Bomber (DOS)

Most of shoot em up test player’s skill and reflex. Then there’s one that test player’s patience, and less care for player’s dexterity. I’m talking about this DOS game:  Patrick Piché’s Bomber (1993). 

That’s pretty bland title screen. Although, the title “Bomber” appears on explosion. I give that dynamic entry some credit. I played this when I was kid and kind of like it even though it’s very hard. That’s because I played as A-10 Thunderbolt, my favorite bomber plane besides F-115A Nighthawk. But according to the manual, the bomber in this game is B-29. So, we’re in World War II warfare.     

 

It takes only space bar press to start the game. There’s no option setting whatsoever. So, to know about the control you have to read the manual. Left and right arrow button to move the bomber plane. Press left “control” button to shoot gun from both wings. So far, the enemies are helicopter from Axis force. So, I assume they’re Flettner Fl 282 “Kolibri”.

 

When you get hit, the screen spin around. This is surely special feature of this game but I question the purpose of it. Is it to imitate helicopter swirling down when get shot but I control a bomber plane! No other vertical shooter does this for sure.

 

By pressing left “alt” button, your bomber will drop the bomb into that thin red crosshair. Calling it drop probably inaccurate because you unleash the bomb at fast rate if you hold the bomb button. Spraying the bomb probably more accurate term. Naturally, the bomb is used to destroy ground target such as those anti-air gun emplacements. Destroying the helicopter yield 100 points whereas destroying anti-air gun yields 150 points. The goal of this game is to reach the enemy base. The distance to it is in bottom left corner.

 

I’m at the enemy base but enemies quickly deplete my reserve bomber plane. :(

You only have 3 bomber planes at your disposal and no continue at all. If I remember correctly you can get extra plane if your score reaches certain value but that doesn’t make the game any easier. This is why I mentioned that this game is very hard. Engineer_negativevocalization12.wav

 

Here’s something unusual too. If you press up arrow button, you will speed up the plane. And if you press down arrow button, you will slow down the plane. Definitely, if you go faster, you’re closing the distance faster. While speeding, the bombing crosshair move farther. The farther it is, the more likely you miss the bomb. By “you” I mean me. Of course, you can hold down the bomb button to ensure the bombing gets the target. But if you play this on DOSBox and if you hold down both gun and bomb button while moving left and right, that will result in rotating your Windows screen orientation. Clearly that’s very bad. So, I choose not to hold the bomb button.   

 

What else can I say about the gameplay? At this point you already know 90% of it. But I will try to say more about the detail. Your hitspot is the entire sprite of the plane and the bullet only come out in each wing, meaning enemy chopper can slip past to the center of plane and crash. This will not happen if my plane can shoot gun from the center and that’s why most vertical shmup always have projectile come from the center of the plane! The best way to avoid collision with enemy chopper is constantly swerving left and right while keep firing the gun.    

 

Soldier_mvm_class_is_dead06.wav. Then a helicopter suddenly rams into my right wing that leads to my entire plane destroyed. This won’t happen if my plane’s hitspot is smaller than the sprite!

 

I get into the enemy base more consistently but it goes on and on, without end. The base consists of anti-air cannon and chopper landing zone. Some cannons are active some are not. There’s no indication whether they’re active or not other than they start firing. What baffles me is, I can’t freaking destroy the landing chopper unlike in Rambo III! So, what’s the point of sending lone bomber here?

After more attempt…

 

Finally, I destroy the base. Now I remember what I must to do in this game. The first part of the game, I have to speed up to enemy base. The second part of the game, once I’m in their base I have to do the opposite: set the plane’s speed to minimum and start spraying the bomb randomly. Eventually the base exploded. It will be nice if the distance to base changes to base’s health or damage ratio when I enter the base so i can see my progress.

Second level takes place in sea. Instead of anti-air gun emplacement, ship will be the ground enemy this time. Although ships are larger target, they are moving horizontally. So don’t underestimate them. I do like the sea looks. It looks soothing and beautiful.

