
Just feed him a couple of charge shots and he should be gone within seconds.
seriously the game is technically impressive for a Commodore 64 for game, with well crafted music, good use of colors, smooth scrolling and so on.
But this game is also a good example of bad euro-style shmup gameplay. The ship hitbox feels MUCH bigger than the actual sprite and all the sprites are big so the game is VERY cramped. The bosses are too simple and not really fun the levels are repetitive, the enemies are taken straight from r-type... and so on.
seriously the game is technically impressive for a Commodore 64 for game, with well crafted music, good use of colors, smooth scrolling and so on.
But this game is also a good example of bad euro-style shmup gameplay. The ship hitbox feels MUCH bigger than the actual sprite and all the sprites are big so the game is VERY cramped. The bosses are too simple and not really fun the levels are repetitive, the enemies are taken straight from r-type... and so on.
at least theres no inertia .
QFFT.
It has slightly more character than the Amiga version. The weapon system is much better.
