Survival Island (Starpath)
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Entry posted by DoctorSpuds
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It’s time we turn our attention away from the Supercharger games that had the nice boxes and manuals, and look at the final two games released for the system. These games were not sold in stores, and were only available through mail-order, which as we know from other mail-order games increases the rarity and value immensely. Unfortunately these final two games are sometimes regarded as the worst games for the Supercharger, which is rather unfair since they are both as original and perhaps even more unique that the ten games published by Starpath before them. Without a doubt though these games are the most challenging, most people I’ve talked to about Survival Island (the game we’re talking about today), have never been able to get to the second part, let alone the third. I by a miraculous feat of patience have managed to get to all three parts of the game, but as of now have still been unable to beat it, if that’s even possible. This game comes in three parts: Shipwrecked, The Wilderness Island, and The Secret Temple, all of which have drastically different gameplay styles, which will be explained later on. If Dragonstomper didn’t exist I’d say this is the most advanced Supercharger game ever made, and considering this game has a password feature it might just be.
This game looks rather disappointing; of the three sections the first is the most impressive, and graphically complex. The first section is the most impressive mainly due to the island that slowly gets larger as you get closer to it, and the smoke rising from the volcano is amazingly well animated, otherwise the other sprites are fairly simple with the only standout being the little guy you control, he’s well animated and is more than one color, which is more than I can say for the rest of them. The second part is just plain ugly, consisting mainly of solid yellow to indicate pathways and solid green to indicate inaccessible trees. There are several standouts, mainly the temple and a few of the collectibles. The third part is definitely the most boring to look at, the maze is just a bunch of choppily scaling squares, the only things that break up the monotony are the hidden collectibles and the ‘Magical Rainbow Gateways™’. Overall this game looks rather disappointing, but how does the rest of the game fare?
Not good, sadly, these sounds are pretty subpar if I do say so myself, and I do. The first part consists mainly of the paddling noise, which is a soft-ish whoosh, and a rip-off of the Jaws theme whenever a predator is on-screen, there are a few beeps to indicate the collection of important items and a sad beep when you lose your raft. The second part fares no better, apart from several different beeping noises to indicate the collection of items, and running blindly into traps, there is naught. The third section, again, is very Spartan with its sounds there is a beeping noise whenever you move, a beep when you collect items, the ‘Magical Rainbow Gateways™’ make a noise of some description, and there is a very rewarding thwacking sound whenever you move into a wall, pity you can’t do that much since it takes away health. Overall very disappointing, this seems to be a running theme, hmmm this doesn’t bode well for that gameplay sections.
This is definitely the sort of game you need the instruction manual for, since there is very little that is explained right of the bat. In the first gameplay section you need to maneuver yourself around the screen whilst riding a raft collecting food and water. Occasionally a little head will poke up from the water, this is an octopus, and you must sacrifice some of your food to it to regain some of your constantly decreasing health. There are several obstacles you will encounter, mainly shark fins and green sea monsters that will chase you around the screen, if they make contact with you once you lose your raft and all your supplies, they touch you again its game over. You can recollect your raft since it will reappear after a little while, but be careful, what appears to be a shoal of killer piranhas will destroy your raft, again, if you make contact, though strangely they don’t kill you if you swim over them. All you got to do is make it to the island while avoiding all the obstacles, I’ve purposely skipped one because it’s my favorite and I don’t want to spoil it for you, once you reach the island you’re in for a treat. Walking, lots and lots of walking through screens that look exactly the same, you need to collect items to pass several obstacles that will inhibit your path on this leg of the journey. You’ll need to collect coins, a key, and an amulet; the coins are to bribe guards, and the key is to enter the temple. The main problem is surviving since everything can kill you, traps, snakes, creeks, bad water, everything, you can collect mushrooms to get back some of your health or eat some of the food if you have any left over from the first section, same with water. There is a decently executed menu system reminiscent of the one in Dragonstomper, simply press the button and move the joystick through the different actions, also am I the only one who thinks this guy’s legs move way too fast? The third section is a maze, somewhat like a low budget Escape from the Mindmaster, the problem is that everything looks the damn same, there isn’t much to say about this section, you collect an item and pass the ‘Magical Rainbow Gateway™’, rinse and repeat several times and you find the end. Also touching the walls makes you lose health, and since you cannot regenerate health in this section that s a bit of a problem since there are walls you have to touch.
This game could have been good if they’d toned back some of the difficulty and told the player what to do, the instructions don’t really say much. If there had been a map system for the final two sections most of my complaints wouldn’t even matter, but it’s up to you to draw your own maps as stated in the manual. The main reason though as to why this game gets thrust firmly into the Collector’s Zone is the price, currently there are none for sale anywhere, but when they do sell its for upwards of 100$, and that’s far too much considering the quality of the game on offer. Stick to emulation or just stay away.
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