Also notice that my right wing is broken. Helicopter’s bullet can destroy plane’s wing instead of destroying entire plane. Sounds like mercy but not without consequence. Now only my left wing that can fire gun. Thus, I can’t “turtling” on left corner safely because my right side is completely defenseless.

 

Suddenly, destroyer Z23 shoots down my last B-29 plane. Fair enough. 

I have shown you 75% part of the entire game. Third level is the final and according to the manual the ground enemy is tank which I assume like ship but smaller. I think I’m done here.

 

Here’s the snippet of the manual. On the header, it says that the game is The REAL arcade game. What a bold claim!

Patrick Piché’s Bomber (1993) is very hard game because it lacks of mean of continue. There’s bonus plane if your score reaches 10,000 points which is gigantic number. It takes 100 helicopters destroyed to achieve that! The main reason why I said that the game test player’s patience because you have to endure the urgency to get to enemy base. If you speed up too many times, you will have bigger risk to get hit. If you go too slow, your patience will wear thin and enemies spawn more frequently. So, mix & match is the only way to success. The game adapt the usual one-hit death however chopper’s bullet can destroy the plane’s wing instead but disarming the wing’s gun. At least you can still fly more distance than when in completely destroyed. Thankfully, enemies also need 1 successful hit to kill. “Turtling” in one of corner seems viable strategy but the problem is enemy chopper can still collide with you because your center is defenseless. All of the enemy’s placement is random except the anti-air cannon within enemy’s base. Enemy choppers have noticeably smaller hitspot than the B-29. But funny thing is they can collide with each other. It’s definitely unusual to not able to fly forward and backward in this kind of game, so avoiding enemy choppers becomes harder. I think the chopper is less aggressive than any of ground enemy. Plus, ground enemy’s projectile guaranteed to destroy the plane when hit. I respect the difference between Bomber's bullet (red) with enemy's (yellow), but it will be nice if all of the projectiles made thicker. Because in current state, i barely can see them. The spinning effect when your plane get destroyed may induce nausea. There’s only 1 music and it sounds bit grating but fairly acceptable. The explosion sound also grating but explosive. So, it’s reasonable.

 

Bomber (1993) is certainly not Raptor: Call of Shadows or Tyrian. I only familiar with the former, by the way. The game is too simple yet there’s some layer of strategy on it, mainly on plane’s speed management. Your patience also put to the test. It’s quite unique but probably not get my recommendation because it’s too hard to get extra plane in this game. Although, I appreciate Patrick Piché for the good effort.

Fortress 2 Blue Arcade (Arcade)

Today I want to review Eolith’s Fortress 2 Blue Arcade (2001) which is Scorched Earth with specific armament and vehicle with google eyes. Personally, I dislike Cars or any 3D animation movie with sentient vehicles but that doesn’t make me hate the game. 

 

Look at that cartoony missile truck. It looks cute but deadly. But you can say the same thing about Worms. If you know how Scorched Earth’s and Worms’ gameplay, you probably wondered how  the mechanic will work in this game. I will tell you later. Spoiler: there’s garbage hard boss in the end of the game. But for now, I want to say that there’s no information entry in Mobygames for this game. So, I’m on my own here. But at least Mobygames tells me that Eolith used to make The King of Fighters 2001 and 2002. I think I played The King of Fighters 2002 once and the final boss is resurrected Rugal iirc. I think the prequel of this game is Korean exclusive only PC game. But I don’t have solid proof on this theory though other than Eolith is Korean company and I don’t see MAME rom of the prequel game. You may correct me on this one.   

 

Here's the roster. It’s less than 4 characters from Street Fighters 2: New Challengers’ roster. No matter how appealing the modern artillery’s look (and function), my main remains the cannon because its’ the first true artillery in history. I mean sure Ballista and Catapult predates Cannon. But can you adjust aim’s angle with Catapult? While Ballista’s projectile is arrow which doesn’t explode on impact unless there’s explosive arrow tip. But I don’t think it was invented in medieval period yet.

