Reviewer: Bruce Consolazio

10/19/2006 03:19pm

Well, here it is- Spectar.

Long anticipated, but, like Tunnels and Trolls, never delivered, at last Scott Huggins has made a version available for the ColecoVision. The last time I played the arcade version was in a pub...in England...in 1982. Long before the technocrats infested the place with those damned cameras.

So, how is it?

As far as the graphics go, absolutely splendid. The explosions are especially satisfying. This game uses a different background color than the arcade version, but this is because visibility would have been awful otherwise. A black background was the only way to do this on a regular television screen; clearly, Mr. Huggins knows about this.

Sound is also excellent. The simple but effective sounds from the arcade version have been reproduced faithfully (as far as I can remember!), and that's all that's needed. Of course, the theme is here, too.

And the little sequence of your Wummel on a mostly blank screen is here, too!

Gameplay is good, largely because of the excellent control, but it does have one flaw: there is a way to beat it.

The problem is the Spectar Smuggler. These enemies appear along with the regular Ramcars, and they can shoot. They appear one at a time. The problem is, if you eliminate all of the Ramcars but do not gather all of the energy stars, it is not difficult to "hunt" for the Smugglers, usually by waiting for them, in order to ambush them. With this method, I was able to rack up over 20ꯠ points on the first screen before finishing up.

Also, the upper level of difficulty should be higher (enemies move faster). This is a home game; unlike arcade games, which you may have a chance of playing a few dozen times, here you can play it many hundreds of times.

Perhaps the point system could be altered to allow you to only score for the first 6 or so Smugglers/screen. This would make extended hunting for them pointless (get it, "pointless," oh, well...), forcing you to move on to the next screen, unless you are one of those people who extends a game of Galaxian by dodging the final alien over and over...

But the level of programming skill displayed by this game is nothing short of amazing. This game is at least as good, and no doubt better, than what we could've expected from Coleco in 1983. CV owners have yet another homebrewer to watch for.

As for Spectar? A superb effort. The ColecoVision lives again!

Reviewer: Joseph Kollar

08/31/2006 04:03pm

This is an excellent port of the arcade classic. Player control is very well done and the overall pesentation is good too. It's the little touches that make this one a must have for the CV owner. The graphics are good but the sound is even better. The difficulty is just right, not too hard, not too easy but it's one of those games that you get quietly addicted to. You'll find yourself starting a new game immediately after you end one and before you know it, 2 hours have passed. Once again, Scott Huggins has done a great job of bringing the coin-op home on the CV.

Reviewer: Lowell Duncan

03/17/2006 03:33pm

I have never had a chance to play the arcade version of this game, so this was the first chance to give this game a try. The game play can be very quick and at times it makes you wonder if you are playing the game OR is the game playing you, which to me makes it one of those games that is hard to put down. Player control is good, as well as the sound and game play. Everything must have a bad point and that would be that it took so long to be released! I would recommend this game to any Colecovision gamer.