THE GALAXY'S LOUDEST HEAVY WARHEAD CRUISE
Undefined waves of aliens, 5 Missions, 1 Armed Space Cruiser, and only 1 planet to destroy.
Time to check a vintage "older than dad's" shooter: Taito's Space Cruiser.
This ain't your traditional retro-arcade shooter.
The first phase is the UFO attack. This one is pretty similar to Galaxian and Taito's own Space Invaders, but it behaves more like the Namco shooter. In this phase, you'll be dealing with flying saucers that move in a curved path. Among them is the large UFO which take a few hits before going down. Destroying it gives you 1,000 points and you have two waves of enemies as the chance to take it down. The regular enemies worth 50 points each and they're a more easy total of 12 compared with Galaxian. On the first wave, after taking down some of the UFOs one of the will fly to the bottom of the screen and it will start to fire upwards against your friends, adding 200 points for each enemy taken down by it. Keep in mind, this "friend/traitor" UFO can be destroyed by your shots and those of the enemy, so don't depend on this enemy for too much.
Speaking of enemy fire, you are able to fire two bullets on screen, duplicating Galaxian and Space Invaders firing rates, and what's more interesting and important: You can destroy an enemy bullet if it collides with yours. While losing your shot might sound like a disadvantage, it is also good since it might save your ship from what it could be a certain death. The second wave of UFOs is very similar to the first one, being the color change of the enemies the main difference. After taking both waves (24 UFOs in total) the segment ends.
The general course is plotted in the ship's computer, but use manual control to get past the asteroids.
You: Don't worry about me.
The second mission of this game is the Asteroid Zone, which requires you to navigate across an asteroid belt. Unlike the rest of the game, the ship will go up until it reaches 1/4 of the screen, but you can shoot down the asteroids with your weapon in order to ease things. Regardless of the size, all asteroids can be destroyed with one shot. The second part of this segment will flash in blue (or red if you've lost a life) and is called "Slip Zone" where the controls become slightly slippery making you prone to asteroid collisions.
*Insert the refueling theme from Konami's Top Gun game here.*
The third segment is the easiest of all. You have to dock your ship with the space station, but there's three UFO's keeping you from doing that. While the objective is to take down the UFOs, your shots can hit the space station. While the station is immune to your attacks, each hit takes bonus points away. Also, the station is slowly descending, so you don't have too much time to waste. After taking down the UFOs you have to finally dock with the station which will be moving while your ship gets close. If you do this correctly, you'll be getting a weapon power up and the bonus points based on how many hits took the station. Your weapon power up is a firing that alternates from single to twin shot: First fired bullet is a single shot, and the second is the twin shot, giving you a little more chance of hitting one or more enemies.
Galaxian meets Space Invaders.
The fourth mission is the Alien attack. This is similar to the first mission, but the enemy formation is different. Here you'll be facing 1 half of a wave (9 of 18) and as you take a few of them, the second part will swoop towards you. In the second part you'll notice that one of the Aliens is different. Well, that's the "Commander" and if you take it down it will destroy all the aliens left on screen. This repeats again on wave 2 for a total kill of 36 Aliens. Their flight path is far more erratic than the UFO's combining the curved flight with suicidal divings. Thus, their attack style is more based on physical collisions rather than shooting.
The moon with the Rebel Base will be in range in 30 minutes.
The final mission is the Alien Base. Before hitting the base, you'll have to fight the final wave of 21 UFO's which will be even more erratic on their movement and with new weaponry like the immobilizer beam which ambushes you by spreading in a wide area before hitting the bottom of the screen. This weapon was a new feature for the time being breaking with the traditional bullets. They will also be firing missiles that scatter debris when they explode. Looks like they kept the best for the end and you've better pay attention or else your mission will end here.
That's no moon...
Taking down the enemies is not the end of the segment. Your "boss battle" will be the planet moon's craters which will act as secret missile launchers. They can only be hit once they're open and they have to wait a while before taking another hit.
Take the shot, kid!