Besides I have strong affection to cannon thanks to play Bang! Bang! on old Windows when I was a kid with my older brother. Each of these artilleries differ in stats and arsenal. With that pretty long defense stats, I proudly thought The Cannon is pretty durable. But when I look deeper on this roster, I find out that actually the cannon has the second least defense power next to laser tank which is the one below the ballista (but the game called it crossbow). How come cannon is least durable than the older artillery such as catapult and ballista. Both of them are mostly made of wood. I mean there’s wooden part on Cannon but the main part is solid hard iron. It should be tougher than wood, for God’s sake! I also realize too late that there’s fire range stats and Cannon has relatively low ones. So, I’m off with bad start but I already committed to main Cannon and I’m still stand by it!

After choosing your artillery buddy, you will enter shop screen. The items are:

Move up	Double Shot	Power Shot
Repair	Shield	Teleport Shot
Aim Lock Debuff	Immobilized Debuff	Power Lock Debuff
Remove Debuff	Antidote	Exit shop

I think move up is power up to increase your movement speed which affects maximum travel distance. I though it was to refill movement allotment like fuel in Scorched Earth but no. Shield will negate one projectile that hit you directly. Using repair will refill your 50% health but end your turn. I learn from playing Gunbound (college local server) that i have to carry 2 “double shot” power up as rule of thumb. So, I do that here.

 

Human player always gets the first turn. Before I’m shooting the enemy, I need to know their position. It’s sensible procedure. The game has 2 action buttons. First button to fire or confirm decision. Second button to change mode. There are 3 modes altogether: Firing mode, inventory mode, and view mode. If I press the second button twice, I’m entering view mode where I can use joystick to pan the screen to look the surrounding and enemy. So my first opponent is the catapult, probably the most outdated artillery of the cast

 

Know that I know the general position of my enemy, I decide to fire at them. There’s no angle indicator around your artillery. Instead, you have to look the angle from that bottom left part of the HUD. 2 White lines are the angle’s limit. While the red line is the angle of your aim. If you played Worms, you should be familiar with the firing mechanism. Press and hold fire button to initiate the firing. The longer you hold the fire button the stronger the power. So adjust your holding button duration accordingly.

 

Soldier_specialcompleted03.wav. That was a good shot. For some reason when Catapult being hit or during idle animation, Totoro with sunglasses appears.     

 

Naturally, the catapult throws rock and lucky for me it misses. Spy_taunts15.wav

Once in a while, there’s a chopper who drop provision at any of the player directly most of the time. Sometimes, 1-2 meters from player. The provision is random power up.      

Each artillery has 2 weapons. Right now, the catapult throws the second weapon which is: burning stone. It has smaller radius impact than the large stone but it will burn the ground. Don’t sweat how can you make stone on fire. The stone probably doused on to oil pit for 24 hours or something.

 

Definitely, the cannon also has second weapon which is: red cannonball. It has smaller radius impact much like catapult’s burning stone but instead of burn the ground, it deals significantly larger damage than the regular cannonball. I like to call it “precision round”. To change the weapon: switch to inventory menu by pressing 2nd button once, then toggle between the weapon by moving joystick up or down. Lastly, press the fire button to decide on your highlighted option.

 

More often than not the match last longer than the allotted time. Thus, Sudden Death round ensues. The ground slowly falls down every starting and finishing turn. Basically, whoever in higher ground win the sudden death round. Now Obi-Wan Kenobi’s quote about high ground becomes makes sense.

Because I’m in lower ground, I have to make some hole on catapult’s ground. To make things easier for me I activate the “Double shot” power up. To do so, go to inventory mode and move joystick left or right. Then, press the fire button to decide on your highlighted option. I like the cannon animation when activate the power up. It jumps back and flex bicep muscle. Apparently, the cannon has small feet. That’s pretty weird.

