Halley's Comet, 1986 Pac. Mfg. Ltd./Taito/Coin-It (20 From 1986 #16)
12Cool little vertically scrolling shmup released to coincide with the viewing of the famed Halley's Comet! The music is lovely and the power ups are fairly impressive, and there are some novel touches in this game-- most notably perhaps is the fact that enemies that slip past you damage the planet you're protecting! A damage percentage appears at the lower right of the screen, and if it reaches 100, your game ends and the planet under your care blows to bits-- good job, dunderhead! Some enemies are a real pain and I often let them get by because I don't want to deal with them-- these enemies will scatter bullets when you shoot them! Each planet you attempt to save will feature multiple areas to complete and they are basically in thirds. The first part will end with a mini-boss (and the mini-bosses feature nice bonuses in multiples of 10,000 points), and the second part will end with you trying to blow open a hole in the artificial comet that acts as the enemy base (which consists of multiple hatches that blink and you must destroy them before they disappear), and lastly you enter the "comet" and try to reach the end where you blast a total of 14 hatches to save the planet. Then, you get bonus points for the percentage remaining on the damage meter-- from a measly 500 points for 1 percent remaining up to 50,000 and a free ship for allowing ZERO enemies to pass you (heh; good luck getting that without cheats). Power-ups are usually gleaned from shooting asteroids (you can run into them without dying), and include 3 way shot, option fighters (you can have up to 6), a bigger middle shot, spread shot, speed up, an instant 6 option fighters, a barrier, and stronger overall firepower. Once you have at least one option fighter, you can sacrifice it and use a warp (second button). This will push you forward in the stage a bit, though it won't let you skip the comet opening or a mini-boss. The point-scoring in this game is very generous, and there will be more mini-bosses than just at the 1/3 way mark. They will all give you multiples of 10,000 points, and getting a 1up is hard to do by scoring (I think the first is at like 500,000 or so-- dipswitch adjustable of course), so blast all the enemies you can, not only for points but to keep that damage percentage low! If you save all the planets (which have very similar stage layouts) you will simply start them all over again with Earth, without any fanfare or anything. Oh well-- still a very fun and unique game. Oh, and last of all.. DO NOT ERASE!