In 1985 Vortex Software released the puzzle shooting game ' Highway Encounter ' for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and Commodore 64. It was voted in the top 100 ZX Spectrum games of all time and featured not just personal lives that look like Dalek's, but the use of these extra lives to push a bomb up a hazardous highway to the Alien base to blow it up. That same game viewed in a 3D isometric perspective has now been remade for the PC by Langford Productions
Highway Encounter is probably the most unusual game I've played for a very long time, and that's not the fact that it has an isometric viewpoint but that your extra lives are there to give you a helping hand. With each zone, you play as one of the 5 lives that must zoom around the screen, blasting enemies and objects in the way, to help your little buddies push the bomb, which at first you don't control. With each death, you take control of one of the other lives, until there is just you left. Then it's down to you to push the bomb all the way through the 30 or so highway based zones. Just watch out for that time limit, and do try to destroy as much as possible for a better score.
ZX Spectrum Version
In terms of the change over from the original ZX Spectrum version to the PC remake, this is a very nice remake indeed. It is actually one of Langford's best remakes, and it's about time we've gone away from the platformers to something completely different such as Highway Encounter. From the control scheme, to the cartoony style design and great tunes, it just all works so well. Now if only the developer could put in a quit option, as ctrl+alt+del seems to be the only way.
Links : 1) Source
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated! Constructive criticism allowed, but abusive comments will be removed and you will be IP banned! Banned users will not show up in my comment feed, you will be gone for good as will all of your posts! - Play nice and enjoy IndieRetroNews!