Commodore 64 Longplay [213] Greystorm (EU)
169http://www.longplays.org
Played by: MadMatty
Greystorm, developed by Dominator Designs & X-Ample and published by Double Density in 1991. The game appeared on the 'Golden Disk 64' 1993 issue 2 covermount published by CP-Verlag with a shortened intro.
"Professor Otto Narrowbrain has developed a time machine. During his first test something went wrong and he was teleported into the stone age. Several mishaps later some serious problems occurred. A return back to the present wasn't possible anymore without hassle. Experience the evolution of mankind in 6 exciting levels: Stone Age, Jungle, Waterfalls, Middle Age, Modern Times and the Future-City. A whole bunch of weapons and items will help you through the cumbersome journey in time until you hopefully make it safely back to the present."
The game is heavily inspired by the likes of Hawkeye, Flimbo's Quest and a splash of Myth. Graphically stunning with parallax scrolling and gameplay which is very much like Hawkeye. Gameplay involved moving left to right as indicated by the hard to see flashing pixel at the top of the screen and collecting a machine part. Along the way you need to avoid or destroy any on screen enemies which will constantly respawn if you don't keep moving. Once enough parts are collected, you automatically beam out and are able to move onto another level.
Along the way there is a chance of an upgrade being dropped. These can be collected up to 7 times in order to select an upgraded weapon, bomb, shield or extra energy. Energy refill feels like a dud though as you can only take 2 hits before dying anyway. If you lose a life, you start back pretty much where you died and can continue on. If you lose all lives you do get to restart the game from the level you are on.
Overall, a high quality release on the C64. Great graphics and Music+SFX which is a rare thing However the game is kind of short with just 6 levels which strangely seem to get easier towards the end. The game is well presented but shockingly feel unfinished and unrewarding. There is no high score table and the title screen a little plain. Some explanation of the games story could have appeared there. Worst of all, there is no ending and the game just loops back to the title screen once all 6 levels are completed. I added the Game Over screen at the end which would have probably better been placed after level 6 before the title screen.
Final Note: I used the Dytec release for this recording. The Image and Excess release are broken in that they crash the game when loading levels 4,5 and 6 (tested with cheatmode). The Easyflash release is good if you wanna get into the game quick but its presentation suffers due to poor translation of the irq loader, not ideal for recording with. The only official disk image I could find was the GoldenDisk64 version but that has a shortened intro.
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:05 Title screen
00:07:55 Stone Age
00:12:45 Dark Jungle
00:17:10 Modern Times
00:21:45 Techno-City
00:26:15 Waterfalls
00:31:10 Middle Ages
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