Harbour Attack Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
25Developed by Mr Micro and published by Commodore in 1984.
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I can't be certain, but I believe that Harbour Attack was originally released as a pack-in game included with the C64 (I know it was included with the Commodore Plus/4 I owned).
It's a very basic game where you take control of a submarine over the course of three stages.
The first stage requires the player to navigate from the left of the screen to the right whilst avoiding mines and passing through gates. The aim of the game is simply to avoid colliding with anything else on the screen.
The second stage introduces torpedoes into the mix, requiring the sub to destroy enemies in order to progress to the next stage. Enemies include a battleship, which can shoot torpedoes and drop depth charges, a bomber and a hostile octopus; I think that torpedoing an octopus is rather harsh, but hey, this was the 80s!
The third and final stage moves to a first-person perspective with a large, moving battleship that must be hit with a torpedo exactly where the marker is shown. To complicate matters, floating barrels block your aim, but torpedoes can be steered to a limited degree after they've been fired.
Once all stages have been beaten, the game simply loops around, although the gates on stage one now open and close to add modicum of extra challenge.
Common to all stages are the air and depth gauges. Staying under water too long will exhaust your air supply, whilst diving too deeply will cause the sub to implode under the pressure.
The graphics and sound are average for the time, although the crabs and oysters on the seabed in stage two are a nice touch. I played the game through a couple of loops, which is more than it deserves really.
As a pack-in game for 1984, it does the job.
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