Review: Space Commanders II

[Flack]

Space Commanders II was released for the IBM PC back in 1985. In 1985 Commodore released the Amiga 1000. So even in 1985 terms, this monochrome Space Invaders clone wasn't that good. It's not the kind of game that people still play today. It's the kind of game that people with insomnia messing around with DosBox play for a few minutes. So here we are.

At a glance, Space Commanders II (SC2) looks an awful lot like Space Invaders. The layout of the game is nearly identical with shields at the bottom and a matrix of aliens (9x5=45) above. The only difference between Space Invaders and SC2 is that your ship starts out at the top of the screen and must be navigated around the block of aliens down to the bottom before you can begin shooting. This serves no game function at all and I presume it was simply included to make the game different enough from Space Invaders to avoid a lawsuit.

So, three notable things. The first is, the aliens shoot a lot. It's not uncommon for three or four missiles to be raining down on your specific location. And second, remember the bonus UFOs that used to occasionally fly across the top of the screen? That happens so often in SCII that it's almost constant. Literally, more often than not a UFO is traversing the top of the screen. The third difference is the speed of the aliens. It's always suspect when the speed is off on old games, but SCII goes from insanely slow to insanely fast in a hurry. By the time you're down to 4 aliens the group is almost impossible to hit, and when you get down to one remaining alien he moves so fast it's almost impossible to see. He moves so fast that it's almost impossible NOT to shoot him, as it's difficult to get a missile past him because he's moving so quickly.

There's also some goofy timing issue with the invader speed. After you die, some internal counter appears to reset the aliens' speed back to the original speed until you fire. I'd love to see the code that controls this part. I found that bug more interesting than the game itself.

I spent more time writing this review than I did playing the game. I vaguely remember playing this back in the day but I'm not sure if it was this or another Space Invaders clone. Not recommended from a game play point of view, but between the game and this review, I'm 30 minutes closer to time to wake up.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Tdarcos]

There was a video from the opposite side that I thought was really funny, where a couple of invaders next to each other were talking to each other like they're on the job, and when one of the others gets hit, he says, "They got Frank, I'm going in, if I don't make it, let his widow know."

Here's one where the guy says to the one next to him, "Half the guys we came with are dead."

[youtube][/youtube][/youtube]

[pinback]

Space Commanders II was released for the IBM PC back in 1985. In 1985 Commodore released the Amiga 1000. So even in 1985 terms, this monochrome Space Invaders clone wasn't that good. It's not the kind of game that people still play today. It's the kind of game that people with insomnia messing around with DosBox play for a few minutes. So here we are.

At a glance, Space Commanders II (SC2) looks an awful lot like Space Invaders. The layout of the game is nearly identical with shields at the bottom and a matrix of aliens (9x5=45) above. The only difference between Space Invaders and SC2 is that your ship starts out at the top of the screen and must be navigated around the block of aliens down to the bottom before you can begin shooting. This serves no game function at all and I presume it was simply included to make the game different enough from Space Invaders to avoid a lawsuit.

So, three notable things. The first is, the aliens shoot a lot. It's not uncommon for three or four missiles to be raining down on your specific location. And second, remember the bonus UFOs that used to occasionally fly across the top of the screen? That happens so often in SCII that it's almost constant. Literally, more often than not a UFO is traversing the top of the screen. The third difference is the speed of the aliens. It's always suspect when the speed is off on old games, but SCII goes from insanely slow to insanely fast in a hurry. By the time you're down to 4 aliens the group is almost impossible to hit, and when you get down to one remaining alien he moves so fast it's almost impossible to see. He moves so fast that it's almost impossible NOT to shoot him, as it's difficult to get a missile past him because he's moving so quickly.

There's also some goofy timing issue with the invader speed. After you die, some internal counter appears to reset the aliens' speed back to the original speed until you fire. I'd love to see the code that controls this part. I found that bug more interesting than the game itself.

I spent more time writing this review than I did playing the game. I vaguely remember playing this back in the day but I'm not sure if it was this or another Space Invaders clone. Not recommended from a game play point of view, but between the game and this review, I'm 30 minutes closer to time to wake up.

[youtube][/youtube]

Are you sure?

[Tdarcos]

Are you sure?

How about we tie in this new private joke with the last one. He's sure enough that he'd publicly eat a plate of shit in a Wal*Mart if he's wrong.

Of course that works because they stopped putting the * in the middle of the name two years ago, so there are no longer any Wal*Mart stores anywhere in America, only Walmart stores.

Somehow I think something died when we lost the asterisk in the name. Sort of like all those Invaders who died just so we could have fun shooting at them.