 

My double shot missed and catapult gets more turn afterward. Eventually, I’m fallen. If you never played Gunbound, you probably wonder why catapult gets extra turn after their turns end. See that delay number below wind bar? Using double shot not only cost the item but also increase the delay number. The bigger the delay number the most likely your opponent get 2 turns in a row. Moving or idling also affect the delay number. It's kind of hard to calculate precisely on this delay number unlike in Gunbound. I say this in advance that Fortress 2 Blue is most likely rough prototype of Gunbound. On arcade machine, on top of that.

Quite nice Continue screen but there’s error in detail. I didn’t pick that tank! -_- 

After several defeat…

 

Finally, catapult is in lower ground than me. I just wait for “Sudden Death” rounds to kick in and they’re outdone. In fact, that’s what happens next. You may ask “Why not finish them yourself, Werdito?” I love to but there’s some problem in gameplay’s mechanic. Let me round down it bit by bit. First, the artillery doesn’t have actual hitspot. The hitspot that counts only the ground part of the artillery. So technically, it’s very freaking hard to hit the artillery directly and I must aim their ground instead. Second in that ground situation, I have to hit higher to lob pass the ground. But as you can see in the aim angle HUD, I already aim as high as the cannon’s limit allowed. I can’t aim in higher angle to hit the catapult even if I want to. So, I rely on wind hopping it’s always blow in the opposite direction of my aim so the cannonball can drop on to the catapult successfully. Whereas the catapult’s angle coverage is full 45^o even though in real life catapult can’t adjust its aim angle. If you happen to be Medieval Warfare expert or historian, you may correct me on this. What baffles me more is, the small coverage angle of cannon’s aim. It’s supposed to be more flexible than that. In real life, the lower angle of cannon is 0^o straight forward of the cannon!

 

Next opponent is Ballista and I hate them. Their second weapon is poison arrow that inflict damage over turn! On the other hand, remember about my aim problem just few seconds ago? Yep. I can’t absolutely hit them with my limited angle and the wind is in same direction as my aim.

After several defeated again…

 

Upon defeated, the cannon throws a tantrum while spraying fountain of tears. There’s so much what I can do. The roster’s balance is bad. But I must say that the cartoon animation is probably the biggest charm of this game.

 

Eventually, I win with higher ground on sudden death but I don’t care. I like this graphic feature of floating objects on background is affected by the wind condition. Also they’re flaming skull when sudden death round happens. On the second though, they reminds me of Doom’s Lost Soul. So I don’t so like them in Sudden Death phase.     

 

Our battlefield has the shape of an arc, which kind of difficult terrain to land a hit but I manage to hit. Look at that carrot tank crying when get hit. Heavy_taunts05.wav

 

There’s also special animation when the artillery’s health near zero. Carrot tank has bandages all over its body and wearing assistive cane. While Cannon breathes heavily and in prone position.

 

My next opponent is duke tank and they like to play with radio as their missile lands on the crater.

 

As for their dying idle animation: they’re currently entangled by that weird serpent/snake. I think I know what’s that creature. It’s Buraki, the main antagonist of the 2007 Korean-American film D-War: Dragon Wars. But the game came out in 2001 which does not put the pieces together. The announcement for the movie is in 2001 but that’s barely solid proof. So, I can only assume that Buraki probably is from older movie way than D-War or based on old Korean myth.

 

Behold! Finally, I manage to win the match by depleting opponent’s health and not by dropping it to gruesome fall. When defeated, the evil Buraki chews on the duke tank. God bless them.

 

My next opponent is missile tank. They do some good shoot there except the missile goes through cannon harmlessly because cannon’s hitspot is in the ground part and not the whole cannon as I mentioned before. For once, the design flaw works in my favor.

 

Here’s the extremely rare case of double KO. I can proceed to next opponent but I have to use another credit to proceed. It’s win to me.

 

My next opponent is Multi-missile, which has main weapon: multiple missiles for ground breaking, mainly. What I like to show you is that wizard figure yonder that’s accompanied by big lightning. I admire his gigantic bravery for standing there waving stick in this thunderous weather. Maybe he’s Ramuh.    

