Alien Kill, ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic - IS 0020
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Score - 1.5/101.5/10
Summary
Although Alien Kill sounds quite good and simple in the instructions, that it is unfortunately where the enjoyment ends. Real disappointment where boredom will set-in far too quickly and there is no additivity to want to keep playing it.
Being one of the very early Mastertronic released games, it does show that perhaps quality wasn’t a priority here and more selling in quantity.
In terms of value for money, even the budget price of £1.99 could have been spent on something much better. At best, it has a reasonable cassette cover art but as far as the game goes, its one for collectors only.
User Review
( votes)Laser The Wall
The aim of the game is to kill the blue alien that moves randomly across the top of the screen. It moves either left, right or pauses in the same position for a short-while before moving again.
If you do get to the final row (a smiley face) in-front of the alien, you need to shoot that twice to destroy it. The far left and right row of bricks are not reachable and therefore cannot be shot through.
Playability
You can move left and right or fire your Magnum laser upwards to blast the blocks away in the main wall. There are two main issues which really do make this game outrageously difficult and frustrating to play. Yes, we all like a fun challenge and it’d be pointless if you could complete any game in just a few goes. There are three difficulty levels labelled as easy, hard and impossible. The in-game instructions, show the skill levels as easy, not so easy and hard. Well, the word impossible (from the inlay is accurate so I can’t complain about that, as its very true!)
The randomly moving and indestructible Tungstidium Barrier does it’s a job a little bit too well! If the alien never strays horizontally far away from it, you won’t be able to get a few decent shots through to hit the wall and alien.
Even on the easy skill level, it felt a little bit down to some luck but was do-able. Killing the alien scores 1000 points and shooting the wall a few points per block.
The Final Countdown
At the bottom of the screen, there is a timer which descends from right to left. The higher the skill level, the less time that you start off with (as you’d expect).
Without pressing any keys during gameplay (so effectively no sound effects), begin on “easy” level with under 40 seconds. On “not so easy” is around 20 seconds and “hard/impossible” approximately 15 seconds.
When playing the game and shooting, it could last up to a couple of minutes as the sound effects do slow the game play down (effectively briefly pausing the timer, pausing the processor).
A major design fault is that even if you shoot the alien, the timer doesn’t replenish itself and just continues so it’s very soon, game over. At one time, I shot the clearly and then got the message out of time. In short (quite literally!) you’ll never rack-up a decent real high-score as there just isn’t enough time to do so, ruining any incentive to continue playing after a couple of goes.
Graphics
The game has user defined graphics (UDG’s) and standard blocks along the top row of the keyboard. Shooting the Tungstidium Barrier causes a few blocks to change colour (intentionally) so there is no colour clash.
When the Alien and Tungstidium Barrier move, the are jerky and flicker. The bricks in the wall look ok and when firing your laser, your character does change as if he taking aim.
Sound Effects
Alien Kill has only a few basic sound effects. Firing the laser has a high-pitched note to it and hitting the barrier, wall, alien or when it’s game over causes a long flat beep.
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