Alien Blitz

The Good
I wasn’t even born when Taito’s classic game Space Invaders hit the arcades back in 1978. If you were around then and found yourself going to the arcades, you probably inserted a quarter or two in the machine. This game involved you shooting down aliens while dodging their fire at the same time. It received official home ports in the early Eighties, but they were mainly aimed at machines made by Atari such as the 2600 and its 8-bit computers.

Other home computers had to wait later for clones to appear on their systems, and one such title was Alien Blitz for the Commodore VIC-20. What is unique about the game is the ability to select a difficulty level before you play. If you find the game too easy, you can raise the difficulty up a notch.

This game is a perfect clone. The invaders look as good as their parent. There is the same number of invaders, divided into four rows; and apart from the top row, the aliens have the same appearance every two rows. The score and the number of ships stand out at the bottom of the screen. The sound effects give the game a more futuristic feel to them. I like the sound that is played when the UFO passes by; it reminds me of one of the effects in Bubbles.

Something that I find quite amusing about the game is the way the difficulty level can be set to its maximum, making it impossible for you to complete a single wave without losing all your lives within five seconds.

The Bad
All the game is missing is a score advance table you normally see at the start.

The Bottom Line
Alien Blitz is an excellent clone of that popular shoot ‘em up. It has the same sprites and similar sound effects. Ideal for those VIC-20 users who want to save money by avoiding inserting a quarter in the machine.