Missing pieces

Remember all those good old shoot 'em ups?
They might still be fun, but old ones start to look old, even if they're still fun to play. So there's need for something to that you can show to your neighbours.

AstroMenace is able to prove that it's possible to make old fashioned shoot 'em up and use all the latest technology to make it look good. And it's not all good looks, gameplay is quite right too.

Game doesn't go straight in the action. There's shop like in Tyrian. There's number of different ships with differen't kind of armor and weapon slot combinations. Too bad finding right kind of ship can be bit tedious, so maybe even some kind of search would be nice.

It's also possible to improve various parts of the of the ship, for example generator, shields or targetting system. Without good generator, it's not possible to use some of the more powerful weapons with their fullest potential. Targetting system makes possible to target more than one enemy at once. Choosing right kind of shield at the beginning can be hard. Ship comes preinstalled with self repair system and it's possible to save from repair costs. But later on it's almost impossible to survive without proper shield, damage just comes much faster than it can be repaired.

In addition if arcade mode seems to be too easy, different kinds of engines come into play. I have played only arcade mode so far, so I don't know much about the differences.

Most important part is of course weaponry. Choosing right combination takes some planning as it's not possible to have all weapon slots filled with highest level weapons. Different ships have different combinations of weapon slots. Later on level 5 slot is must have, as it's so fun to clear whole screen with BabyDoll. But before that choice is between automatically targetted missiles and different kinds or beams and projectiles. Some of the beams can be quite effective, even despite of their short range, so laser and masers are worth trying out.

Actual gameplay has all that can be expected from game like this. Main difference is that it's possible to use mouse. Mouse wasn't popular in shoot 'em ups in the 80s, but works quite well. There's usually way out, no matter how small. And with mouse it's possible to even take advantage of that.

Enemies come in great numbers and at the beginning more durable ones are bit rare, until last few missions where smaller enemies can't really do much harm, but big ships come faster than it's possible to destroy them.

There's also plot, though it's all in mission titles. But who needs plot in games like these anyway?

AstroMenace is available for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. As far as I know, Windows version is not free as far as I know, though I might be wrong. At least games source code is available under GPL 3. But even if it's free, it's always possible to donate some money to the project. There's not too many games that really show that Linux is not inferior system to play games on, if people are willing to make games for it.