| Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom Pop Software, 1993 | |||||||||||||||||
| User rating: No rating | DOS Shareware (partial game) | No screenshot yet | |||||||||||||||
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One of my favorite games. This is a strange variation on the shooter sub-genre that developed through Space Invaders to Galaxian to Galaga. Waves of weird-looking aliens arrive in formation and attack you. Your ship can move vertically as well as horizontally, which is a nice touch that was sadly missing in its predecessors. No more getting trapped by aliens that are sweeping left to right across the screen once they're too low to shoot. Various power-ups can be collected which make your ship a bit more powerful without feeling like gimmicks. Mini-games test your accuracy and contribute to an overall fun factor that's hard to find in games of any era. The graphics and sound are attractive and the gameplay is addictive. Originally published by Elven Software Company, the company changed their name to Pop Software by version 2. Version 3 includes a copy of DOSBox v0.63.
Pop Software still sells the registered version of this game with Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom for $24 by e-mail.
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| Round 42 Elven Software Company (Pop Software), 1986 | |||||||||||||||||
| User rating: 9 | DOS Shareware (full version) | No screenshot yet | |||||||||||||||
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Round 42 is the predecessor to Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom. It was written by Mike Pooler and published by Elven Software Company before it became Pop Software. The game is basically an advanced version of Space Invaders, with waves of aliens descending from the top of the screen, increasing in speed as their numbers decrease, and destroying you when they reach the bottom. There are no shields, and you have a limited number of "phazor" shots that never miss to help you hit those last few aliens of the round. Far from being repetitive, each of the 42 waves of aliens has a different appearance and behavior. The first wave is clearly made up of space bats, so it's interesting to see how this concept evolved into one of the most popular and bizarre shooters of all time. Round 42 Shareware (27k) I have found no ordering information for this game, and it is not listed on Pop Software's website.
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