Commodore 64 (1989)

Commodore 64 (1989)

Commodore 64 (1989)

With its roots firmly planted into the R-Type archetype, Menace treads very familiar ground indeed.

Taking flight at the controls of a space ship that's moving ever towards an easterly direction, you're in charge of a vessel with an onboard gun that has an even slower reload time than the computer the game was placed into. Don't worry, that's just a general slight on all 8-bit tape-based computer systems. Thankfully, you can upgrade your ship's cannons by collecting containers that appear after you wipe out a complete wave of enemies.

Collecting the container provides you with a bonus score of 1000 points, and shooting the container before passing over it allows you to toggle through the various add-ons you can get for your ship, which includes increasing your maximum speed, replenishing your shields, and arming the ship with lasers, side guns and a force field amongst other things.

Your mission is based on a planet called "Draconia" (the original title for the game until they found out it was already taken), of which you blast your way through six levels of peculiar-looking and oddly-shaped species.

From the off, you'll recognise all of the similarities to bygone games that did this type of thing before, and better. Menace's graphics are a step up from the soulless "Chronos", but still pale in comparison to games such as Armalyte. Each level is dealt in a certain shade of monochrome to excite perhaps only the loneliest of colour chart collectors. The only taxing aspect of the graphics is a nice "Ming the Merciless" type effigy that attacks, er..., mercilessly, and some rotating cubes that cause a little slow-down on the gameplay.

Each level tends to repeat the same waves of enemies twice, and there's some strangely long breaks of absolutely nothing happening in-between each enemy wave. Right at the end of the level is the obligatory 'boss'; a generally alarming spectacle of a creature who'll use some sly and deft moves to run rings around you and give you the knuckle-sandwich of the century. Yeah... well... no he actually just sits there completely still, whilst shooting out some naff shots as you inflict some easy damage on the beast.

But let me not leave you with the idea that I dislike this game. I actually love it. Although it's wholly derivative, there's a happy-go-lucky, charmful quality about it, and much of this is due to the wonderfully joyful tune that plays throughout.

Side-scrolling shooters were still very much at their peak in 1989, which is quite remarkable when you think about the arcade hit Defender steamrolling its contemporaries way back in the beginning of that same decade. Menace might not be right there at the top of the list for me, but its heart is warm and cheery, and we need that kind of thing in the world. It's nice to see a game bring back that 80s feel-good vibe once more.