Game Review: Skyjet (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

You are the pilot of the sky jet, which is a helicopter.  Only you can battle through the shells and gun fire of the enemy, it seems, and avoiding the bitter struggle of super powers amongst you.  In fact, the sky jet is the only craft which Is able to collect essential equipment and supplies from the secret locations and deliver them to allied bases in the war zone.   There are submarines which carry reinforcements, and you must destroy them before they hit land.   The premise is set nicely, but when checking the instructions (or lack of) on the cassette version, it does not give you much to go on.

In fact, the disk version (ICD 0066) has instructions that are much better, not just explaining about the difficulty levels and options prior to play, but also the fact that the equipment and supplies are in fact construction transporters (CTs) which you will need to carry to the flat piece of land, which is effectively the base, and drop them off there, and the building you need to create will start to appear as you drop off more CTs – get enough of them and you complete the level and are able to move onwards.  Just reading those alone helped considerably during play to understand the game – and quite why those were omitted off the cassette version, I have no idea.

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

The game’s title screen is very primitive indeed, with just two options – either to set the skill level or to start the game.  The skill level is from 0 to 9 and this is for the strength of your shields, with 0 being the weakest and 9 being the strongest.  So, if you would like an easier game, choose 9.  This is not explained in the cassette version’s instructions.  Once you choose to start the game, you will be asked if you wish to adjust the filter.  Bear in mind that Commodore 64s have a 20% filter variation on the original 6581 SID chip, and you can move the joystick up or down to hear an explosion effect, and tweak the filter to sound just how you would like it.  This is a nice touch.  Once adjusted you can press fire to start.   I do wish this was a title screen option rather than be asked every time you play, even if you can press N for no adjustments.

Base?  How Low Can You Go?

The game starts and right away you can see ships which fire at you, and their explosions are a large swathe of colour.  On the toughest levels, colliding partly with the explosion kills you, which does seem a bit unfair.  The screen scrolls smoothly and you will need to pilot the skyjet across to locate the construction transporter (CT) which is helpfully shown as an oval pod with the letters on.  You need to carefully drop down and pick up the transporter without crashing into the scenery, as this will result in the loss of one of your five lives as well.  Once you have collected the CT, head across to the flat piece of land and press and hold fire to drop it off on to the base.  If you have done this correctly, then the base will start to build, and this base needs to be fully built to complete the level.

We All Live in a Red Submarine

Heading below the water’s surface is a submarine that moves across the screen.  Your sky jet’s fire does include bombs which cannot destroy the ships, but if you get the bomb past them, you can hit the submarine and stop it reaching the edge, giving you vital time.  If it does reach the edge, you first get other jets taking to the skies, which you can destroy with your fire and take a few hits to kill.  Further on from that are the UFOs, which do zoom around the screen menacingly and quickly, so you need to have your wits about you.  In addition, if you try to drop a CT and a jet is below, it destroys the CT and stops you building, so care and precision is needed as you progress.

Precision Pays Off

Once you have built the building needed, one final CT drop off is needed.  This does seem to be an overly precise final one to drop and indeed you need to be very low when doing so, and this destroys the whole area with a wash of colourful cycling, before you progress on.  The second level has tanks that have taken to the sea and are firing at your skyjet quickly, with the base at the far left, and a ground tank to the far right guarding one of the CT locations you see, so you must dive down and up with speed to collect that.    The later levels, should you progress, are more of the same but with different enemies and layouts, but the gameplay can get a bit repetitive over time.

Bitten By the Bug

All would be well with the game, and indeed the responsiveness to your controls works well, the screen scrolls smoothly, and the action does get frenetic as the game progresses.  The foundations are there and playability is strong.  However, there are some unfortunate bugs which spoil the gameplay.  When you do scroll the screen across, on occasion, the graphics show a mess mainly in green and grey, and in addition, you cannot scroll back left to either get towards the base and drop off the next CT if you have it.  This inevitably means you must crash into the scenery and forfeit a life.  The other bug is that on some levels, no matter how accurately you do the final drop of the CT, the level never completes and appears to be an infinite number of drop offs, meaning you cannot get past level one.  I checked three different cassette versions and all behaved like a degree, although at least the easier levels did allow progression.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Skyjet are reasonable for their time, with your main skyjet (a helicopter) well defined, as are the other craft, UFOs and so on.  The construction transporter (CT) is easy to spot, and the explosion effects are awash with colour, although they can look a little messy at times.  The screen does scroll well and the pace of the game does at least cope most of the time with the action and animation.  The sound effects that are present do the job enough, and being able to adjust the filter really helps to tune the game to your SID chip and get it sounding right for gameplay – a good option to have.

Final Thoughts

Skyjet does at least have some ambition, with options to be able to battle through, collect the construction transporters (CTs) and then land them in the right place and complete the levels, and being able to have a more frenetic feel to dodge the other craft and UFOs, does enhance its early promise.  Some more polish and avoidance of bugs would have elevated the gameplay even more, as what is there is fast paced and playable enough.  The lack of detail of instructions in the cassette version does not help whatsoever, and a better experience is had from the disk version due to this.  It does feel like had more attention to detail been paid to the game, then it would have scored higher, but what is there is promising and the programmer would go on to make better games in the longer term.

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