Had a demo of this game and played through it many times, absolutely loved it. I tried playing it not too long ago but don't have the attention span for these kinds of games anymore. Great music too!
Overkill was definitely a game i absolutely loved from my childhood. Honestly was never any good at it and never beat it. But it remains my favorite game of its type. Keep these gems coming!
This game made great use of the EGA 16 color palette and dithering. Very nice color coordination and gradients, impressive for the time, considering VGA/MCGA was becoming the norm.
Found this video randomly 9 years after it was released, and have found this site which is a memorial to the artist, Martin Holland, who helped develop Overkill and many C64 games. www.gamesthatwerent.com/2014/08/martin-holland-a-tribute/
+David Blackman To be fair, the video wasn't on UA-cam for 9 years. I started out on Blip then began transitioning stuff over in 2014 and had to rush to finish the transition in 2015 when Blip was killed off. :P
That's an interesting explanation for why you lose all your powerups at the end of each level... you'd think docking with the mothership would replenish your ammo, not take it away!
You can actually gather enough fuel with any ship type you have *if* you destroy certain enemies and extract fuel from certain destructible objects. Many of these same types of objects can contain power-ups you'll need to survive if your ship gets blown up. One last additional note - you're going to need to sacrifice two of your Sidearms in one of the hardest planets because there isn't enough room from left to right to squeeze your ship through. Regaining your Sidearms afterward isn't all that hard, though.
... and there was no official box, it was just put out as a shareware disk. I've seen a dozen different variations from different shareware vendors, nothing to do with me.
( listening as I go and commenting ) the difficulty system was added after Mark Rein at Epic said they wanted one. It was done in about an hour, as a quick hack, so had very little effect TBH.
Well if it didn't come from you it would be very interesting to know who DID come up with it seeing as it's printed on the back of more than one of the various boxed distributions of the game by shareware vendors! :o
@@Pixelmusement Yeah the problem with that kind of thing is sites/publishers just copying off the last person they saw. For instance, there are many lyrics sites out there for songs, and until a short time back almost every one of them included the lines "Na na night, Emergency!" for Motorhead's track 'Emergency' in the lyrics. That was absolutely stupid, as the correct line is "999, Emergency!" because they're a British band, and the UK emergency number is 999, not 911. But because most sites were American and all copied from some clothed-eared fool who wrote the first one and was "listening with American ears" and therefore didn't make the digit-connection in their head they were all wrong. This error propagated across almost all sites. I emailed several of them to point out the problem over a couple of years, now they're all correct. Don't get me wrong, it probably wasn't me being responsible, maybe someone finally got access to some actual lyric data ( like the CDDB site for track layouts and CD info ) but the point is that once the correct data started somewhere, it quickly propagated through all the sites and now you won't find a bad one, outside of the Wayback Machine. I believe it's the same with OverKill. Some publisher wants to make their 'own' version, they make up a new box, new artwork etc, then grab the story off someone that already had it written then shovels it out the door. No skin off my nose, I only made about $35k from Overkill and that was in about 2 years or so, after that, nothing, then I declared it freeware anyway just so people could still play it.
Had a demo of this game and played through it many times, absolutely loved it. I tried playing it not too long ago but don't have the attention span for these kinds of games anymore. Great music too!
"Easily forgotten."
Yup. Completely forgot I used to play this back in the day!
Overkill was definitely a game i absolutely loved from my childhood. Honestly was never any good at it and never beat it. But it remains my favorite game of its type. Keep these gems coming!
I played the crap out of this back in the day. Good upload. :D
This game made great use of the EGA 16 color palette and dithering. Very nice color coordination and gradients, impressive for the time, considering VGA/MCGA was becoming the norm.
Found this video randomly 9 years after it was released, and have found this site which is a memorial to the artist, Martin Holland, who helped develop Overkill and many C64 games. www.gamesthatwerent.com/2014/08/martin-holland-a-tribute/
+David Blackman To be fair, the video wasn't on UA-cam for 9 years. I started out on Blip then began transitioning stuff over in 2014 and had to rush to finish the transition in 2015 when Blip was killed off. :P
That's an interesting explanation for why you lose all your powerups at the end of each level... you'd think docking with the mothership would replenish your ammo, not take it away!
Wanted to ask if you played Highway Hunter, but sure enough - it's only a few positions awy from this video! What a gamer.
Hoth isn't the only reference here. Galifrey is the home planet of the Time Lords in Doctor Who!
You can actually gather enough fuel with any ship type you have *if* you destroy certain enemies and extract fuel from certain destructible objects. Many of these same types of objects can contain power-ups you'll need to survive if your ship gets blown up. One last additional note - you're going to need to sacrifice two of your Sidearms in one of the hardest planets because there isn't enough room from left to right to squeeze your ship through. Regaining your Sidearms afterward isn't all that hard, though.
I had the shareplay only, but loved it.
I remember this game, however I don't think I ever specifically played it myself.....
RIP Steve Jobs :(
in the link we must shose v2.0 Registered Version (418,018 bytes) ? for the full version?
gallifrey? like in doctor who?
"Time is running out"...
dood I forgot about this game
I have no idea who came up with that storyline, wasn't me ( and I wrote the game ) . Either way, just shoot stuff :-)
... and there was no official box, it was just put out as a shareware disk. I've seen a dozen different variations from different shareware vendors, nothing to do with me.
( listening as I go and commenting ) the difficulty system was added after Mark Rein at Epic said they wanted one. It was done in about an hour, as a quick hack, so had very little effect TBH.
4 of the planet names are sci-fi references, not just Hoth and Gallifrey. Bonus points to anyone that can identify the others.
Well if it didn't come from you it would be very interesting to know who DID come up with it seeing as it's printed on the back of more than one of the various boxed distributions of the game by shareware vendors! :o
@@Pixelmusement Yeah the problem with that kind of thing is sites/publishers just copying off the last person they saw. For instance, there are many lyrics sites out there for songs, and until a short time back almost every one of them included the lines "Na na night, Emergency!" for Motorhead's track 'Emergency' in the lyrics. That was absolutely stupid, as the correct line is "999, Emergency!" because they're a British band, and the UK emergency number is 999, not 911. But because most sites were American and all copied from some clothed-eared fool who wrote the first one and was "listening with American ears" and therefore didn't make the digit-connection in their head they were all wrong. This error propagated across almost all sites. I emailed several of them to point out the problem over a couple of years, now they're all correct. Don't get me wrong, it probably wasn't me being responsible, maybe someone finally got access to some actual lyric data ( like the CDDB site for track layouts and CD info ) but the point is that once the correct data started somewhere, it quickly propagated through all the sites and now you won't find a bad one, outside of the Wayback Machine. I believe it's the same with OverKill. Some publisher wants to make their 'own' version, they make up a new box, new artwork etc, then grab the story off someone that already had it written then shovels it out the door. No skin off my nose, I only made about $35k from Overkill and that was in about 2 years or so, after that, nothing, then I declared it freeware anyway just so people could still play it.
This isn’t my favorite quake-inspired movement based first person shooter!
Is it Wolfenstein 3D?
That's easy, Wolf3d.
This game seems to take a bit of inspiration from Mega Man... the filling health bar at the beginning of each level, the music when you dock...
Err... fuel, not health?
Never heard of that game, sorry :-)