City Defence Review
The city is under attack, we need to protect our buildings that maintain hope for civilisation. This City Defence Review brings us into the scenario of a Space Invaders Clone – easier built up but with many more cool functions.
You steer your battle line with canons from three locations – the so cool feature in this game is that you can steer the last sent out shot to aim towards the targets.
Really cool but tricky and stressfull to get all approaching enemies into the target of our ammuntion. The graphics are ok and the playability is really nice as the steering with the keyboard has a nice flow and is very responsive.
The only setback is the choice of colours in some of the stages – they really look horrible – even though I reckon that it is nostalgic for the ones that grew up with the computer.
Finally, a game giving you the effect of Space Invaders but in a different flavour – this is a must play.
To which stage can you reach?
In the Magazines
AS sole defender of a group of cities you have to fight off deadly missiles using the almost inevitable laser bases.
You have four cities to defend and three bases from which you can fire. Sadly there are only 10 rockets available in each base. When your supply is exhausted the enemy continues to attack ruthlessly until your planet lies in ruin.
After you’ve seen off each wave of enemy missiles your supply of rockets is replenished. Provided you have managed to save at least one city from the preceding screen, away you go again. Extra cities are awarded for every 1,500 points, and other features include a two player option — very welcome when your friends play for hours — and a hi-score facility.
All in all I was impressed by City Defence. The instructions were concise yet clear and appear on screen as well as on the inlay card. The sound was good and did not become annoying, as often happens. Indeed the sound produced by an attacking wave of missiles was really quite tuneful, although it could not be turned off if it did become tedious. The use of graphics was fair, if not exactly startling.
Perhaps a hardened arcade fanatic might be a little disappointed at the absence of one or two features present on the original — for example there are no spaceships appearing from time to time. Having said that, to most people this game will provide a good deal of entertainment and is great fun to play. Steve Yarwood
By Steve Yarwood Electron User Issue 02 Vol 2 November 1984
On the Cover
Like always, a vivid cover with a lot of action taking place. This black graphical profile on these Bug-Byte titles are really giving the games presented a depth and witght.
THE GAME
You are under attack. Deadly missiles are approaching your ground bases, from above. Each missile is capable of totally destroying its target. Your duty is to defend your cities from the waves of missiles by firing rockets from your three bases and steering them towards their targets. You may have up to five rockets in the air at once, but beware — you can only direct the last one fired, and you only have a limited number of rockets available for each wave. Luckily, between waves of missiles you get a chance to reload! To stay in the game, you must preserve your cities.
GAME CONTROL
Five keys are used to control the game:
J — launch rocket from left base
K — launch rocket from centre base
L— launch rocket from right base
FUNC — steer last rocket fired to the left
Q — steer last rocket fired to the right.
A bonus city is awarded for every 1500 points scored. There is on-screen scoring for 1 or 2 players, and the program also keeps track of the high score.
Related content
Other BBC Micro / Acorn Electron Covers
City Defence Review Rating
This rating is based on the enjoyment the games gives more than the graphical presentation. One thing is for sure, and that is that Bug-Byte never fails us in a good game experience. This gets three bugs out of five – Bug-Byte saves our City with our help.
