Game Review: Destructo (Commodore 64, Bulldog)

Destructo (or to give it the full name as displayed on the loading and title screen, The Island of Dr Destructo) sees a mission in which you have seven days to stop Dr Destructo’s plans to take over the Earth, via his secret island stronghold.  You need to destroy his whole empire, culminating with the island itself.  There are buildings, small islands, and ships within his fleet which you will need to destroy by careful destruction of these, which will then spring a leak.  With enough leaks, they will sink and that is one of the targets destroyed, and you can move on to the next one.  How do you get the damage done?  By shooting down various planes, where the explosions will land and destroy part of the target, and you do have one bomb per level too which you can use to assist with the target’s destruction.

The game itself loads with a reasonable loading screen before then showing a text-based title screen with credits.  The Commodore 64 conversion is by The Masked Programmer, which happens to be an alias for Richard Aplin (who would write Invade-a-Load) and there is a neat touch with the scrolling message at the bottom, where after scrolling right to left, it scrolls as a mirror image on the line above left to right – a nice effect but not sure how readable that might be.  There is also some music by David Whittaker as well.  You can press fire ort F1 for single player, or F3 or team play, where you and a friend can be a two player team – so nice to have that option really.  Oddly, the catalogue number you think would be a Bulldog one, so should really be BC 0189, yet the Commodore 64 version uses the standard Mastertronic range numbering of IC 0189 instead.

Plane Sailing

Starting the game shows a little introductory screen and jingle before you start.  Your plane is the grey one, and there are green planes and green jets to shoot down.  These are relatively harmless and you can soon get into the habit of shooting these down so that when they fall, their explosion hits the ship.  Multiple hits in the same part of the ship will then show the leak springing into action, and enough of those – level complete.  You move the plane left to right as if you were steering the plane that way, tapping up gives you a small speed burst, holding up makes you go faster, and pressing down fires the single bomb you have per level, with fire shooting the bullets at the enemies.  This is a gentle introduction and when the ship does sink, the animation is bad, it shudders down somewhat (to resemble more of an explosion) rather than a smooth sinking.

You will also note in between the score for each player a number – this resembles the number of days that you have left to complete the game, starting with 7.  As time ticks on, the background changes from day towards night and a background sun changing to a moon and then back to daylight again.  This is a nice touch, as well as the fact that the sky and sea border colours are split, and makes use of raster splits well here.  You also have many planes and jets on screen at once, showing some good technical prowess to get some sprite multiplexing going on too – and you can wrap around the screen, so if you go off to the right, you come back on left side and vice versa.  All of those do help somewhat with the playability.

Two-Seater Tricksters

The second level introduces a different green plane – but with a twist.  This plane initially appears to be a green two-seater plane (note how it is a larger body) but when you shoot it once, it reveals its true colour – blue.  Colliding with blue planes is an instant loss of a life, so you need to be careful and shoot them down.  Again, once shot down these can cause damage to the target, and you need three different leaks to be able to ensure that the target is sunk.  The fourth level then introduces the blue jet, which zips along at some pace and needs some careful targeting to shoot down – and at least you know what that plane is straight away.  You do get a small time of invulnerability when you lose a life, but need to be careful to ensure you do not hit an enemy blue plane the moment that goes.

Wise Up, Sucker!

The sixth level onwards introduces another new enemy – the sucker dart.  This really does act as an unwelcome distraction as you cannot shoot it down, however it moves around and any collision with it proves to be fatal.  There can be several of these on screen at once too, so you do have to steer carefully and be considerate as to how you avoid those and shoot the other enemies down.  The helicopter, which comes in later, is black and so is hard to see at night, and even you shoot it down, you cannot collide with it as it descends to the target or else that is lethal.  The sky mines appear at the top of the screen and that makes that place one to avoid – you cannot destroy it, and therefore it just best kept well out of the way of as it comes and goes in similar places at the top.  All of these do increase the already difficult game even further.

Difficult Destructo

There is no doubt about it – the difficulty curve in Destructo does ramp up, and on reflection I would say a little too much.  There are no qualms about the different enemies being introduced as you progress, as that does give you reward with more to see.  However, with the sheer number of enemies on screen, especially with multiple sucker darts, sky mines and blue planes, the game does become a case of too much on screen that you cannot kill and too much which can kill you, leading you to lose all your remaining lives very quickly.  Even with practice, for me getting to around level nine or ten of the twenty-one proved my absolute limit, and it did not feel like it would get me much further than that the more I played.  Technically, everything does whizz around the screen at a good pace, but can glitch a little when the action gets a little too much, with the split between the sky and sea more noticeable as a result.

Two Player Team

It is also worth noting that the two-player co-operative mode is a nice touch, and certainly means playing with a friend can hopefully mean that you can destroy the enemy targets together.  You do have your own lives counter each, and as some nice risk and reward, if you score the most out of the two players, you get the extra life on offer at the end of each level.  In one player mode of course, that is always you, but nice to see that incentive given out only to those brave (or foolhardy) enough to challenge more with the enemy planes and craft.  Certainly, this mode does add nicely to the gameplay and gives it some more longevity if two of you can take them on together.  Well done for adding that in.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Destructo are generally good. The ships and other targets such as the islands and buildings are well defined enough, and do at least show the leaks with a coloured band when you hit enough, and the animation of the planes and other craft is well done, and taking up the split between sky and sea with the border really does make the game feel larger than it is.  The effect when the ship sinks does not work so well though, and maybe a sliding sinking that was smoother may have worked better, even if the planes and you break apart to show the sinking in full.  The sound is standard David Whittaker fare with a neat enough military sounding tune on the title screen, some small interlude tunes at the start and end of each level, and rudimentary sound effects for shooting, being hit and destroying enemies.

Final Thoughts

Destructo certainly attempts to pack a lot of action and many sprites in a single screen to give you a fast-paced shooting game.  However, even though the additional enemies get gradually introduced, for some the difficulty curve does mean that completing the game is nigh on impossible, and you may reach a ceiling of how far you get.  Technically it shows some good coding with the smoothness overall of the game, and the two-player co-operative mode is also a good touch that adds to the longevity.  It does feel like somewhat of a missed opportunity as if the difficulty had been tweaked (or even options to change on the title screen for example) that would have allowed you to get further and be more prepared for the later levels without it being wall denter territory with sheer frustration.  It is still worth a quick blast for a high score challenge and the overall presentation and feel at least does give you that.

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