Kick butt Vectrex homebrews!
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:18 pm
I was asked about the Vectrex homebrews I own in another thread that I posted, so I thought I would do a "mini review" of them for those interested...
Vecmania--nine games in all, go with the unfinished demos first:
Duel Disks demo--two player Discs of Tron demo. Three discs to jump on and shoot at the other player. Fun for a bit, the shield function hadn't been implemented at the time. 6/10 as it is.
Abyss demo--Tempest level 1 demo. You can't get killed, advance to another level, and can only shoot the Flipper-, Spiker-, and Spike-type enemies. Sometimes I end up kind of "zoning out" to this for 20 minutes at a time though. 5/10 as it is, since there's not much to do.
Now onto the full games!
Rockaroids Remix: Third Rock--Asteroids clone, obviously. It plays like Asteroids, but looks like Asteroids Deluxe with the tumbling rocks. A bit tough, like most of Dondzila's games, but that's just to keep you coming back for more. Glitches include Hyperspace almost always blowing you up the first time you use it and rocks appearing out of nowhere below you at times, but it's still pretty fun. 7/10
Patriots Remix--Missile Command clone. Planes/satellites and smart missiles start appearing within the first wave. Two missile bases on this one, 6/5 or 7/10 on this one for the fun factor.
Vector Vaders 2 Remix--Space Invaders clone, which took me by surprise, thought I'd only play it a couple of times, then never again out of boredom, but how Dondzila makes the simplest games addicting is beyond me. 7/10 for addicting factor.
Star Fire Spirits--Atari Arcade Star Wars clone. The T. I. E. Fighter-like ships just come straight at you, rather than tumbling during the first wave, the bunkers and laser towers appear randomly during the second, and there's slowdown and no catwalks in the final stage, but the game's still a bit of fun, even though you won't get rewarded an extra shield every time you blow up the Death Star-like planet, unlike how Dondzila claims in the instructions. 7.5/10
Birds of Prey--Phoenix clone. Two waves of birds (the second one with two shots at a time), two waves of big birds after that, then the mothership during the fifth wave, you should know how this goes. There's a place all ready for you to shoot up the middle during the latter, but it's still challenging and fun though, 7/10 on this one.
Repulse ain't in this obscure Eliminator clone. Can't say how it compares to the arcade original (saw it once but never played it in the day), but it takes some steady nerves. Here you must destroy an enemy ship nestled in a big fortress by shooting up the middle of it; take too long, and it comes after you. Sentry ships are annoying, but shooting them into the mothership is fun though (shots won't destroy you, and vice versa, but they will send you or an enemy flying out of control briefly). 7.5, maybe 8/10
hidden bonus game--same one as on the Patriots cartridge, from one of the earliest of game genres. 7/10
The cartridge as a whole I give a 9/10, plenty of bang for your buck. I want to go play it now, actually.
Spike Hoppin'--Q*Bert clone, hop on the tiles to darken them to go to the next level. This time around Spud (replaces Coily in the original) can be knocked off immediately by hopping on a blinking line (replaces the disc in the original). A timepiece freezes the action for several seconds, balls and upside-down monsters can kill you, along with a little puke known as 'Log' will turn your tiles back to the original color, plus later levels involve two jumps to change a tile to it's right color. There's also a watered down hidden other arcade clone on this cartridge and the game talks, too! Addicting and hard at 7.5/10
Moon Lander--blows away Lunar Lander inspiration, with changing planet landscapes to land on, gravity, and killer satellites to make your progress even harder. 32 levels in all too, but you probably won't even make it to level 20 as it is. Cartridge has only this one game (plus secrets though), neat cinematics
and all and is worth the piddling $10 (plus shipping) Dondzila charges for it.
Protector/Y. A. S.I.--Defender (great!)/Space Invaders clones. There are those that said Defender couldn't be done on the Vectrex, nice that they were wrong. All the action of saving humanoids by shooting Landers, Mutants, Baiters to annoy you, along with Swarmers, etc. is on here. Slight smart bomb bug and some have complained about the controls being hard to get used to (I don't agree) hinder this only slightly.
Y. A. S. I. looks almost exactly like the original, as you CAN do raster graphics on the Vectrex (surprise!), there's also a slight bug (or maybe it's intentional) in shooting the saucer at times, but there's bonus modes too, like invisible invaders, moving bunkers, guided missiles, etc. to unlock. Must have for Vectrex owners, definitely a 9/10.
Vector 21--only card game for the Vectrex, like a Blackjack/Solitaire hybrid. Try to have card stacks (four of them) add up to 21 or less before the clock runs out, go over and bust and not get any points.
Funny to see people whine on some forums about the original GCE Vectrex games being mostly shooters, yet when something different like this comes out it takes over two years before it's piddling 121 copies to sell out is beyond me, it's fun and addicting as hell. 9/10
Whew...well, that's half of what I have, I'll do the other four later, along some links to full-fledged reviews and some more pics, for anyone who's interested.
