Hi there!

Let's have a look at Starray, aka yet another Defender clone:

Hehe, this one was actually so blatantly Defenderish, that when Epyx imported it to America they got an official Defender license for it, renaming it "Revenge of Defender"

The C64 version is neither really loved by critics, nor by gamers. Still, I rarely miss a chance to play a 16=>8 Bit conversion, plus I am a Defender fan. VCS Stargate just rules!

You can see Starrays major flaw on the screenshot already: Highly detailed backgrounds and Defender just don't mix. The screen is usually way to busy, giving you a hard time to see everything. Some of the levels are a bit easier on the eyes and it get's slightly better in motion, but still hurts the gameplay, which is otherwize solid.

It doesn't enhance the Defender formula much, but at least there's 2-3 new ideas for enemies. The scrolling and the collision detection are a bit rough, but it's playable.

Getting there took ~ 2 hours using savestates:

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another Defender clone in the form of "Insects in Space", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,

Manuel