Hi there!

Time for the next horizontal scrolling shoot'em up:

As you all know this discipline is one of my favorite genres of 80's gaming. I can rave all night long about stellar experiences like Wizball, Katakis or Gradius, their graphics, their music, their total awesomeness.

While only a select few made a lasting impression, some were just king for a month - especially on the C64, where the technical limits got pushed further every other week.

Graphically IO immediately qualifies. It definitely looked better than every other shoot'em up available at the time. (Of course, Katakis was released just a month later )

The music is nothing special. The gameplay is pretty basic and the extra weaponry comparably meager. You can just twice upgrade the firing frequency and attach two orbs for extra firepower.

The major deal breaker is its shortness. Since the developers made it a single load, it only has 4 levels of play. Of course, they made the game ultra hard to compensate. I bet back in days without state saving, most players never even saw the 2nd level

These days it can be beaten rather quick though:

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another horizontal shoot'em up in the form of "Armalyte", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,

Manuel