HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Datastorm'' is a horizontally
scrolling shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character m ...
for the
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
published by Visionary Design in 1989. Written by Søren Grønbech, it was inspired by the '' Defender'' arcade video game and the ''Defender''-like '' Dropzone'' originally released for
Atari 8-bit computers The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...
.


Gameplay

''Datastorm'' allows for a single player to play or two players to play simultaneously or one after the other. The game takes place on planets in a side scrolling format that wraps around with the player flying above in a spacecraft. The player must protect and rescue the eight survival pods that roll around on the surface of the planet and take them to a warp gate. An onslaught of enemies attempt to attack the spaceship so constantly destroying them and their missiles is necessary. There is also a special type of enemy called an alien lander that captures the pods and whisks them away to the top of the level. In addition to standard enemies, there are also mother ships, which act as bosses within the game. These mother ships come in the form of a fleet of fast luminous ships, a large squid or a large skull. A radar scanner, which is essentially a mini-map, is presented along the bottom of the screen and gives a complete view of the entire planet to help keep track of what is happening. The game also features an autosave, a highscore table, on-screen instructions and a level select. In terms of weaponry, the ship has lasers, smart bombs and cloaking technology that makes it briefly invincible. The points increase for each level; on levels 5, 9, 13, etc, the player gets a new set of eight pods and the scoring resets.


Plot

The game takes place after the planet Xerxes exploded, causing its eight orbiting colonies to drift into deep space. The inhabitants of these colonies must locate a new home planet, so they each send a survival pod out into space to achieve this mission.


Release

The game was announced in May 1989.


Reception

Julian Rignall, writing for ''
Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...
'' in 1989, called ''Datastorm'' "the best shoot 'em up yet seen out of a coin-op cabinet." The overall review score was 95%.


References


External links

* 1989 video games Amiga games Amiga-only games Horizontally scrolling shooters Video games developed in Denmark Multiplayer and single-player video games Visionary Design Technologies games {{scroll-shooter-videogame-stub