3D Quasars

Copyright : Solar Software | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

The Proxima War was a long time in the winning, and fighting was never more intense than in its closing years. Federation members were forced back to protect there home planets, and the emphasis shifted from space to surface warfare. With nuclear photons the enemy have blasted a tunnel through the Quasar defence system. As captain of a Tarantula C1 patrol ship, you must attack the enemy craft and defend the tunnel, until the entrance has been sealed.

Greeting you with probably the worst demo in the history of computer games, 3D Quasars doesnÂ't inspire much hope. I mean seriously, if you are going to include a demo mode on a game at least make sure that something happens rather than continue down a trench and have a ship smash in to you at the same point every single time. At least you know how the first pattern begins once the game starts in earnest!

A simplistic vertical scroller using a faked 3d perspective, 3D Quasars is a tough and ultra fast shoot-em-up that requires quick wits and reflexes.

The game sees you travelling down one of those obligatory trenches that you always seemed to find in games looking to capture some of that Star Wars magic. This trench effectively walls you into a narrow funnel in the middle of the screen, drastically reducing the playing area while giving the impression of a full screen game. This is actually a very clever move as the game wouldÂ've been virtually unplayable if stretched across the length and breadth of the screen. The remainder of the space is used to create the illusion of travelling at speed and scrolls along at a fair lick in the opposite direction to the scrolling starfield in the background. ItÂ's nicely done and gives a real feeling of speed that most certainly adds to the game.

Unfortunately the programmer hasnÂ't saw fit to provide any additional details or surface scenary so your craft appears to be travelling through a trench on a perfectly flat planet decoreated with unnaturally straight red and purple stripes. The crafts and missiles are fairly basic in design but do their job with a minimum of fuss.

So to the gameplay then and it has to be said, 3D Quasars is a perfectly functioning and engaging shoot-em-up that requries you to dodge and shoot the kamikazee aliens as they hurtle down the trench towards you. And thatÂ's it. Nothing more and nothing less. The game gets progressively hard on a wave by wave basis as more and more aliens come down the screen towards you in batches until youÂ're faced with a steady stream of the blighters! Once itÂ's thrown as many aliens as it can cram on to the screen at one time at you, the numbers slacken off again with the twist that theyÂ're now flying just that little bit faster and so the whole process begins again!

Had this game been submitted as a type-in to one of the leading magazines at the time, IÂ've little doubt that 3D Quasars would be viewed in a better light than it is. Unfortunately someone saw fit to slap it in a cassette cover and charge £2.99 for the privellage of playing what is, at the end of a day a simplistic and quickly repetitive blaster.

If youÂ're after a quick blast without having to worry about the trivialities of the situation, such as why wonÂ't the aliens shoot back at me, then you could do worse than 3D Quasars – the collision detection is fine and things move along at a fair lick but itÂ's most certainly no world beater either.

One thing that is important to know. It is impossible to win the game. The waves will continue, getting faster and faster until the ships disappear and what appears to be debris comes hurtling towards you (as far as I can tell though it has no effect on your ship and is instead an indicator that youÂ've gone further than the programmer thought you couldÂ've!) This belief is more than partly justified by the absolutely insane difficulty level. Without cheating you can count your survival time in seconds rather than minutes and that proves to be the biggest drawback to what is otherwise an enjoyable if unremarkable little shooter.