Project X

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You fly to planet Ryxx on a mission to locate the main stronghold and destroy all the alien forces. Your mission ends in success if you destroy the alien planet for good. All you have to do is to get into your spacecraft and blast your way through numerous squadrons of alien ships. By the time you break out of hyper-drive, you must reach the planet's surface and destroy everything that attacks you, including deadly asteroid belts and large, powerful, motherships. After accomplishing this part, you dive with you spaceship into the hazy upper atmosphere of the planet, navigating dangerously close to its sculptured mountains, breaking through its lethal storm activity and shooting down aliens of any size and power. Your are afterwards driven into the planet's inner sanctum and enter inside its volcanic caverns, finding out that the volcanic activity serves to melt Ryxx's icy core, creating a large subterranean lake, in which you fight against Hybrid mutants and the like. On the next sector, you go through a large airlock in the cave's depths (which is the enemy's lair actually) where all aliens are gathered! The central reactor of the alien's stronghold must be destroyed but their automated defense units and force fields make your journey even more hazardous! By blasting each and every enemy in your path, you collect a variety of power ups and bonuses that make your guns stronger and your spaceship faster. At the end of each sector, you are called to confront a big boss, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. All you need here is some strategy as well as to memorize the patterns with which the larger enemies move. The difficulty level is set pretty high, so no matter how powerful you become, your ship seems always overpowered by the enemy and when you lose a life, unfortunately your firing power is reduced and the gameplay becomes as tough as hell! Team17 realized that Project X was far too difficult for the players so a year later (in 1993) they released Project-X SE, a special edition with the difficulty toned down a bit and a few additions such as the feature to choose a spacecraft among three available, each one with its own special capabilities (speed, firepower etc). Other than these features, Project X SE is virtually identical to the original title. Though it's tough, Project X is one of my personal favorites and one of the best shoot 'em up games ever appeared on the Amiga OCS, ECS and AGA systems and in general on the 16bit generation.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The PC version is almost identical to the original Amiga. The graphics and the details of this game are fantastic, with dozens of colors on-screen, smooth scrolling, detailed backgrounds and a lot of pre-rendered sprites! Note that, although the game runs in VGA mode, the number of colors is limited to 32 while on the original (Amiga) the colors are up to 64! The sprites move fast and smooth on the screen and they are beautifully animated. During level loading, the game shows some beautiful stills of the upcoming scenery. As the original Amiga game, the PC version features sampled sound effects and the robotic voice that warns you of your status but the absence of music during gameplay is on the negative side. The game offers a drum-loop during every boss fighting. One of the biggest assets of this game is its introductory music which is a techno-style track composed by the mighty Alister Brimble!