Hi there!

One of the last games from Activisions short lived Electric Dreams label:

I think Citadel was their last C64 game, with most of their releases usually being total garbage. Also, this was the third game from Martin Walker, who's previous two efforts "Chameleon" and "Hunters Moon" I didn't like much either.

Naturally I didn't expect much from Citadel, but what I've been reading about it sounded interesting enough and reminded me a bit of Paradroid. Even the story is a bit similar: You're exploring 8 abandoned cities of an alien race. While the inhabitants left them long ago, their defense cannons and droids are still intact.

So you enter the city with a droid that can capture and control those droids, as long as it has enough energy. The main difference to Paradroid is that you're controlling 2 or more droids at once after they're captured.

Another difference is that the droids are only moving horizontally or vertically, fixed on the grid. If you're moving very slowly from one square to another, it almost transforms into a turn based strategy game. If you're moving faster it becomes more of an action game, albeit it requires way too much strategy to be played as pure shoot'em up. It's kinda cool, as the decision how to play it is up to the player.

The game is very polished and playable, with good recognizable tile and sprite graphics from Robin Levy, who pixelated Armalyte before. The music is just as boring as everything else Martin Walker did on the SID

BTW: The game is not that hard to complete, as the 8 cities each are rather small. All you'll get to see is another lousy "Mission Complete" message though.

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see Electric Dreams final game "Spindizzy Worlds", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,

Manuel