With no obstacles in your way there's only one thing to do: "Give'em Hell", Solutions 0-8-1-6, "Drop the Bomb", send the "FU Note" to the enemy, bring the Messenger of Death, fire the weapon to end all wars. Yeah! I'm talking send the missile charged with Only-God-Knows what to the enemy planet. Not to take down their capital city or devastate a large region, but to destroy the whole fucking planet itself. Fortunately, there's no enemy resistance at this point, just push the fire button and watch the missile head to its target.
Great shot, kid, that was one in a million!
With the enemy planet destroyed millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced and your duty is done, millions of lives lost. So many ghosts.
But that's war these days. With your enemies erased from the face of the universe, you might think its all over...until the game warps you back to the beginning to repeat the process until you gave up. You've read that right, this is one of those classic games where there's no ending, only reaching a great score as far as possible before finally getting a Game Over as you run out of lives.
The sucker is the one who spent most coins.
The ranking/Name Entry system of this game is very different from the whole rest of titles. While in any other shmup or game, the bottom rank is for the lowest scores and top for the highest, Space Cruiser does a twist on the concept. First place is for those who can achieve a high score on a single credit play and decide not to continue the game. If you died and continued the game, your score will be kept, but your ranking will drop to second place and further as long as you decide to continue playing. It was an unusual and very experimental way to play with the Ranking, but it was the age of experiments in arcade shooters where any mechanic could be the difference between profit and flop.
For some reason this game was never ported to home computers or consoles like the Colecovision and the Nintendo Entertainment System which were the best candidates for that. Curiously, not even the Taito Legends compilations cared for it as if it was another "Profit fodder" for operators. Homeporting the game had to wait 40 years, when the game was released by Hamster as part of Arcade Archives. The game carries a single Original Mode since I guess the game never left Japan. Like the majority of Arcade Archives titles, the game has the Survival mode-like Hi-Score Mode and the Star Soldier fan favorite 5-Minute run Caravan Mode. Getting all the trophies is quite easy since you only need 7000 points, making the "Trophy Hunt" simple but fun, considering the twists in the traiditional Space Invaders formula.
We're leaving together, but still it's farewell.
And maybe we'll come back to Earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame, we're leaving ground (leaving ground).
Will things ever be the same agaaaaaiiiiin?
In terms of graphics looks a whole improvement over Space Invaders as the game takes cues from its competitor which was Galaxian and Moon Cresta. While all of these games were space-based, Space Cruiser pushes the space scenery a bit further as we have a take off sequence, simple scaling for the ship's flight effect, but the best part is the planet and its moon at the end of your mission since they're detailed on a spectacular level as we can see the geological features of the moon and the clouds on the planet's atmosphere.
The sound department is a mixed bag. While the sound effects are "digitized" and less videogame-y on its majority (bullets fired and explosions) and even relies on a voiced countdown which was a great feature for a game made in 1981, the music has a lot to be desired as it plays "Night on Bald Mountain" nonstop. Yeah, a 1865 tune by Modest Mussorgsky is used as the theme of this shmup. Although there's a few tunes between segments, it is the Mussorgsky theme what you'll be hearing constantly.
TRIVIA CRUISER
- The use of craters as hatches was repurposed on Halley's Comet.
- The Arcade Archives release is the first home port of the game.
- It is also the first and only Arcade perfect port overall.
- While "Night on Bald Mountain" was mostly remembered by its appearence on Walt Disney's Fantasia, it was also used on other movies, videogames and even music videos like Beastie Boys "Intergalactic".
- Like Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" (known as the Dracula composition), "Night on Bald Mountain" is sometimes associated with horror, mystery and villany.
Just being the messenger of alien death.
Galaxian and Space Invaders fans will definitely like Space Cruiser as it takes the classic formulas and add interesting new features improving what at first looked like another game based in a single concept. Taito really surprised with this idea back then.
Unless you're into very, very retro shmuppin' give it a try.
Otherwise, you can skip this game.
Graphic description of Namco in Arcade Archives.
With Cosmo Gang The Puzzle as the latest release in the Arcade Archives, it just means one thing: Another year of "Namco Bombardment". When the house of Pac-Man, Time Crisis and Deadstorm Pirates will swoop towards us like a swarm of MQ-101's from the Arsenal Bird.
But that's Hamster's Arcade Archives nowadays. Just hope this year they release Fighter and Attacker and NebulasRay.