Overload

STORY / GAMEPLAY
In this side-scrolling game, you fly to the left and to the right shooting aliens whilst collecting 'fuzzies' and delivering them back to your rocket! There are also some power-ups and extra energy pods to collect. The game is divided into four different worlds and an end boss and each world is split into five stages. At the bottom of the screen there's a wide radar that shows an overview of things happening just off screen, but it doesn't show the entire level. You have four bars to keep an eye on, representing your weapons, your thrusts, your radar power and your oxygen level. These can deplete and you'll lose the ability to move quickly, use the radar or to fire rapidly. When all four bars go down to zero, you'll lose a life! Each bar can be replenished by collecting various colored balls that are sometimes released when enemies are killed. The game is based on a strange system where every bad move you make can affect its difficulty level! This surely adds a lot to the gameplay tension but is arguably unfair. Despite this complex system, the game isn't confusing to play -you can ignore the details with impunity. This is indicative of the nicely polished gameplay, which is also pleasingly smooth with a good sense of pace. Note that the graphics and attack patterns change from world to world!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics of this odd game are simple but highly polished with many visual effects such as 3D text explosions that add to the manic arcade atmosphere. The multi-parallax scrolling runs flawlessly in 256 colors even on the ARM 2 machines. The sound effects are also good and the music is exceptional, especially the superb soundtrack you are greeted with when loading the game. It's also worth commenting that the tiny little case the game comes in (one floppy disk) is also very nicely designed, so it makes a great first impression.