Retrogaming: test of Mach 3 (Loriciels, 1987, Amstrad CPC)
Following the first articles I wrote about the CPC, I will be (re)testing some of my favorites CPC games. Let's start with Mach 3!
The Rules
Alright, so as it's my first test, let's define the rules and the structure.
If you've been following my past articles, one thing you have noticed is that I
tend to keep them short / easy to read - and I want those tests to be no
different.
With that in mind:
- I'll spend maximum one hour on the game - meaning I will probably not finish most of them :) (and this is fine).
- I'll briefly present the game: story, what the goal is, who created it.
- I won't be rating it, as it's very subjective, but will rather list what I liked and didn't like.
The Game
Cover
Here is the game's cover - pretty nice, isn't it?
Goal
So the goal of the game is super simple: you're the pilot of a plane and have to
fight against sorcerex Sfax.
How? By shooting any single enemy that you encounter, and using the portals to
go to the next stage.
Looks easy but you'll see that it's not in fact :)
Commands
It's a Point-of-View shoot'em up, so commands are easy:
- S: Up
- X: Down
- B: Left
- N: Right
- Space: Fire
Loading
Just run run "mach3 in Amstrad's BASIC and the game will load.
I still love the first image you see, and the music was really good on a CPC,
back in 1987 :)
Test
Start
Once the music ends, you'll jump straight into the game, with your shuttle
moving (you see it from behind) and already the first enemies showing up.
Hit fire (space) and move it to avoid being hit, otherwise you'll lose one life
(you have 6 lives, so not much).
There are other ways to lose a life: hitting a mine on the ground, or hitting
the portals (more on them later).
Basics
If you look at the screenshots above, you'll see that the top of the screen has 3 interesting sections: Fuel, Score and Fire.
- Fuel: how much fuel you still have. If empty, you'll lose a life.
- Score: goes up as you move and also when you kill enemies.
- Fire: how much ammunition - you can keep hitting Space, but at some point you'll have no more ammo, so will need to wait for this bar to fill up again.
And of course, at the bottom, you can see 6 icons representing your vessel/how many lifes you have.
Playing
You can move your vessel in all directions: up, down, left and right.
However, this is a 2D game, so that's all you can do - and believe me, that's
enough as the game is really hard!
You have to shoot all the enemies attacking you, but also avoid the meteorites falling from the sky, avoid the mines when flying near the ground... all of that with just 6 lives, which isn't much!
Going to the next level
You have two types of portals:
- the regular ones, which you need to pass several times during the same stage, like the ones below:
- the "end of stage" ones, a bit harder to reach, as they have a lot of mines in front of them:
Once you manage to pass through this "end of stage" portal, you'll fight against the boss, and if you succeed, you get a bonus and go to the next level:
If not, you'll get this nice "Game Over" message, which, to be honest, I got a lot while testing Mach 3 :)
Conclusion
What I liked:
- the music and loading graphics,
- the vessel is easy to pilot and commands are reactive,
- it's super easy to play Mach 3: 4 keys + space to fire, and off you go!
- initial difficulty is OK and you can quite easily go to stages 3 or 4.
What I didn't like:
- after stage 3, the game is really difficult, especially if you're playing the "stock version" of Mach 3 (i.e. without unlimited lives ^^),
- also, the game is quite repetitive, so you really have to either like it, or want to finish it to keep playing it.
TL;DR
Again, no rating, but just my personal advice: almost 35 years after its
release, I still find Mach 3 to be a nice game, especially if you take into
account the "competition" back in the 80's.
I really encourage you to give it a try if you haven't already - you can even
test it in your browser on
myabandonware.com!
Tags: Amstrad, Geek, Emulation, Retrogaming