Navy Moves Longplay (C64) [QHD]
132Game Info
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Developer: Dinamic
Publisher: Dinamic
Year of Release: 1989
Game Review & Impressions
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The chaps over at @zappedpast3297 reviewed Navy Moves in one of their recent podcast episodes, bemoaning the level of difficulty. I recorded a longplay of Army Moves a couple of years back, itself a challenging title, so I was curious to see what the sequel had to offer.
Structurally, the game follows the typical Dinamic template, dividing the game into two halves. The first of these features a series of arcade-like sequences depicting your journey towards the submarine base. By far the most challenging aspect of the game, these sections involve navigating a small inflatable raft across the ocean waves, avoiding floating mines and patrolling gunboats. The collision detection on your boat and the mines is ridiculously precise, and so much as a single pixel colliding with these things will detonate them, sending you to the bottom of the drink, losing a life in the process. Make it past this, and you'll need to scuba-dive your way past ravenous sharks, harpoon gun-wielding divers, before piloting a small boarding craft to the sub base itself. Here, gigantic octopi will emerge from rifts at the bottom of the ocean, pass around your craft a few times, before latching on to it and crushing it with their tentacles. Fail to land sufficient hits with your torpedo launchers before this occurs, and you're taking a one-way trip to Davey Jones' Locker.
If you somehow make it through this frankly ludicrous series of opening challenges, you'll dock with the sub base and begin the assault proper. This section involves locating and killing naval officers for their command codes, finding computer terminals and punching in commands -- along with the corresponding code -- to open the way to the core of the base. Here, you'll plant explosives to destroy the facility, then make your escape to the surface hatch where you'll find another submarine to take you to safety. Armed guards, including marines equipped with flamethrowers, will try and stop you, so you'll need to be quick on the draw if you intend to survive. This second sequence is generally less punishing than those that preceded it, although it's still no walk in the park, given the maze-like series of rooms, connected by doors that warp you to other parts of the map.
If Navy Moves has one failing, it's just too damned hard. If Dinamic had toned down the difficulty, and perhaps added more content and focus on the base assault section, this might have been a decent action game. Having been blown up countless times by the mines in the opening stage, I doubt many players would have persevered much beyond this stage.
Related Longplays & Videos
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Army Moves (C64): https://youtu.be/rq2XVcB_yIk
Chapters
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00:00 Title screen and music loop (Jeroen Tel/Maniacs of Noise)
02:17 Phase 1
04:00 Phase 2
05:27 Phase 3
06:07 Phase 4
08:15 Phase 5
14:45 Ending