Deep in an area of uncharted space lies a strange alien region know only as 'Delta'. Serveral ships belonging to the Terran Merchant Fleet have gone missing while flying through this mysterious area, and it has been rumoured that the Hsiffan Khanate, dreaded opponents of Terra are operating from within its confines.
The powers that be have decided to send a fighter pilot to investigate, and bored with your current position, you decide to volunteer.
Dropped off within range of Delta, your objective is to progress as far as possible through the region and erradicate the Hsiffan menance.
Following and initial onslaught of alien ships the individually named sections of the region are encounted. These include particular hazards, which appear at the top and bottom of the screen and correspond to the area's name - for example, in the 'Rocks of Death' section, suitably desolate rock formations scroll past, in all cases contact with the landscape destroys you ship.
Learning and memorising the alien formations is necessary to ensure progress, and complete destruction of attack waves earns credits. These are used to accumulate additional equipment, increasing the ship's firepower and speed and shields.
Seven icons periodically make their way across the screen, some grey, some blue - depending on how many credits you have amassed. Colliding with a blue icon adds the item in question to your ship and the icon reverts to a grey colour - hitting a grey icon results in the loss of a life. The added equipment has a limited useful life, so further additions arenecessary as you progress.
Battle your way through thirty two levels, and Delta is once more safe from the alien threat. But the Hsiffans don't give up that easy and return a decade later, Once again it's up to you, now an older and more experienced pilot to deal with the alien attack force.
You're not the only one to have gained experience though - the enemy have also had time to improve their fighting skills and are now a more formidable opponent.
This is what Julien Rignall had to say about Delta.
"Delta us a very impressive. The graphics are super, the effects are stunning and the music is nothing short of amazing. Delta's most imoressive feature though is the snormous amount of objects whizzing around the screen... bullets, rocks, enemy craft and swirling aliens- the action gets incredibly busy, and you really need the extra weaponry to survive.
The thirty two levles are varied, and there are some really neat ideas to suprise and thwart the player. If you're into shoot 'em ups, take a look at this - you can't get much better within the horizontally scolling format.
ZZapp 64 score 74%
|
|
