Thexder

The Good
Thexder was an absolutely awesome game when it was released in 1987. I would race home from school to jump on my Tandy and shoot a few aliens with my morphing mech. The whole goal of the game was to get through as many levels as possible until you met the mega-alien at the end.

The Bad
The graphics in the game looked absolutely awesome on the Tandy. Although it was only 16 colors, it somehow seemed to fit the game. However, when the game is run on today's computers, the high resolution of today's monitors force dithering and the graphics don't look quite as good as they once did.

The Bottom Line
Although the graphics aren't quite as pretty today, Thexder still stands the test of time. It's a fun game and still an absolute classic.

The Good
When I first loaded Thexder, I was blow away. I had never seen anything like it on a PC. Its EGA colors and fast, smooth action showed me that the PC could be a good machine for arcade games when properly programed.

The game also tested you mind, as many areas required you to solve puzzles to move on.

**The Bad**
I disliked the sequel.

**The Bottom Line**
One of the classic PC games that should be remembered.

The Good
Graphics: The game looked beautiful on the Tandy 1000 platform compared to other games of its time. Enemies were well-animated, and no slowdown whatsoever was ever apparent, even when the screen was filled with enemies (on an 8 MHz Tandy 1000 TX)

Music/Sound: The sound effects were very simplistic, but on par with anything of its time on the PC platform. The music, on the Tandy, although consisting of only two scores, was done exceptionally well.

The gameplay was very uniquely challanging, and the environments were varied (environment types changed every 3-4 sets of levels) - from caves to metallic futuristic-type looking levels. The environment changes kept the player looking forward to the next set of levels.

The Bad
No ending sequence - the game simply restarts at level 2. After all of that hard work, no reward!

The lack of the ability to use a second joystick buton for the shield activation - accidental double-clicking of the fire button would activate the shield when its use was not desired.

The Bottom Line
My favorite "old school" game of all time, Thexder is a two-dimensional side-scrolling game that places the player in control of a "Transformer"-like robot. The player must must battle his way through different levels, each of which are structured in a manner that allows each level to be completed slowly and strategically. A very difficult game, because it does not allow for saving games, but if you have time on your hands, it is a challenge worth exploring. Should be played on a Tandy 1000 series machine, if possible.