Review - Gyruss

Gyruss is one of those games I never got around to playing at the arcade. Oh, I had seen it, all right, but either someone else was playing it, or I had blown all my quarters on the Tempest machines.

Interestingly, the thing that originally drew my attention to Gyruss is the fact that it is somewhat similar to Tempest in gameplay. In Tempest, your "shooter" is perched on the rim of a tunnel-like structure, shooting down at the things climbing up toward it. At the end of each round, your shooter flies down the tunnel at high speed, onto the next level.

In Gyruss, you're controlling a spaceship which is flying from Neptune to Earth. The ship can move in a circular pattern on the screen and fires toward the center of the screen. This aspect of the program is primarily what reminds me of Tempest.

The opposition

Flying from Neptune to Earth in Gyruss is no picnic. The intervening space is crowded with several types of enemy spacecraft. You must destroy as many as possible in order to reach Earth safety.

The first type of spacecraft is the enemy plane. These are high speed attack vehicles which fly in several different formations. They may appear from far out in front of you or they can launch a surprise attack and come screaming past you from behind. These ships can shoot missiles at you, but they don't stop there. If they get half a chance, they'll fly themselves into you!

There are also "molecular satellites," so named because they look like giant molecules. These appear in threes, fly in formation and shoot missiles at you. If you can destroy the middle satellite, you fire double bullets.

The third type of spacecraft is the electromagnetic wave satellite. These come in pairs, shooting a deadly wave of energy between them. As if these enemy spacecraft weren't enough danger, there are also meteors coming from out of the distance, which you must avoid, too.

A breather

Each time you destroy a wave of enemy spacecraft, your vessel "warps" through space, getting closer and closer to Earth. On your way there, you pass the outer planets: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. Each time you reach a planet, you play a "chance stage."

In these stages, you get a chance to destroy enemy ships for bonus points -- without them shooting back! You can rack up over 10,000 points during the chance stage, so shooting skill is a definite plus here.

You are awarded a bonus ship at 60,000 points, and every 100,000 points after that. Apparently, there is no limit to the number of ships you can accumulate.

The final judgment

If you like Atari's arcade hit, Tempest, I think you'll enjoy Gyruss. I'm not afraid to admit that I like shoot'em-ups, and this one's a lot of fun and very challenging.

Gyruss

Lately, Gyruss has become a lunchtime staple in the ANALOG programming office. Kyle Peacock, Charles Bachand and I have been competing for high scores (Charlie even bought a rapid-fire joystick adapter to give him a speed-shooting edge). So far, we've all reached Mars, but nobody has made it to Earth. The action really speeds up after Mars, and we've all been wiped out by kamikaze aliens!

We've been playing Gyruss so much that I think the rest of the ANALOG staff is going to go crazy listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the music played during the game. Well, they'd better get used to it. I have the feeling they're going to be hearing it for some time to come.