Slap Fight is a 1986 vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up game developed by Toaplan and published by Taito. The game was later converted to several home computers like the Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 as well the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis console (as Slap Fight MD).
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY The story takes place in the year 2059 and you're flying towards planet Orac in which enemy life forms squadrons to attack in lethal waves. The screen soon is swarmed by several (land-based) alien forces. Upon destroying certain aliens, sometimes they yield a star. Pick up the star and this will highlight the icon at the bottom of the screen. Press Spacebar and it will award you with the indicated power-up such as enhanced speed (this is the very first upgrade to take, as it will give you the proper maneuverability to avoid enemy fire), extra wings for more payload, side-shots, etc. Slap Fight is a cool game but the action is rather slow for an arcade shoot 'em up!
GRAPHICS / SOUND The graphics on the Atari ST conversion are great, colorful and include most of the original (arcade) version's details and the scrolling is pretty good too. The sound effects and music are greatly done but unfortunately they do not play simultaneously. The sound effects consist of solid laser-shots that match the game's atmosphere but doing little to enhance the overall experience. The in-game music is composed by David Whittaker but it's far from a thrilling musical experience, but it does the job well.
Screenshots
Sounds
Intro/Menu music:
In-game music sample:
Gameplay sample
Arcades (original version)
Hardware information
Atari ST
CPU: Motorola 68000 16/32bit at 8mhz. 16 bit data bus/32 bit internal/24-bit address bus. MEMORY: RAM 512KB (1MB for the 1040ST models) / ROM 192KB GRAPHICS: Digital-to-Analog Converter of 3-bits, eight levels per RGB channel, featuring a 9-bit RGB palette (512 colors), 320x200 (16 color), 640x200 (4 color), 640x400 (monochrome). With special programming techniques could display 512 colors on screen in static images. SOUND: Yamaha YM2149F PSG "Programmable Sound Generator" chip provided 3-voice sound synthesis, plus 1-voice white noise mono PSG. It also has two MIDI ports, and support mixed YM2149 sfx and MIDI music in gaming (there are several games supported this).