Demon Attack
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Imagic 1982
Atari 2600
Demon Attack is somewhat famous in classic circles for it's incredibly cheesy box artwork. I can only imagine what would have gone through the mind of a small child who happened a glance while at the toy store, what types of flying-rocket-spaceship-dinosaur battles would play out in the tyke's little head. Unfortunately myself I missed out on this experience, because in 1982 we had an Odyssey 2.
The game uses the same premise as Galaxian, i.e. stuff flies at you while you try to kill it, but with some variation. There are only three enemies onscreen at any given time, and they "warp" in from the sides (which is pretty impressive, for the 2600.) Your little cannon ship (which sadly does not look much like a flying silver dinosaur) can only fire one shot at a time. The demons hover around in a seemingly random pattern and get pretty tough to hit at times, however they always remain in a loose, three tiered formation. Of the three only the bottom one will fire at you. After the fifth wave when shot they break up into smaller demons, and after one of these are destroyed the other will try for a Kamikaze attack. After the 9th wave the bottom demon's shot will follow directly beneath it as it moves, which makes it harder to kill it. Every few waves or so the game gets more difficult until the 84th. In the initial run of cartridges the game ends after the 84th wave, but in subsequent runs the game goes on forever (but doesn't get any harder.)
The game isn't very difficult, even in later waves, anyone with decent motor skills should be able to pick it up easily. It does get faster and harder, but never really enters the twitch-gameplay arena. Also there isn't much else going on besides what's described. The demons change sprites every few rounds but that's it, no mother ships to blow up, or bosses, or bonus points, or anything.
The Good: Very clean graphics, good gameplay that anyone can enjoy.
The Bad: Repetitive, too easy.
The Ugly: No actual flying silver dinosaur spaceships in the game.