Oh, I love this game on the CPC! It's great fun manically bashing the fire button trying to blast planes out of the sky. For £1.99, it is, as _ACE_ said, "a super budget game". I've never heard of "ZORing", though; I've always pronounced XOR as two syllables, like 'EX-or'! You're right about XORing the sprites to the screen being faster. If the programmers hadn't used this technique, then I think the CPC wouldn't have been able to handle so many planes on the screen simultaneously, and the frame rate would be considerably slower. As for the ZX Spectrum version, you did select the 2-player mode by mistake. The red plane that falls continuously from the sky is the second player, and the same thing happens on the CPC version when you select 2-player mode but only play on your own - and why do the waterspouts have to flash green and cyan? Is there sewage mixed with all that water?!
The red plane on the Speccy version is the player 2 plane sprite. I had the original of this game on the Spectrum (original 48k machine) and that never happened in a one player game.
Yep, looks like you were accidentally in 2-player mode on the Speccy version. You can tell because in the footage where that red plane keeps on dying, Player 2's lives are a positive number, not zero. Some glitch with the inifinite lives POKE, I'm guessing. Anyway, "Dr Destructo" looks like an attempt to rip off "Sky Kid" the 1985 Namco arcade game. Very similar, except Sky Kid scrolls.
@@chinnyvision yea it seems to be that way. Pity there wasn't more of them, I suppose it's getting harder and harder to find games to show. Why don't you look for some Atari 800xl games, that'll increase your library and Dragon 32 games. That was my first computer .
Kind of reminds me of "Time Pilot", but that game has one advantage: It scrolls within a much larger overall world instead of keeping everything squeezed onto one screen. The big problem with the C64 version (and the C64 in general) is the bland color palette. Why the original designers of the system settled on those particular colors is a mystery to me.
Not quite, the planes you shoot down crash into the ship and damage the suoerstructure, you do carry a single bomb which you can drop, but it does little damage.
It's not one that impressed me much when I played it - the difficulty level is all over the place. I had much more fun playing Kamikaze from Codemasters (which was inspired by Sky Kid).
The Spectrum must be the greatest trolling pulled on the consumer of all time. The colour clash, the farting sounds. Still funny to see them trying to make something with it.
It was all about cost. Memory was expensive and they managed to produce a colour computer for an affordable price, but one that could only have 2 colours in each 8x8 pixel block. How each coder dealt with that was down to them. Here, well its a mess!
@@chinnyvision No Spectrum = no Amstrad and no real games industry in the UK. Simple as that. Sinclair got it spot on in 1982 - Brits simply would not have paid £400 in significant numbers, during the near-depression of the early 1980s, for a computer system. By 1985 the C64 was affordable and the Amstrad was out, but there were so many Speccies out there that the "damage" was already done.
I loved this, used to play it two player at school on a friend's CPC664. Especially liked the different backgrounds to destroy.
Had this on the C64, loved it
Fantastic game on the CPC.
It was based on two tigers on the arcade.
Oh, I love this game on the CPC! It's great fun manically bashing the fire button trying to blast planes out of the sky. For £1.99, it is, as _ACE_ said, "a super budget game". I've never heard of "ZORing", though; I've always pronounced XOR as two syllables, like 'EX-or'!
You're right about XORing the sprites to the screen being faster. If the programmers hadn't used this technique, then I think the CPC wouldn't have been able to handle so many planes on the screen simultaneously, and the frame rate would be considerably slower.
As for the ZX Spectrum version, you did select the 2-player mode by mistake. The red plane that falls continuously from the sky is the second player, and the same thing happens on the CPC version when you select 2-player mode but only play on your own - and why do the waterspouts have to flash green and cyan? Is there sewage mixed with all that water?!
One of my fave CPC games and one of the best budget titles. Colourful, fast and plenty of action. You can also change the sound effects. Good stuff.
Kind of looks like someone saw Time Pilot and Jet Pac and wondered what it would be like if they had a kid.
seems to be a good little game on the Amstrad,
I had this on the CPC 464 back in the day. Great game for £1.99.
Loved this as a Kid
Nice and colourful on the CPC
The red plane on the Speccy version is the player 2 plane sprite. I had the original of this game on the Spectrum (original 48k machine) and that never happened in a one player game.
Yes. As I suspected it seems I had accidentally activated the 2 player mode.
Really enjoyed the C64 version back in the day, but you would never have been able to beat it without cheats.
Good review here.
Yep, looks like you were accidentally in 2-player mode on the Speccy version. You can tell because in the footage where that red plane keeps on dying, Player 2's lives are a positive number, not zero. Some glitch with the inifinite lives POKE, I'm guessing. Anyway, "Dr Destructo" looks like an attempt to rip off "Sky Kid" the 1985 Namco arcade game. Very similar, except Sky Kid scrolls.
Ah the amstrad version is spoiling us now !
Games get done properly when they start life on the CPC.
@@chinnyvision yea it seems to be that way. Pity there wasn't more of them, I suppose it's getting harder and harder to find games to show. Why don't you look for some Atari 800xl games, that'll increase your library and Dragon 32 games. That was my first computer .
The CPC is the Ferrero Rocher of 80s home computers.
Kind of reminds me of "Time Pilot", but that game has one advantage: It scrolls within a much larger overall world instead of keeping everything squeezed onto one screen. The big problem with the C64 version (and the C64 in general) is the bland color palette. Why the original designers of the system settled on those particular colors is a mystery to me.
Yankee here. Confused on gameplay. You shoot planes to let bombs pass through from the top? Is that right?
Not quite, the planes you shoot down crash into the ship and damage the suoerstructure, you do carry a single bomb which you can drop, but it does little damage.
I see, thanks for the info.
You shoot planes and their wreckage hits and damages the ships/islands.
It's not one that impressed me much when I played it - the difficulty level is all over the place. I had much more fun playing Kamikaze from Codemasters (which was inspired by Sky Kid).
The Spectrum must be the greatest trolling pulled on the consumer of all time. The colour clash, the farting sounds. Still funny to see them trying to make something with it.
It was all about cost. Memory was expensive and they managed to produce a colour computer for an affordable price, but one that could only have 2 colours in each 8x8 pixel block. How each coder dealt with that was down to them. Here, well its a mess!
@@chinnyvision No Spectrum = no Amstrad and no real games industry in the UK. Simple as that. Sinclair got it spot on in 1982 - Brits simply would not have paid £400 in significant numbers, during the near-depression of the early 1980s, for a computer system.
By 1985 the C64 was affordable and the Amstrad was out, but there were so many Speccies out there that the "damage" was already done.