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The
follow up to Blue Max must be one of the most
disappointing sequels of all time. Blue Max,
for the few who haven't seen it, puts you in control
of a WW I biplane with a mission to destroy enemy bridges,
factories and airfields.
You
start on an airfield and have to take off and fly over
the diagonally scrolling landscape. Although it's a
bit like Zaxxon, Blue Max appeared long
before the aforementioned made its way to the 64. The
graphics on Blue Max aren't too bad and as a
game it's highly enjoyable.
Its
follow up, Blue Max 2001, looks very similar
from the word go. This time, though, you have a flying
saucer (that resembles a jelly mould) under your control.
You start on an airfield, or should I say saucerfield,
and have to fly over a barren landscape bombing buildings,
bridges and factories. Now where have I heard that before?
The landscape still scrolls diagonally, but instead
of scrolling from the right like in Blue Max,
it now scrolls from the left making it quite difficult
to play. There are other saucers trundling about the
screen which you're supposed to shoot, but there's not
much point in doing so as they offer little threat.
Control
is very fiddly indeed and it took me quite a while to
get going: joystick diagonals play an important part
in the control and this always makes precision extremely
difficult. The graphics are very poor, the craters on
the landscape look ridiculously flat as if they are
stuck on! The buildings and other constructions are
poorly defined with the perspective all wonky. The sound
is bad too, a feeble title screen tune and pathetic
whistles and booms during the game.
It's
a shame Synapse couldn't have made this a lot better,
there was great potential for a follow up to Blue
Max and they've totally muffed it. Highly disappointing
and a game that won't even convince the Blue Max
fanatics.
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