Dave’s Place / Metamusing

If you disagree with that statement, you didn’t spend enough time playing arcade games in the 80’s and thus you speak from insufficient experience

Anyway I mention this because I’ve been playing with a pretty decent riff on the Missile Command theme this week, Strategic Oil Reserve.  (scroll down the page to find it). It does several interesting things compared to its spiritual ancestor - first, instead of cities awaiting destruction by a rain of missiles, you have oil tanks buried underground. The missiles eat away at the landscape if you let them slip through, slowly digging openings which will eventually expose your oil tanks. Second, instead of a set number of missiles per round, you have an unlimited number, but your missile silos slowly recharge, so if you fire too quickly or too often from a silo you’ll have to wait for it to recharge itself. Lastly, you have a limited ability to fill in the ground above your oil tanks to try and recover from the most dangerous of the damage done by the incoming missiles.

All in all it’s really well done, I was surprised at how well the gameplay additions worked. What it doesn’t seem to mimic though is the whole pattern of fire you needed to survive in the original missile command, which has made it difficult for me to adjust as the game gets more difficult.

Anyway, as usual if you liked arcade games in the 80’s, check this one out, it’s great fun. Free, windows only, and a tiny download.

[originally via indygamer.blogspot.com]