• Completed
& Reviewed by Neil Collins
Astro Chase is another game from the past that I
recall seeing, but not playing. It's another game ending
that was requested by our webmaster, so I thought I'd
better crack on with it. The game itself is essentially
very basic. You control a very small spacecraft around
an area of space around the earth. You have to blast the
attacking spaceships and destroy the megamines that
approach the earth. Failure to do so means the end of
mankind. If you complete a wave, or chase, then you go
onto the next one which has an increased difficulty
level. There are twenty four chases to complete to beat
the game. The graphics are ok with the exception of the
sprites which are tiny and lacking detail. The sound
isn't too bad, and it plays fairly well, but the game
underneath it all just lacks originality and excitement.
It's not something I would bother playing again. The
intro sequence is pretty good so will the end be
something to shout about ? Let's hope so.
The final level is
complete.
Our hero makes his
way back to Earth...
...and lands...
...in front of his
adorning fans.
Our hero's chariot
appears...
...and whisks him
off...
...with a parade of
solders and dogs(!) behind him.
#WOOF! WOOF!#
The End.
HOW WAS IT COMPLETED?:
Using an infinite lives cheat.
SO WHAT HAPPENS?:
With chase twenty four beaten, a message pops up at the
bottom of the screen which reads 'You saved the earth!'.
Is that it ? No. It gets better. Much better. An
animated ending sequence follows which is similar in
style to the intro sequence. Your spacecraft is shown
landing back on earth in front of a crowd of people. A
tune plays as a beam comes out from the bottom of the
spacecraft which beams the pilot down to the ground. The
pilot waves to the crowd before a military car drives
onto the screen. The pilot walks over to the car and
jumps onto the backseat. The car drives across the
screen followed by a long line of soldiers and dogs. A
new pilot is then shown walking out from the base behind
the crowd. He walks over to the spaceship, waves to the
crowd, beams up into the spaceship and then blasts off
up into space. The game then returns to the start of
chase twenty four.
- Neil:
A near perfect ending. A lot of work went into this
one. It's a shame they didn't put as much effort
into the game itself. One of the better C64 endings
- check it out! 9/10.
-
Vinny:
It was a phenomenal amount of times that I saw the
magazine advert and cover design for this game in
our local games store, but never actually bothered
to check this game from First Star Software. For
some reason it just didn't appeal to me, but after
seeing the ending from Neil Collins, I think it's
time I sat down and loaded it up on my trusty
Commodore 64 and gave it some attention...
Anyway, back to the ending... so for an old game,
all I can say is WOW! And not for the way it looks,
but more for the fact that the programmers have
certainly made a real effort to have a proper
ending. It isn't perfect, and it could have done
with a bit more Polish (the Mr. Sheen type) but all
in all a superb effort. 8/10.
-
Brendan Phoenix:
Now if only all game endings could be like this.
It's not about the sound or the graphics, but the
effort that goes into making a half decent ending.
A really good ending to this one, nice touches with
the motorcade, etc.
-
Andy Vaisey:
Unexpected, which makes it all the more enjoyable!
Good on the coder!
-
Andrew Fisher:
This was First Star's first game, and it came out on
the Atari first. And I have to say, it's a first
class ending! Although I did notice one of the
flying saucer sprites seemed slightly out of line.
But definitely worthy of a high score. 8/10.
-
Frank Gasking:
Again a lot more than you'd expect from a game of
its age. It's nice that some developers even back
then made the effort to reward the player!
-
Kungfufurby:
This is an example of how nice of an ending you can
make for a game from 1984... even with simplistic
graphics to today's standards.
Astro Chase
