Typhoon Thompson in search of the sea childThis review started about 30 mins ago while on IRC:
Quote:13:26 < ggn@> is typhoon thompson arse or is it just me?
13:27 < CJ > its you
13:28 < CJ > it makes no sense
13:28 < CJ > then once you work it out, its a beautiful game
13:29 < Grazey > i love it
Then I went to re-read
an interview of Dan Gorlin I read oh-so-many years ago:
Quote:[...]
What's the story behind writing "Typhoon Thompson"? Why is it your favorite of the games you wrote?
"Typhoon" evolved from the "Airheart" engine, but I could do more on the 68000 platforms, so it was a small feeling of liberation. I like it because it's unique, the gameplay is simple but infinitely variable, and for me the characters really come to life. Some people mistook it for a shooter at the time, but it's really more like a game of Blitzkrieg Chess. If you just start blasting you lose immediately. Each kind of enemy has moves it can make, and the player has his moves, but things never happen the same way twice. It's not high concept in the way that "Choplifter" is, but rather a kind of art piece.
[...]
Of course I'm still feeling a bit sour because Choplifter was written for the Apple ][, and Fort Apocalype on the Atari 800 is a much better game IMHO but underrated while Choplifter is so famous etc etc etc. But I went and tried the game again. And this time I spent some time instead of going in guns blazing. And it actually made sense. And I found it a really nice game.
I don't know the scenario, but it's safe to assume that you're playing errand boy to the spirits that appear at the beginning of the game (I guess "bring us the XXXXXX" is what tipped me off
). The game is pseudo-3d, using lots of scaled sprites to simulate depth, but you get 360 degree freedom of movement so it's not like (for example) a racing game. At first you're given a puny laser but with each level more powerful weapons are made available (press F2 to see how to activate them). The object of each level is to go to the designated area which looks like a beacon with really small satellite islands. On each island there's a glowing star which when you shoot it transforms into an enemy vehicle. Kill that and then its pilot bails out. You have to be quick to pick up the pilot because if he/she/it swims back to the island, it converts to a star and you have to do it again. The level is over when you pick up all pilots (the game takes control and drives the player to the beacon when you get an animated sequence in which you receive the object in question).
There's
tons of animation frames, and it's really detailed animation even though the sprites are small. I really appreciate the amount of work that went into animating all this stuff.
All said and done, it's a great game, with great mechanics and great presentation. If all you did was dismiss it like I did, do yourself a favour and go play it for 20-30 mins and I'm pretty sure you'll agree!
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Automation #005 (Read 816 times)
