Commodore 64

Katakis

Every now and then, a game comes along without any hype or fuss and turns out to be something really impressive. Katakis (surprise, surprise) is one of those. It's not exactly original but what it lacks in imagination, it makes up for in technical polish. The graphics are large and colourful with plenty of alien sprites to inflict damage on you. The backgrounds are extremely impressive as well: every level looks completely different from the previous one. The 12 stages also have their own individual soundtracks which gives each of them a distinctive atmosphere. So now I've gone into the presentation, what about the game? Well, it's very good indeed! I soon got used to the craft's initially awkward control method and was quickly ripping the enemy to bits with a devious smile on my face (phwoar - violent, eh?). If you enjoyed playing R-Type in the arcades then play Katakis. It's grrreat, man!

Completely different to the Amiga version. It's a horizontally-scrolling shoot-em-up sure enough, but the aliens and their attack patterns are completely different. Still a great game though.

A really neat touch is the two-player feature, which allows one person to control the ship and another to guide the pod, Wizball-fashion. However, apart from this there's nothing particularly new on offer, and there's also a long and fairly awkward multiload to endure. This won't discourage ardent shoot 'em up fans - I certainly found the action very enjoyable - but those who are a little more apathetic towards the genre, and who may already have a few of these games in their collection, may feel a lot less enthusiastic about playing yet another horizontally scrolling game - even if it is a good one.

Wem die meisten Action-Spiele zu schwierig sind, sei vor Katakis gewarnt. Das Programm ist zwar nicht unspielbar schwer, aber immerhin tückisch genug, um ungeübten Joystick-Rüttlern schleunigst alle drei Leben zu entreißen. Die Kollisions-Abfrage ist manchmal ein wenig biestig. Ein paar Pixel mehr Spielraum hätten die ganze Angelegenheit leichter gemacht. Wer genug Geduld und Geschick aufbringt, bekommt hier aber eines der erfrischendsten C 64-Ballerspiele der letzten Zeit geboten. Wegen der üppigen Grafik muß jeder Level nachgeladen werden, was bei der C 64-Disketten-Version dank eines Super-Laders sehr schnell geht. Dafür bekommt man auch schöne Hintergrundgrafiken, abwechslungsreiche Musik und am Ende jedes Levels ein imposantes Super-Monster geboten. Schade nur, daß bei Katakis die Monster am Ende jedes Levels zwar toll aussehen, aber fast immer die gleichen Angriffs-Taktiken haben. An der richtigen Stelle stur stehen bleiben und wild ballern reicht meist aus.