Galactic Blitz For The VIC-20

Tony Roberts, Assistant Managing Editor

You're sitting alone in your spaceship when, suddenly, swarms of aliens, daring you to shoot them down, appear in the darkened sky. The aliens swirl, dart, and loop-the-loop before streaming off out of sight. Seconds later they return to taunt you again.

The game is Galactic Blitz, produced by Tronix for the unexpanded VIC-20. The instructions are simple: shoot down the aliens, pile up the points.

Galactic Blitz, programmed by Jimmy Huey, is a smooth, fast machine language game that looks deceptively easy. But it turns out to be devilishly frustrating and mildly addicting. Throw in the eerie whine of the aliens and the game takes on a hypnotic quality.

With a joystick, you move your ship back and forth along the bottom of the screen. You fire in only one direction — straight up.

The aliens, which attack in groups of 15, could easily find work in the National Football League. They run patterns more precisely than any wide receiver. They swirl, climb, and dive one after the other until all 15 have either been shot down or have completed their pattern.

But even as the colorful alien squadron dazzles you with its precision flying, its members are on the attack. They drop a barrage of bombs that keep your ship on the move.

Be Prepared To Dodge

The 15 patterns the aliens employ are easy enough to learn, but discovering the best defense against each is more difficult.

If you find yourself cowering in the corners to avoid the bombs raining down at center screen, you may lull yourself into thinking you've found the answer. Check the score counter, and you'll find many of the aliens are blinking off the screen before your hits are recorded.

As the game progresses, the aliens move lower and lower, giving you less time to react to their bombs. In one pattern the crafty attackers fly off the bottom of the screen, then reappear right where you're likely to have positioned your ship. Just when you thought you were in control, you've lost another vessel.

Galactic Blitz is easy to play, but not easy to beat. And you'll find yourself trying to win again and again.

Galactic Blitz
Tronix Publishing, Inc.
701 West Manchester
Inglewood, CA 90301
$24.95