Saturday 24 December 2011

In space, no-one can hear you hijack!




Ok, time for my first review and what better the start with than one of my all time favourite games, Paradroid!
I originally obtained this game via the covertape of Issue 80 of Zzap!64 which came with Rainbow and Spy vs Spy 3. I remember being a tad confused as, unlike the foreshadowing of Rainbow and Spy 3 in Issue 79 I had never heard of Paradroid before and so expected very little from it...how wrong I was!
To begin, a little history of the game itself.
Created by Andrew Braybrook (who later went on to make Uridium, Fire & Ice and the excellent Amiga conversion of Bubble Bobble) and released in 1985 it tells the tale of a droid called the Influence Device (ID) which is sent to a fleet of ships taken over by the robot workers to bring order. 

The ID, while armed with a weak laser weapon has a more unique ability, that of being able to hack enemy droids and take control of them thus gaining their abilities. Each droid is assigned a 3-digit Identity, the ID being 001 and the ultimate droid, the Command Droid 999. In between are a large mix of butlers, cleaners, workers, miners, military and security droids all of which vary in speed, durability and weapon, the latter being single laser, double or Disruptor which flashes the screen damaging all enemies in sight albeit at a much lower level.
The game is played from an overhead view and all droids are shown as circular symbol with their numerical identity between the two halves and move around a series of room and corridors via automatic doors. All the floors are linked by a series of elevators which requires a little bit of lateral thinking as some floors require you to go a long way around to access.
A pseudo time limit is in place via a continual degradation of your enemy requiring you to visit energy pads often to top up and the same applies when you are using another droids form, although death in the latter situation kills the controlled droid and the former brings about Game Over!



All your droids are belong to us!

So I have spoken a lot about the Hijacking and this is what really stood out for me back then. After remaining stationary for a few seconds holding the Fire button 001 would start to pulse. Ram an enemy caused the screen to change to a vertically split screen with 001 on the left, the target on the right and a series of 12 Purple and Yellow lights down the centre.


One either side of the screen are circuits that that run to one of those lights and each circuit has a condition which could be a straight connector, a blocked connector, a colour changer or a surge booster.
When the minigame starts, a 100 unit timer appears and each side is given a number of 'batteries' (the number of which is determined by the rank of the current controlled droid) with which to try and capture as many of the central lights as possible being mindful of the conditions of the circuits which can either cause the battery to be wasted, score a point for the enemy or prevent the winback of that light!
At the end of the timer, the side with the most lights lit wins and if that is you, you gain control of the enemy droid. If the enemy wins though it's curtains for you unless you happen to have been in another droids form already in which case that 'shell' is destroyed and you are left with a slither of health...
So that is the basic premise. You move around the ship, hijacking more and more powerful droids until you have cleared it fully of foes and then move onto the next ship until you clear the 8th when you start afresh but everything is ranked up to a much higher level.



A game unlike it's brethren.

Now that we have an idea of the game I'd like to call attention to the fact that back in 85 there had been few, if any, games that had such a free roam setup, open gameplay and minigames! Most things back then were platformers and side scrolling shooters so the aerial view itself was a novelty and although many other games were showcasing parallax scrolling and bass tunez Paradroid was a much more reserved affair but seemed all the more mature for it.


Everything in this game worked. The screen was clear and easy to understand, the minigame never felt like you were shortchanged or cheated and the mix of foes on the floors of the ship were varied enough that you always had a means to work your way from the lowly level of 001 to a more advanced, combat-ready droid!
I think the fact that it has been remade numerous times on Amiga, ST & PC then released on the Wii-Arcade shows there is lots of love for this game and I feel no shame at all in having it in my Top 10 games across all platforms!

Check it out..NOW!


Score: 9/10
Simply put, one of the greatest Commodore 64 games I can think of! A really unique game at the time of it's release and still plays beautifully today. If the 80s graphics put you off, check out Project Paradroid on the PC. 

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