Pioneer Plague (Amiga)

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Description

The Starion Cluster is under threat from the Pioneer Plague, which is spreading to every planet and destroying its lifeforms, having over-riden its original programming to merely transform uninhabitible planets into lush verdant lands for human colonization. The only solution is to fly to each of these planets and shoot out the pods from which the Plague hatches.

The gameplay essentially has 3 different sections. The main shooting action involves taking out as many of the pods as possible, while avoiding being shot by the Plague's self-generating protection robots. The more pods you destroy on each level, the easier the next levels will be.

Before each level you must fly to it through a mouse-controlled 3D section - completing the task quickly will again make your task easier. One unique feature is the ability to program the attack paths that your ship's two probes will follow when deployed - this is done by moving the joystick in the appropriate set of directions, producing five options which can be activated in-game.

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Critic Reviews

Zzap!	Feb, 1989	86 out of 100	86
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Dec, 1988	10.2 out of 12	85
The Games Machine (UK)	Feb, 1989	79 out of 100	79
ST/Amiga Format	Jan, 1989	78 out of 100	78
Power Play	Dec, 1988	58 out of 100	58
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Feb, 1989	39 out of 100	39

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Trivia

HAM Mode

The game is famous for being one of the few using the Amiga's Hold-And-Modify (HAM) display mode which allows for showing all 4096 colors at the same time (with limitations) even with the original chipset, resulting in very colorful imagery. This is evident in the big sphere-shaped mothership.

Since the HAM mode operates using special color codes that take the previous pixel and modify it, the resulting images often look a little bit noisy since only one color channel (red, green, or blue) can be modified at the same time. The static images like the main screen show lots of traces of that, like off-colors near edges of objects.