Planet Bob - Playing S.D.I. (Amiga)

RSS Bot · September 25, 2008

Hi there!

Thanks for looking if you came for the Sega game, but this is about the Cinemaware one:

Oh boy, I sure thought this should've been released for the C64 in 1987. Happy Computer tested the Atari ST version in their 4/87 issue and also listed the C64 as target platform. I really, really, really wanted it these days, being such a die hard Defender of the Crown fan then, but after waiting some 2-3 years even I gave up hope

It actually was really in the works for the C64, it seems it basically died from feature creep when they were trying to enhance it way beyond the 16-Bit versions. Here's some info about it:

http://gtw64.retro-net.de/Pages/s/Review_Sdi.php

http://gtw64.retro-net.de/Pages/s/Article_Sdi.php

Well, it wasn't really worth waiting for anyway. After reading the manual, I expected a lot more from it, but it's basically a cocktail of 3 simple shoot'em up action sequences.

You're playing two of them alternatingly for a while. The first is totally simplified stargliderish 3D space combat, the second is shooting missiles with a crosshair, even simpler than Missile Command.

At some point you get a distress signal from a russian space station and after some more crosshair shooting you've rescued the girl, which basically ends the game.

After rescuing 4 different girls in Defender of the Crown all the time and being used to see them undress as reward, this was a bit of a letdown:

BTW: The music in this game is a very weird experience, since it sounds pretty much like the tunes from Defender of the Crown. Some seem to be exactly the same :ponder: