Zamzara Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
219Developed by Jukka Tapanimäki and published by Rack It Hewson in 1988.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Al82_Retro
Add me on Google+: http://bit.ly/1tPwL1u
Released by Hewson in 1988, Zamzara is a horizontal shoot 'em up where the player assumes control of an alien warrior who must escape from a research complex before a time-bomb detonates and destroys the facility. Along the route to freedom, you must locate and collect 20 gene bottles that are strewn throughout the game.
The game itself is divided into multiple screens, each of which will have one or more exits to a different screen. Each of these sections is inhabited by all manner of alien adversaries that are determined to prevent your escape. Whether it's a static sentry gun or a fireball-spewing mutant, every enemy is lethal and must be approached with extreme caution.
Fortunately, you remembered to pack a veritable arsenal of weaponry to help despatch the foes that you'll be facing. These include your trusty laser rifle, which comes with an unlimited amount of ammunition, to trip mines and lasers that ricochet off walls, floors and just about every other surface. It's up to you to discover which weapon is best suited to beating enemies on each screen, but be warned: your special weapons have a limited number of uses, so don't be too frivolous in their use. Occasionally, you will find an ammunition pack that will restock the supply of one particular weapon type, but these are few and far between, so conserving ammo should always be foremost in your mind.
Although the main objective of the game is to locate your ship and escape, you must collect all of the gene bottles in the game to get the "good" ending message. I had to backtrack through a number of screen near the end of the video to get the gene bottles that I'd left in an earlier screen and nearly ran out of time...
The game features some excellent graphics and some super-smooth scrolling. For a game made mostly by one person, this is an impressive effort to say the least. The main player sprite is well animated and even rotates properly when changing directions, rather than instantly flipping the sprite's direction.
Charles Deenen from Maniacs of Noise produced some decent title and hi-score music and rounds off what already feels like a polished product. Although the main game only features sound effects, all of the weapons sound great and enemies explode with suitably rumbly explosions.
The one sticking point with the game is just how darn tough it is. Many of the enemies spew out waves of projectiles that must be quickly destroyed (or avoided altogether) and I quickly found that my trigger finger started to ache. Whilst it's a blessing that you at least have a health bar that allows you to take a few hits before dying, the enemies will sap it extremely quickly; this is a game that you'll need to continually practice at before you'll come close to beating it.
Despite this, it's difficult to complain about a game this polished, especially when considering it was originally released on budget for a paltry £2.99. There are also those of us who got to play the game for no money at all since it was released for free on the Power Pack tape of Commodore Format (issue 9)!
Zamzara might be hard as nails, but it's definitely worthy of your attention. You might just want to have a spare joystick handy for when the fire button breaks...
#retrogaming