Review: Cosmic Payback

Cosmic Payback

The Yandex games competition usually comes up with at least one 'WHOA!' epic title, and with Cosmic Payback, this year is no different. True to homebrew game tradition, John has made his game, then clearly scribbled down any barmy old cack afterwards and called it a backstory. The game is set on Earth in 2562, after centuries of war (oh goddd...), the unthinkable happens, and an armada steals virtually all our gold, leading to a recession of unparalleled proportions (oh godd...). Your task is to pilot an exploration pod, and navigate the enemy planet "by bouncing upon it".

The game takes place in a monochrome, pseudo 3D vector landscape. You must navigate the thin paths set in an ocean of lethal pitch-black tar. Large areas are scrolling in all directions. There's clearly some technical brilliance going on here. I'm not even sure what it's doing, let alone how, but I know that it's making the speccy do something difficult, and do it smoothly and quickly. During the game you will encounter crumble platforms, moving squares, teleporters, enhanced jumps, and switches. Some of the platforms move in a given pattern, and it's quite a challenge to get your head around learning the dance of the tiles. The game is not easy, and John has been very humane in providing a casual mode (infy lives) and arcade mode (lives & scoring). It may be a riff on the classic formula of 'collect the things and go to the exit', but by crikey it's a fresh riff.

The 128K version has three AY tracks, but two of them really don't work - they are too upbeat and would be better suited to a cutesy puzzle game. The 48K version is perfect, you get Bach's Badinerie as the intro music, and all you need in-game is eerie silence, punctuated only by the soft padding of the bouncing pod. I'm definitely nitpicking now, as this is one of the best games of the year, but the title sells the game short. I'd prefer something a bit more mystical and spacey - a good trick is to take a product from the bathroom cabinet and add some of the rarer letters of the alphabet. Xanusol? Another classic release from PROSM software. If this was 1984, John would have a sports car and a drug problem by now.