 

Multi-missile’s other weapon is weaker micromissiles that may inflict bigger damage if all of them are connected but have lower radius impact. So multi-missile is basically Bigfoot from Gunbound.

I fell down to the very bottom part of the map. I can barely make retaliation due to bad position and the stupid angle limit. Heavy_jeers03.wav

On the next try…

Look at that smug playing radar while I’m bombarded with micromissiles. >:(

On the next try (again)…

I never use the power shot. The AI opponent pretty often use it though. Upon activation, the powered projectiles has star trails and deal more damage.  

 

Eventually I move on to next opponent: Laser Tank. The game put us very close because the game like being jerk troll. But I don’t hesitate to open fire even it hurts both of us while the laser tank is coward and keep skipping turn. It’s weird to see fountain of tear come out from cannon/mouth instead of eye. You can skip turn (that eventually minimize delay number) by going into inventory mode and choose skip icon on the right of power up inventory.

After several times I played this game to the finish, I just realize that the cannon is the best at close combat thanks to the precision round. That second weapon has small blast radius and big damage capability, makes it perfect for close range combat.

Next match is against Minelander and the weather is local rain on them specifically.

 

As the name suggested, Minelander can fire mines. You probably think, who want to step on obvious mine? You’re most likely correct. Although the mine will explode when making contact with enemy which mean it can be treated as regular projectile. The mine is pretty useful then. 

 

My next opponent is Ion Attacker. Their first weapon is regular explosive projectile. As for their second weapon is a beacon that will mark the ground target for the satellite laser. Ion Attacker probably prototype of A.Sate in Gunbound. The AI opponent isn’t so smart regarding using the second weapon. They know how to put the beacon pretty accurately but don’t calculate that the laser from above will hit themselves! So, strategy is park below the Ion Attacker. But because I’m in lower ground, I’m instantly defeated in Sudden Death round.

 

Next opponent is called Poseidon. They excel at throwing big goop and smaller purple goop. I suspect the purple goop is poisonous. Strangely, Poseidon didn’t manage to hit me even once.

 

Now, Poseidon is in deep hole. Neither of us can’t hit accurately so we wait until Sudden Death round. During the idle animation, Poseidon catch mosquito with tongue like a frog. So they’re part hovercraft part frog.

 

On the next match, the map is pretty awful. It consists of stalks and leaves. It’s pretty nice for nature art but awful for artillery battlefield. Just look at this. I end up in awkward angle and there’s nothing I can do.

On the rematch…

 

The game kindly puts us in close distance and I know what to do. As you can see the precision round can inflict 402 points damage and that’s near half of their health gone. So, I’m guessing we have 1,000 health flat but we have different defense power.

 

You can’t see my current opponent in previous screenshot. Here’s the clear look of them. They’re called Secwind. Their second weapon is 2 laser that travel in loop de loop pattern. So, I’m guessing Secwind is prototype of Turtle from Gunbound.

 

Finally, we encounter the boss. I don’t know their name because they’re not in roster. So let’s called them Boss Tank. They’re cheap bastard. Their first weapon is like Multi-missile’s but more damaging. As for their second weapon is also micromissiles but larger in quantity and homing on me! Soldier_negativevocalization05.wav

 

Aw poor cannon. Look at how much different our health condition. This is as bad as that battle in War World – Tactical Combat.

After several attempts…  

 

There’s no way that I can defeat the boss tank by depleting their health to zero. So the only way to defeat them is by making them fallen and the cannon is pretty good at destroying ground. So, my main choice is not as failure as Zack in Dragoon Might.    

This moment right here reminds me of that scene in Lion King where Scar throws Mufasa to the cliff. “Long Live The King!” indeed.

There’s no character-specific ending. The game cuts to the end-game credit. So, it doesn’t matter who you pick to defeat the boss tank. To be specific, the artillery that excels at destroying ground. But if you want to pick someone with high attack power, go ahead. Although I doubt you can defeat the boss tank by KO-ing them.

