3D Galax

First game up (in terms of alphanumeric order, at least) is the 3D space shooter, 3D Galax. It wasn't a game I played a great deal, to me it felt like the concept was cooler than the game itself. It was basically Space Invaders, but 3D - well, given the name, I suppose it must have been more based on Galaxian than Space Invaders.  That said, it was one of the first games I remember seeing that used filled polygon graphics, which was nice in itself - I'm pretty sure the first time I saw that wave of ships heading towards me, I was pretty impressed.

Credits: Paul Blythe (programming), Steven Kerry (graphics), Ben Daglish (music), Colin Dooley/Fungus (“bitz”); published by Gremlin Graphics.

I remember the game being fun for a short time, but it didn't really capture my attention for long. It felt a little sluggish, especially compared to the early 2D shooters it was based on. Part of the problem may stem from the fact that the alien ships didn't actually fire at you - just collided with you and caused damage that way. There was a bonus level with asteroids to be avoided - I don't remember this very well, it's quite possible that I wasn't good enough at the game to encounter it very often! Browsing magazine review scores from the time reveals that my opinion is not too uncommon - nice idea, but a little lacklustre to actually play.

On a side-note: the effect when you get hit is... interesting.

Doing a little research on the game reveals some interesting details: apparently, programmer Paul Blythe described it as a test bed for 3D routines he later used in Federation of Free Traders. It seems from what I can tell to be among the earliest ST games featuring filled polygons, although I can't categorically state it was the first. It was released in 1987, a year before some of the big hitters like Starglider 2, Virus and Carrier Command. Driller, using the Freescape system, was also released on the ST in 1988; it's hard to say which of the games may have been "first" in terms of actual development, of course.

I just loaded it into STEEM and... well, between having to remap the controls to the keyboard because it wasn't accepting my game controller very well and fiddling around with Alt-Enter to get screenshots, the circumstances were not ideal. Even given this, the game seemed really slow and the controls sluggish. It just isn't really much fun to play. Again, it's a cool idea... but while technically impressive for the time, the gameplay itself was lacking.

The theme tune by Ben Daglish was very memorable and I've seen (well, heard... you know what I mean) quite a number of remixes of it on YouTube. Below are both the original ST audio I recorded with STEEM, and a remix that I really like. The ST's much-berated sound chip does a very decent job with this tune - I think the Yamaha chip tends to do well with really clear, higher-pitched sounds, almost the complete opposite of the beloved SID's rather "muddy" sound (if you don't know what I mean... well don't ask me, I don't entirely know what I mean either.)

I decided against adding a gameplay video because... well, it's fairly boring to watch, and I'm fairly terrible at it - so believe me, you're not missing anything!

There we go - the first game in the Summer Pack done! Only 21 more games to go...