Air Fortress (HAL Laboratory 1989)

When the peaceful people of the planet Farmel started exploring the galaxy they were understandable a bit upset when they found eight planet destroying fortresses in the Yubbart Galaxy. Even worse these living fortresses were heading right for them and seem to have the intention of using their planet for fuel. After a direct assault fails they decide to send in their hero, Hal Bailman to infiltrate the eight fortresses and destroy their central reactors.

Air Fortress is actually two game styles in one game. First you have to make your way through the air base on your space ship blasting everything in sight and picking up bomb and energy tokens. Take one hit and you die and although you continue where you left off, if you die three times it is game over. Once you reach the airlock Hal hops off and enter on foot. The interiors of the fortresses are like mazes that you have to traverse in your search for the reactor. Once this is blown up you only have a small amount of time to locate the exit before moving on to the next fortress.

The graphics in the game is nothing special but overall it's not too shabby. The spaceship design is a bit dodgy though. The side scrolling shooter graphics is pretty average and nothing really special happens outside. Once inside things look marginally better with lots of weird enemies and strange traps. You can fly around inside the structures but every movement you make detracts from your energy. This replenishes once you stand still but if you are hit it will go down permanently. This makes it vital that you gather as much energy as possible outside. Your bombs are also limited and are needed to destroy the reactors. Without it you'll have a tough time destroying the fortress.

The sound in the game is average with nothing exceptional or annoying happening and the sound effects is likewise pretty tame. Controls are pretty responsive and the way gravity affects your actions inside the fortresses is novel. This means if you fire a shot your momentum will propel you backwards and lots of traps are designed with this in mind. You get a password when you die that will restart you at the beginning of the fortress you've died in and overall the game isn't all that hard.

My only fault with the game is that I really hate these types of maze games and as such the game wasn't all that fun to me. There is nothing wrong the game though and it has a few good ideas so if you don't mind getting lost and having to map out sectors then by all means go for it. The game has surprising depth for such a simple looking game and it looks like it can provide quite a challenge later on. If you're anything like me however the confusing maze layouts will have your more bored and confused than entertained and you might want to stick with something else. Not a bad game just not my type of adventure.

[6]