Title: Martian War
Genre: Arcade
Author(s): Fausto Pracek
Medium: ROM 16KB
Hardware requirements: MSX2
Italy is, among a lot of other good things, known for its elegant and delicious kitchen, good cars, but also for MSX2 games. Or at least with MSXdev, since the most recent entries all came from Italy. This includes this latest addition to the ever-growing MSXdev games library. A game concept reminiscent of Space Invaders or Galaxian, you’ll have to get rid of aliens by shooting them out of the sky before they do any damage.
Presented to you in true MSX blue and white, this game is cast in MSX2 screen 0, mode 80, which is an uncommon screen mode to present games in. But Italian developer Fausto doesn’t do common games, and wrote one in that same mode anyway. If perhaps he used mode 40, this would easily run on a standard MSX1 computer as well. Luckily, the MSXdev23 is freestyle so Martian War gets registered and published for you to enjoy.
The game itself is a known concept, take your gun and shoot aliens out of the sky while protecting your base. In this case, your base consists of giant humanoids protected by a micro ship – as we are far into the future here, ofcourse. Incoming space aliens drop bombs in order to wipe out the human race and take over its pale blue dot. Your mission is as simple as preventing that from happening.
Although the presentation screen lists number keys as control keys, luckily the good old cursor and space bar work just as well to maneuver your gun. Move, shoot, dodge, prevail, and go to next level. There’s no music or sound effects in this game, so you don’t have to fiddle with the volume knob in case you thought it was muted.
Did you enjoy this MSXdev game? Well, why not consider donating to the prize money or sponsor the winner’s-loot-box by submitting a physical reward? 100% of the donations will go to the developers.
