• Completed
& Reviewed by Neil Collins
Exile by Audiogenic is something special; it's a
game that I'd played once before and never returned to
for some reason. Having spotted it on the
wanted list, I decided
it was time to return and see if it's as good a game as
many c64 gamers make it out to be. So my expectations
were high before I started playing, and by the end of a
marathon session of gaming I concluded that the game is
a piece of programming genius and is arguably the C64's
finest game.
The
game is huge, with a massive map to explore and with
many tasks to complete. There are stacks of items to
collect and weapons to use. There are also tons of
creatures to fight and interact with. There's even a
friendly creature that follows you and can aid you with
specific tasks. I really am amazed how this game was
crammed into a mere 64k.
The aim
of the game is to recover the Destinator which has been
stolen from your ship by the evil Triax. Without it you
can't blast off from the planet Phoebus - which is where
a group of other space-travellers are being help captive
by Triax. You are
equipped with a Jetpac, so you can fly freely around the
planet and it's deep cave complex. You can also teleport
about the planet at your leisure by marking points that
you want to return to at any time. The control method
and game physics are superb, and you can adjust the
angle of firing your weapon so it's perfect for making
pixel perfect shots that are needed at some points in
the game. The sprites are detailed and well animated
with original items to collect and weirdly wonderful
creatures scattered throughout the game. The puzzles are
tricky but quite logical and the game is fairly open
ended so you can complete certain tasks in your own
order. The only way you will understand the sheer genius
of this game is by playing it yourself.
Exile scored
an impressive 91% in
Zzap64, which in my opinion is just not high enough, and
after
months of playing C64 games, I can honestly say
that this game is head and shoulders above anything
else. A true classic.
The game is
complete...
...and the ship
blasts off!
Outer space.
The End.
HOW WAS IT COMPLETED?:
I followed a solution and a map that I found via the
lemon64 website (thank you Kyle Gunning). It took a long
time, but it was worth every second.
SO WHAT HAPPENS?:
I collected the destinator and headed back to the ship.
I dropped it at the position that it was stolen from by
Triax at the start of the game. The engines fire up on
the spaceship and it blasts off the screen. The words
'BLAST OFF!' scroll across the bottom of the screen. It
then tells you how many of the crew you saved (which is
optional) before a final message appears which reads
'Mission Over - Well Done'. If you continue to watch,
the ship keeps blasting past the screen and the messages
repeat.
Exile
