> PARALLAX by Ocean

COMMENTS:

• Vinny: I really hate it when you play through a quality game and then the ending is just totally dire. As Bren says, it's great ending music, but it's a shame that it's just a repeat of level 2's music. I am going with Frank's suggestion that the programmers ran out of memory :-)
  

• Frank Gasking: I think that they must have ran out of space, even Wizball's ending was much better than this. It seems a bit odd that really its just a repeat of the title screen with the ship in the middle. I guess the only way to really find out if this is it, is to ask Jon Hare himself. I think I remember him saying once that they ran out of memory, and this was all they could do.
  

• Matt Rogers: Used to love playing it back in the day and only ever made it to the 4th level a few times, by which time I was mentally drained and soon died in a set of teeth. Those teeth sections are rock hard - thankfully the cheats these days allow total invincibility... As for the end, it's very, very disappointing. It still wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't the end...it's almost as if the game has crashed. There is no indication whatsoever when you enter the portal that you're about to complete it. A 'congrats' message wouldn't have hurt. Not sure it even deserves a 1.
  

• Brendan Phoenix: I take it this is the 'Well Done Capt'n' message... just in case I missed something. The 'even though all our boys were blown to pieces...' message threw me a bit - sort of makes out you lost! As for the ending tune, if it was a brand new tune then the ending would deserve a 5 - as it is quite nice. But just a cop out having the end of level 2 end in there - along with the rubbish epilogue (if you could call it that). 1/10.
  

• Neil Collins: I'm a huge fan of Parallax. It was an ambitious game for it's time which just falls short of a classic in my opinion. I think a lot of players didnt really get the best out of it, as they never knew what you had to do, or had trouble landing the spaceship. I have completed it a few times and was disappointed with the ending when I got to see it for the first time. The music is outstanding, and has one of the best high score tunes on the C64. I also like the artwork on the cover by Wakelin - I'm also a big admirer of his work. Hearing the title music of the game still reminds me of Sunday evenings as a kid, when my mum would let me put the C64 on the large TV in the lounge, as the TV programmes on at that time werent very good. I used to play this over and over until I was finally dragged off my machine and sent to bed. Nostalgia at its best. My score: 3/10.