As we flicked idly through the games on my Commodore 64 my daughter picked up on the Lightforce title and decidedid that it may be another Star Wars game. One way to find out, we loaded it from the SD2IEC device and ran it.
It wasn’t a Star Wars game which we had stumbled onto, but also it wasn’t a bad game, or at least I didn’t think so, my daughter however was gone when she saw just another vertical shoot em up of the kind dad is so fond of. I was immediately taken by Lightforce though, and happily blasting my way upwards ridding someplace of some peril for the good of some race of beings.
I was mostly happy that this game wasn’t just a hailstorm of bullets and ships flying at you. That’s not to say it’s easy, as all the enemy ships, missiles, or whatever else is thrown at you seems to home in on you quite accurately, often leaving you little room for maneuver. Also your ship is wider than the path you can clear by just shooting so you need to keep your wits about you when dodging left and right or taking out the bases which are your main target.
The graphics are nice and bold, colourful and large enough to see some nice 8 bit detail. Sound is suitably good but not brilliant for a Commodore game which could be so much more. The controls are just fine, and the ship responds tobthe four way movement of the joystick adequately to ensure you can’t blame it for any failure to advance.
Lightforce is a game I discovered quite by accident on the Commodore 64 but I am glad I found it as it’s a very playable shooter for the system.
Score 7/10
