This is still one of my most favorite games. I haven't heard very much about it, but I saw this review and pretty much figured that was sort of the general feeling about this one.
Even when I was a kid, this one gave me a bit of that young gamer's depression once I was old enough to shoot at things other than the hot air balloons and trees. But this was the game I really cut my teeth on. I dodged bullets to shoot at the non-shooting objects. Except for the houses-- that just didn't seem right, what if there were families in there?
And then there was that afternoon that I got it. You're flying an alien space ship on earth, tanks, planes, and helicopters are being thrown at you by the army. Even the hot air balloons are dangerous. They're out there trying to spot you, and if you don't take them down the army will see you coming.
That one afternoon, I sat down with my Pointmaster joystick (still my controller of choice to this day), and pretended that I was a rogue alien flying a space ship across the planet Earth and wrecking havoc for fun. Nothing would survive my wrath. Not even the houses that day and definitely not those hot air balloons. I even went after the things shooting back at me including the airplane which was a huge deal at the time.
That still stands as on of my greatest gaming moments I think. And I think that was the power of the old games. The really good ones were the ones that let my imagination run wild. (That might be part of my problem with Empire Strikes Back, actually, and why I didn't like the fact that I was bound to lose. Too much pressure on a young kid to protect the base.)
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