DoctorSpuds Reviews Things - Phaser Patrol

RSS Bot · August 14, 2018

First-person space shooters are nothing new on the 2600, you have your classics, like Star Master, Star Raiders, and Star Voyager, then there are your not-so-classics, like Star Ship, and Space Attack, but there is one game that gets swept under the rug every time the topic is brought up, maybe it’s because the title doesn’t begin with ‘Star’ or ‘Space’ but the game is Phaser Patrol, and in my opinion it’s better than all of the others combined. I think the main reason why it doesn’t come up very often in conversation is because it was released on the ill-fated Starpath Supercharger, as the pack-in title, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think they could have picked a better game. While the concept itself is nothing at all new, it gives the genre new life by injecting it with a fresh coat of paint, and a dash of innovation. As of right now, when I’m writing this I do not have the game in my possession, but as I stated in my announcement I think these games are worth bending the rules for, and without further ado let’s begin the review. Let’s begin with the graphics (as usual), how does this game stack up to it’s rivals?

This game looks excellent, the graphical fidelity falls squarely between the Intellivision and the Colecovision, with a hint of something neither console had… smoothness. Everything in this game moves SO SMOOTHLEY, the enemies, your shots, their shots, it just bolsters the immersion, and it makes you feel like you’re actually out there in space beating the stuffing out of a hostile alien race. This game resembles Space Spartans on the Intellivision, and Star Master somewhat, in that you navigate your way around using a map of the sector, the map in Phaser Patrol is nothing too special, it’s a six-by-six grid with four icons to indicate the contents, I’ll get to them in the gameplay section. Then there is your HUD, which looks amazing, in how almost everything on it has a function, needless to say, it’s large and complex looking, while still being completely understandable to new players. The combat screen is where you’re gonna be spending most of your time, and let me get it out of the way, that’s a nice lookin’ starfield you got there game. Another cool thing on the combat screen is how the shields turn off and on, your shields are indicated by a grey film that covers the screen, and when you turn it on it smoothly rises and lowers from the bottom and top of the screen to meet in the center, it looks so cool! The one sort of gripe I have with the game is how there are only a few enemy designs, and they’re all monochrome, but it’s made up for by the simple fact that you can blow those suckers into shreds. One last thing to mention is how visually incredible the movement of the torpedoes/space missiles are, they move on a slight curve, and scale so smoothly (have I said smoothly enough yet?) that they give a convincing impression of 3D movement, and the fact that your missiles will lock on and track enemy movements is incredible, you will understand when you play the game.

Unfortunately when Stella got her new brain she didn’t get a new voice box to go along with it, the sounds in this game are fairly standard. You have the sort of random beeps like in Star Ship on the map screen, except in Phaser Patrol they get quite annoying very quickly. The warp sound is quite cool and layered, which gives a good impression of speed. There is the classic irritating engine noise that these games always tend to have, but in Phaser Patrol’s case it’s very gritty and can get annoying at high volumes. There are the classic sounds of: you shoot, they shoot, they explode, you get hit/explode, all of these sounds are pretty par for the course, your firing sound is the same as the shooting sound in Berzerk though, so if you like that you’re gonna love this. There aren’t too many other sounds of note, the sound that is made when one of your instruments is knocked out is a rather cool trilling alarm sound but that’s about it.

The gameplay in this game is stellar, I can’t get enough of it, it’s basically Starmaster on steroids. You start on the map screen; each sector is indicated with one of four icons, and empty box, which indicates that the sector is empty, a box with an “X” through it to indicate that it is unexplored, a circular Death-Star lookin’ thing indicates a friendly star-base, and an alien which indicates there are hostile aliens in that sector. You can select a sector with the joystick, and jump there by pressing the button, the screen will turn red to indicate that you are at warp, this is where you encounter your first problem, how do I get off the map screen. To leave the map screen you must flick the Left Difficulty Switch, have fun everybody with a Four-Switch or Junior console, since you now have to weave your hand between the supercharger and the cord to get off and onto the map screen every time you want to jump, but for people with Six- Switch consoles it’s no issue. Flicking the B/W and Color Switch engages and disengages the shield, which is not only a cool effect, but it might just save your ass in the middle of a firefight. The HUD is stuffed full of information, so much information in fact that instead of writing it all down, I’m simply going to include scans from the instruction manual (you can find the same scans on AA’s Phaser Patrol page), seriously, we’d be here for a while. Even though you have your shield you’re not indestructible, since enemy fire will still knock out your instruments, and believe me, you don’t want that to happen. You have four instruments to assist you in blowing up aliens: Shield, Computer, Long Range Scan, and Torpedoes, all of these are indicated on the HUD by the boxes with “S”, “C”, “L”, and “T” in them, when these instruments take damage they change from green to yellow to red. For example when your shield is at green it covers the whole screen, when it is at yellow it only covers half the screen, and when it’s at red it’s completely destroyed. You can repair damaged instruments and refuel your ship at the Star-Bases, simply jump into the sector, wait a little while, and you’re good to go. The real meat of the game is in destroying aliens though, and it is head and shoulders above any other game of this type. These aliens are quick little bastards and will fly erratically, yet rather intelligently, around the screen, thankfully you have a torpedo lock-on function, since trying to shoot these guys without it is damn near impossible. It’s absolutely engrossing, weaving through enemy fire, trying to get a lock on, more than once have I done a celebratory fist pump after hitting an enemy that had been giving me trouble. You are also given a rank at the end of the game from “A” to “D”, I assume you get an “F” rank if you’re destroyed; the way the game scores you is rather unique, since it tracks your energy usage, time spent, and amount of enemies destroyed. Getting an “A” rank is quite difficult to do, even on the lowest difficulty setting. Since the game punishes you for using energy and firing uses energy, it’s really not recommended to fire willy nilly, but you’re also penalized for taking too long, so you have to be quick about it, this game forces you to get good at it just to see that “A” rank appear at the bottom of the screen at the end of the game. By some miracle I actually managed to get an “A” rank the first time I played the game, but now can only manage a “C” or worse.

This is a game that challenges you, and taunts you, and makes you get better at it through intuitive design, and addicting gameplay. I can see why this was the pack-in game for the Supercharger, since it’s one of the best games on the 2600, period. Since it was the Pack-in game, copies of this game are very cheap on EBay loose, but if you want one in the box it’s going to cost you more since it’s got a Supercharger bundled with it. Loose on EBay copies of Phaser Patrol are anywhere from 15-30$ and boxed copies usually run upwards of 80$, again because it’s got a Supercharger with it. If you want to get a Supercharger, I would recommend you buy the Phaser Patrol boxed, since you will also get one of the best games on the system bundled with it (unless of course you don’t like space shooters, in which case, what’s wrong with you?)

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