Hope that helps!
Vecmania--nine games in all, go with the unfinished demos first:
Duel Disks demo--two player Discs of Tron demo. Three discs to jump on and shoot at the other player. Fun for a bit, the shield function hadn't been implemented at the time. 6/10 as it is.
Abyss demo--Tempest level 1 demo. You can't get killed, advance to another level, and can only shoot the Flipper-, Spiker-, and Spike-type enemies. Sometimes I end up kind of "zoning out" to this for 20 minutes at a time though. 5/10 as it is, since there's not much to do.
Now onto the full games!
Rockaroids Remix: Third Rock--Asteroids clone, obviously. It plays like Asteroids, but looks like Asteroids Deluxe with the tumbling rocks. A bit tough, like most of Dondzila's games, but that's just to keep you coming back for more. Glitches include Hyperspace almost always blowing you up the first time you use it and rocks appearing out of nowhere below you at times, but it's still pretty fun. 7/10
Patriots Remix--Missile Command clone. Planes/satellites and smart missiles start appearing within the first wave. Two missile bases on this one, 6/5 or 7/10 on this one for the fun factor.
Vector Vaders 2 Remix--Space Invaders clone, which took me by surprise, thought I'd only play it a couple of times, then never again out of boredom, but how Dondzila makes the simplest games addicting is beyond me. 7/10 for addicting factor.
Star Fire Spirits--Atari Arcade Star Wars clone. The T. I. E. Fighter-like ships just come straight at you, rather than tumbling during the first wave, the bunkers and laser towers appear randomly during the second, and there's slowdown and no catwalks in the final stage, but the game's still a bit of fun, even though you won't get rewarded an extra shield every time you blow up the Death Star-like planet, unlike how Dondzila claims in the instructions. 7.5/10
Birds of Prey--Phoenix clone. Two waves of birds (the second one with two shots at a time), two waves of big birds after that, then the mothership during the fifth wave, you should know how this goes. There's a place all ready for you to shoot up the middle during the latter, but it's still challenging and fun though, 7/10 on this one.
Repulse ain't in this obscure Eliminator clone. Can't say how it compares to the arcade original (saw it once but never played it in the day), but it takes some steady nerves. Here you must destroy an enemy ship nestled in a big fortress by shooting up the middle of it; take too long, and it comes after you. Sentry ships are annoying, but shooting them into the mothership is fun though (shots won't destroy you, and vice versa, but they will send you or an enemy flying out of control briefly). 7.5, maybe 8/10
hidden bonus game--same one as on the Patriots cartridge, from one of the earliest of game genres. 7/10
The cartridge as a whole I give a 9/10, plenty of bang for your buck. I want to go play it now, actually.
Spike Hoppin'--Q*Bert clone, hop on the tiles to darken them to go to the next level. This time around Spud (replaces Coily in the original) can be knocked off immediately by hopping on a blinking line (replaces the disc in the original). A timepiece freezes the action for several seconds, balls and upside-down monsters can kill you, along with a little puke known as 'Log' will turn your tiles back to the original color, plus later levels involve two jumps to change a tile to it's right color. There's also a watered down hidden other arcade clone on this cartridge and the game talks, too! Addicting and hard at 7.5/10
Moon Lander--blows away Lunar Lander inspiration, with changing planet landscapes to land on, gravity, and killer satellites to make your progress even harder. 32 levels in all too, but you probably won't even make it to level 20 as it is. Cartridge has only this one game (plus secrets though), neat cinematics
and all and is worth the piddling $10 (plus shipping) Dondzila charges for it.
Protector/Y. A. S.I.--Defender (great!)/Space Invaders clones. There are those that said Defender couldn't be done on the Vectrex, nice that they were wrong. All the action of saving humanoids by shooting Landers, Mutants, Baiters to annoy you, along with Swarmers, etc. is on here. Slight smart bomb bug and some have complained about the controls being hard to get used to (I don't agree) hinder this only slightly.
Y. A. S. I. looks almost exactly like the original, as you CAN do raster graphics on the Vectrex (surprise!), there's also a slight bug (or maybe it's intentional) in shooting the saucer at times, but there's bonus modes too, like invisible invaders, moving bunkers, guided missiles, etc. to unlock. Must have for Vectrex owners, definitely a 9/10.
Vector 21--only card game for the Vectrex, like a Blackjack/Solitaire hybrid. Try to have card stacks (four of them) add up to 21 or less before the clock runs out, go over and bust and not get any points.
Funny to see people whine on some forums about the original GCE Vectrex games being mostly shooters, yet when something different like this comes out it takes over two years before it's piddling 121 copies to sell out is beyond me, it's fun and addicting as hell. 9/10
Whew...well, that's half of what I have, I'll do the other four later, along some links to full-fledged reviews and some more pics, for anyone who's interested.
Hope that helps!