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Amiga has always been well-known for its high quality shoot'em ups, inspired by or often converted from the arcade machines. The German publisher APC&TCP tried to resurrect this once-famous genre with its title called Gunbee. Because I always liked shoot'em ups, I have written this review.
About a nice surprise
Way back in the past I had been working for a local Amiga magazine and suddenly the classic CD box appeared in our editorial office. Rear cover showed the classic game situation: a small space ship, seen from the top view, with bullets all around, waves of enemies and lots of power-ups on the screen. I opened the box and was very pleased, as I discovered, that there are two floppy disks instead of a CD (because I didn't have a CD drive at that time). I hurried home to see what is hiding in the floppies. The game is installable through standard Commodore-installer and needed approx. 1.6 MB on the HDD. So I started to play...
About the aim of the game
The game starts with an intro. The story so far is really poor - somebody kidnapped a wench again (this time her name is Akiko) and we have to rescue her. One little more important thing is that we fight for five crystals, too, which are able to destroy the world etc. The intro is very similar to the one in Turrican 3 (and the main hero's name is Akira McGuire, probably Bren's brother). Generally, the similarity to Turrican is more then suspicious, because Gunbee is - like Turrican - the fighting suit. Although the style of the game is different.
This is the main reason why to hurry to the battle
About the two modes
Before we start to play, we have to choose a mode. There are two - "Story", where the game is directed in the spirit of the intro, and "Honey", which is generally a training and has different rules.
About the conception
As soon as we appear in the game, it is immediately obvious what is going on. The whole game is in the traditional style, famous due to the titles like 1942, SWIV or Banshee. We can see the small rocket from the bird's eye view, with enormous arsenal vs. the huge number of enemies. Our Gunbee is, as usual, weak and slow but after the big mess of power-ups it becomes a great warrior. The game is controlled by joystick, partially by keyboard and for lucky 2-button joystick owners both buttons are supported. To upgrade our Gunbee there is an extra time at the beginning of each level, when enemies aren't attacking and which we can spend to get a little advantage. We can collect the upgrades from the small bells that fall from the clouds. Bonuses are variable like for example in Banshee - as we shoot them, they change to another power-up and we can collect the suitable one. In the story mode we can collect these bells to the flying basket and when we have 10 of them, we will get an extra life. There is also the flying forge, where the Gunbee can be equipped with rapid fire, bigger fire beam, stabiliser against the turbulence and magic crystals - the most important feature of the Story mode.
In the Honey mode there isn't forge or even flying basket or the extra life we get for 100000 points.
It is often very hot in the sky
About the enemies
The whole game is divided into 5 large levels that have various basic themes (Japan, Aztec empire etc.) and each has its own final boss. Various obstacles that make our journey difficult, are mostly abstract - sometimes there is something like and animal or an insect. They attack in typical waves or shoot from the ground. The game is quite difficult and bosses are really tough, sometimes the screen is so full that is impossible to avoid the enemy, but this is quite normal in these type of games. I really don't think that you are able to complete the game on the first try; it took me four days to battle through the first level, where the giant crab was awaiting me at the end. And he nuked me really terribly.
I had to ask the author how to beat this boss. Really!
About the design
Now we finally got to the most important aspect. I was really surprised that the whole game was made by one man alone, who comes from Peru. And I must commend him for it, because it is a good work. Gunbee is in manga style like (for example) Rodland. Graphics are very colourful and original, but quite infantile. Various bells, pussy-cats etc., incl. the Gunbee himself don't look very serious. But everything moves absolutely perfectly and smoothly (on author's recommended configuration), the backgrounds are varied and playability is high. There is also a lot of sounds (but childish just like the graphics), the soundtrack is average. There is also a game manual on the original floppy disk in the Amiga guide format, where you can read many interesting things about the game and its author.
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Graphics are hand-drawn with care, but very, very childish. The scrolling and all other moves are smooth.
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A lot of sounds effects and an average soundtrack, but again, infantile.
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Don't expect a miracle, but the game is good to play. A lot of weapons and power-ups make it fun.
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| I think anyone who likes classic shoot'em ups won't be disappointed with this game. Not the best of its genre, but still very playable. |
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