Kaktus

The Good
Kaktus is a refreshing change from the many clones of various arcade shooters, such as Space Invaders and Scramble. It is an addictive shooter by Brian Cotton, who also programmed the VIC-20 and Plus/4 versions.

The player controls a missile base that must go above ground through two holes in the soil and shoot insects that threaten to destroy the base of a cactus. They defend themselves by releasing droppings. Although these are lethal, they can actually be used to your advantage if a mole comes along and seals the holes. If you are too slow to act, you will be trapped above ground and have to wait until the droppings deteriorate the soil until a hole large enough to get through is created. Coming into contact with any of these critters or allowing the cactus to fall over will result in a loss of one of your lives, and the game ends when all of them are lost.

From level two onwards, things get much harder, with buzzards flying past and releasing “super-droppings”. These are the same as the droppings the hornets eventually release, but they are capable of ricocheting off the soil. If you happen to be in their way, this will also result in a loss of life. Moles also appear more frequently than usual. I found myself going under ground every five seconds to deal with them.

Graphically speaking, sprites are not just random characters stuck together. I just found two of them questionable. One is the missile base, which looks like more of an octopus than the base in Space Invaders. The other is the cactus itself, which opens up like a flower if the base has been destroyed instead of falling down. There is only one piece of music, and that is the nice classical piece on the title screen. The sound effects are not bad, with telephone rings (?) that serve as missile fire, and a low hum that plays when a mole appears.

The Bad
I can’t think of anything; Cotton has made sure that there are not any programming errors.

The Bottom Line
Kaktus is an original game that ought to have made its debut in the arcades. Rather than shooting aliens, you are killing insects that destroy the base of a cactus. You also have to deal with other creatures that prevent you from achieving your goal. The game is addictive and frenetic, and anyone fed up with clones of arcade games should give this game a go.