3D Starstrike
Before I even start this blog I feel I should start with a confession. In the year of 1985, which was when I first played this game , I had yet to be introduced to the Star Wars films. I lived in a small town that had no cinema, we came very late to the idea of video players and my parents kept a close eye on my TV watching. Science fiction was a topic that I managed to sneak under the radar on Saturday afternoons and sneaky books from the school library. I knew there was more to life than Blue Peter and Grange Hill, I just had to find a way to access it!
So, dear reader, you can understand why just the loading screen of this game blew me away. So much action, colour and space ships. There was real movement and if you look closely in the corner you will see the name Oliver Frey. Some of this man's illustrations would became very familiar to me as I went through the rest of the 1980's (he was the illustrator for Crash which was a computer magazine which provided lots of software on it's cover cassettes. )
I had played space shoot 'em up games before on the Spectrum, one of our first games was Arcadia , but I don't think I was truly prepared for the graphical impact of this game when I first played it.
I had played space shoot 'em up games before on the Spectrum, one of our first games was Arcadia , but I don't think I was truly prepared for the graphical impact of this game when I first played it.
The aim of the game is to fly your way into the enemy command centres , which are in hollowed out moons, the only access to the reactor chamber was through two cooling ports within the base's equatorial duct. It was going to be an epic flight. Sacrilegious as it may sound now, my first impression of this game was that it reminded me slightly of a flight simulator. But remember I hadn't played any shooter like this before. Being in a small town I had no access to amusement arcades , so this was truly a novel experience.
Much to my amazement I found playing this enormous fun, you had lots of shields, even the inebriated octopus (as I like to refer to my early attempts at game-play ), could progress quite far. It wasn't too long before the game caught the attention of my father , who was soon zooming through space , shooting at everything that moved. Unlike the nearest comparison I had played , which was Zzoom , this was just out and out point and shoot. What can I say about the graphics?
Remember this is 1985 , I had seen nothing like this before. The '3D' effects drew me in, made me believe I was part of the game. I actually sat on the floor and swayed and ducked and rolled with the movement of this game, as did my father ( I think my mother thought we were both possessed and was solely tempted to phone a priest.) It didn't really matter what the games instructions told us we were doing, I don't think I played it for the plot , I played it for the sheer joy of the flying experience ( very much the same experience I have now with F Zero on the Super Nintendo.)
Within this game I found a happy place , very far away from my previous happy place of the jungles of SabreWulf.
Within this game I found a happy place , very far away from my previous happy place of the jungles of SabreWulf.
This was also one of those rare games that would load every-time, no R Tape Loading Error here. This was the game that if you had friends round and wanted to show off the ZX Spectrum you would load, which I think is still why I associate this game with the taste of 80's food and drink. For me, this game was one of my all time top games. From that cyan coloured spaceship, to the 3D graphics , to the easy enough game play to let even an idiot achieve something , it just ticked all the boxes.
But Julie, it's just Star Wars!
Nope, not to me it isn't.
In my timeline I played this before I saw those iconic film scenes.
I do sometimes feel that when I see reviews of this game or am in livestreams where this game is played that I inhabit this secret , privileged place , perhaps a galaxy far far away.
A place where I was able to experience this wonder, this speed , this exhilaration, not on a cinema screen with hundreds of other people, but in private , in my own home ,
with just me and my favourite black boxed buddy.
Nope, not to me it isn't.
In my timeline I played this before I saw those iconic film scenes.
I do sometimes feel that when I see reviews of this game or am in livestreams where this game is played that I inhabit this secret , privileged place , perhaps a galaxy far far away.
A place where I was able to experience this wonder, this speed , this exhilaration, not on a cinema screen with hundreds of other people, but in private , in my own home ,
with just me and my favourite black boxed buddy.