Amiga

Rotor

The recent glut of Thrust type games on the Amiga has cheered me up no end. If there is one type of game I particularly enjoy, it is the "rotate left, go right and pick things up" variety. First I had Raider, then Dr Plummet’s House of Flux, and the latest offering is named after a type of knife (rotor-blade, geddit?). All these games feature a ship somewhere towards the middle of the screen, which spins and crashes und the laws of gravity into a landscape unless told otherwise.

rcana have been very quiet for the last year trying (and so far, failing) to get Mars Cops out. While we wait, here is one to fill the gap. Set in the future, when most young adults have the choice of either working in slave-like conditions in Antarctic mines or joining the Roto-raiders attack force, this one-player game has its roots in classics like Thrust and Oids. As a member of the Rotoraiders (well, a game about mining in the Antarctic would not excite too many people) you have to infiltrate four enemy fortresses, destroy any hostile installations and collect any useful gadgets thoughtlessly left lying around by the enemy.

In the future, the welfare state is a thing of the past, with unemployment running low and luxury lifestyles thin on the ground. Two social classes exist: the workers and the Roto-Raiders. The job of the Rotor-Raiders is to maintain an infiltration force behind enemy lines and make use of enemy resources. All of which is a pretty long-winded excuse for playing Thrust.