There are 3 background pictures in the credit roll. First is carrot tank and multi-missile fire at off-screen. Second is probably I like the most. It’s fistfight between carrot tank and missile tank while the other tanks cheer them and holding banners. Correction, the missile tank doesn’t engage in the duel directly. It’s their missile who is having duke out with carrot tank.

Lastly, there’s a scene where everyone attacks multi-missile while carrot tank chills in a safe hole. The smug git.

 

Eolith’s Fortress 2 Blue Arcade (2001) has gameplay mechanic that’s easy to understand especially if you have experience with Worms, Scorched Earth, or Gunbound. Especially the latter because this game feels like the rough prototype of Gunbound. The delay mechanism is mandatory but the application is still unrefined. When playing in single player mode, the player always get the first turn but the computer tend to get an extra turn, especially in later match! I know that the game gives the computer opponent an extra turn because they get the second turn but it’s not as balance as it supposed to be. It's not always the one who get the first turn, get the first shot accurately. They need to make some calibration shoot for the reference for next shot. By “they” I mean me with my skill issue. Maybe if you are really adapted to the aim calculation (after labbing the game dozens times), you can pull first shot every time. Not me though. So, my biggest problem with this delay mechanism is the opponent extra turn after their first turn. Then there’s unwritten delay calculation unlike in Gunbound. The maps are kind of boring. The music kind of bland. The first stage with Egypt theme probably the most interesting. The sound effect is bland especially the explosion. Unforgivable! Even Scorched Earth the game from 1991, has fantastic explosion sound effect. It feels appropriately explosive for God’s sake!

The roster looks solid and cute. But they’re not balance in function. I can’t come up with funny analogy regarding the roster’s balance. So, let’s just say the balance is as bad as weapon’s balance in Ghost 'n Goblin Resurrection. And I happen to pick possibly the worst main but as you can see that the cannon can defeat the boss tank because they’re excel at destroying ground. Some artillery good at destroying ground. Some other good at dealing damage. While other are sly bastard using poisonous weapon. Weaponry characteristic is not the main problem of the roster. It’s the stupid angle limit and firing distance! Combined with wind that changes every turn, quite often than not my aim becomes inaccurate even after making some adjustment on power, which is the easiest kind of adjustment. There’s some occasion, where my shot land too right from the target after increasing the power bar even just a bit from my previous shot that landed too left from the target. Note: I was in left side back then. I blame combination of wind change and the bad fire range. I suspect the power bar scales inconsistently due to bad fire range stats. You know why worms can jump or using various device such as drill or blowtorch? So, they can expand the strategy beyond aim and shoot or they don’t end up doing nothing in awkward position. Andy Davidson has thought everything! Whereas in this game if you end up in awkward position, you can barely do anything because your weapon is just artillery type. Not all but mostly. Maybe the dead end condition is meant to be the usual "mean" or "unfair" part of arcade game. But that’s just so low. Worms has various weapon and gadget in their tiny pocket, whereas these cartoon artilleries only have 2 weapons. At least in Gunbound, the weapon limit is 3. So, the weaponry system feels outdated and pretty bad.

On the bright side, the power up items are useful. I dare to say: all of them are useful! The floating background objects are good. The presentation is wonderful. The art is gorgeous. The control is comprehensive and works well. The core gameplay is quite good. It just needs more refinement here and there. The game’s pace is fast because Sudden Death round comes out pretty early so winning by KO is pretty rare to happen. But the match ends pretty brisk and not feels sluggish at al. The character animation is entertaining to see. I really love it.

So, does Fortress 2 Blue Arcade (2001) deserve my recommendation? Yes. But playing it in single-player mode is inadvisable. Not only because the AI often get extra turn but also they are able to make accurate shot without calibrating first. Sometime they make mistake as humanly as possible but still I don’t trust them. So yeah. You better play this with your friend or relative, while (hopefully) Gunbound origin released. I know there’s GunboundM which is the sequel of Gunbound. But it has negative reviews due to bad display and gameplay balance so I won’t touch it and I suggest you don’t.