Star Lifter
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Developed by Steve Lee/Charteroak Ltd. and published by Mastertronic in 1987.

Another budget title from Mastertronic; no real story to this as it's just a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up. I was never very good at this back in the day and I'm still not very good at it now!

The objective is to destroy a certain number of enemy fighters on each of the game's 7 levels (show as "Hits" in the bottom left of the screen). The fighters fly in a range of attack patterns, slowing down, speeding up and moving all over the place.

Protecting the fighters are large (impressively drawn) capital ships armed with laser turrets. The turrets can be destroyed, but it's usually safer just to fly along the bottom third of the screen where you won't get hit.

My biggest gripe about this is the fact that both your own and enemy ship laser blasts flicker against the background, making them hard to see. Even worse, they're always the same colour as the capital ships, so quite often you'll get killed by things you can't even see!

Just to rub salt in the wounds, you start right in front of a turret on the final stage, which will consistently nuke you before you get chance to move. The trick to avoiding this is to hold right + down on the joystick before you begin the level so you have a slight chance of avoiding the projectiles.

The game only has 7 levels and it endlessly loops thereafter.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoRLrLoZ2mk
