Astro Assembler comes from a brand new batch of obscure software recently procured from an eBay store. It’s another lost gem courtesy of PC Treasures, Inc., the publisher responsible for all of those Super Target dollar specials that I have reviewed thus far. It finally occurred to me to investigate their website this evening and I realized that there must be well over 100 games in their OEM catalog that I don’t have and that probably aren’t in MobyGames yet.

One reason that a number of these games are not yet in the database is probably that a number of them were licensed from non-American development houses (whereas the vast majority of MobyGames records come from American games). Based on some of the names involved with this game, I am guessing it comes from Portugal even though the main title looks somewhat Japanese at first glance:

The box copy sells the title as a relentless action game. Let’s see if it lives up to the hype. What kind of game are we dealing with here? It shapes up to be a vertically scrolling shooter, what I liked to call fly-through, shoot-em-ups when I was growing up. Gradius and R-Type seemed to be the archetypes and were always among my favorite brainless action games though they were frustrating beyond belief, principally due to the fact that one hit did you in. Astro Assembler is no exception to the rule.

AA is gorgeous, to be sure, though a little sparse on music despite the promise of 15 CD audio tracks in the game. The graphics shine throughout. 3D rendered spaceship enemy sprites swoop from different planes onto yours for the attack. The scrolling starfield and tumbling background asteroids are beautiful, and the explosions are crisp.

It takes me awhile to settle on a satisfactory control scheme. There are several default keyboard layouts from which to choose. I can’t get used to any of them. Finally, I remember to plug my gamepad into my new computer and I have that option available to me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work! When I configure for joystick, I can navigate the game menus just fine but the in-game ship won’t respond to me. Fortunately, I found the option to customize a keyboard control scheme and I come up with a halfway decent one.

One of the first features I noticed was that holding the fire button results in a rapid, continuous stream of fire. This seems like the desirable approach. However, this type of offensive power only works against flying opponents. There are all types of things to hit on the ground (various solid objects passing beneath you in space). These include enemies and powerups that need to be hit before collected. Nailing these targets requires a missile and missiles aren’t fired as quickly as the main cannon, though you can speed up the rate of fire by manually firing.

I should mention that the “Assembler” part of the title comes from the feature that allows you to assemble various upgrades to your craft if you gather enough powerups. I would show you this if I could possibly make it far enough into the game, even on the easiest skill level.

So committed are the authors to maintaining an authentic arcade feel that the high score initial entry mechanism forces you to cycle through letters using the left and right controls and select initials with the fire button. I only mention it because it’s sort of a pet peeve when PC games don’t take advantage of the keyboard in these situations.

At MobyGames:

• Astro Assembler

See Also:

• Astro Assembler Archived at Internet Archive

I have to qualify the platform of this game with the title since I also have the Sega Saturn version which will probably come up in the experiment sooner or later. Indeed, Independence Day, based on the 1996 movie, has a total of 3 platform ports including the PlayStation, and none have screenshots in the database. Why the mystery? I shall be the brave soul to take on the savage aliens.

I suppose I’m lucky in a way since I generally get to experience these older games with the maximum features on offer. ID4 for Windows allows the player to select between a 3D MMX software engine and a Direct3D HAL engine. Naturally, I choose the latter hardware option along with 11 kHz stereo audio rather than the plain monophonic option. High-end.

The object of this game is to fly a jet, shoot down alien fighter craft, and ultimately bring down a bunch of gigantic alien ships. I see from the instruction manual that the control scheme is slightly reminiscent of Descent, which strikes me as a bit cheesy. Fortunately, it’s not precisely the same; the jet is always moving, never stationary although you can throw on the “air brakes” to slow way down temporarily.

The beginning of the game shows you some cinematics lifted from the film. The jets approach the big ship, get their collective rears handed to them, and then fall back to the Grand Canyon to continue the battle. Strategically, no voices or likenesses of actors from the movie are ever heard or seen. Unlike in the movie, one of the city-destroying alien ships follows you to the Grand Canyon. You first mission is to take out its 4 shield generators and then fry its main cannon.

So you’re bounded by some uninspired canyon landscape below, a flat spaceship surface above, and the alien forcefield on all sides. Boundaries, we need boundaries. Also, all objects are essentially rubber in this game. If you hit anything, you sort of slide and bounce off into a different direction. Sometimes your aircraft sustains damage as a result but you have the check your power meter in order to know since there are no audible or visual cues to indicate hurtful encounters.

I realized that I’m thinking too hard about the game at first. The gameplay isn’t complicated and you don’t have to aim. When you fire your bullets, the cannon just points to wherever the auto-aiming facility is pointing. The alien fighters would be impossible to hit were it not for the audible “You’ve got tone” chatter from your wingman to indicate that you really ought to fire off a missile. Hitting the generator requires constant sweeps back and forth past the stationary targets until I remember about those “air brakes”. Eventually, I somehow bring down one of the big craft. The game rewards me with an overly long sweep of practically the entire unremarkable ship along with clipped canyon polygons below.

All told, I find the controls to be incredibly awkward. I can’t wait to see how the design crew transposed all the controls onto the Saturn controller.

When I procured and investigated the Sega Saturn version of this title many years ago for the purpose of multimedia study, I found that it had a number of multimedia files bearing the extension .egg. I was always curious if the other platform ports used the same format. Amazingly, no! At least the Windows port uses uses yet another custom file format, this one with the extension .yqs, and it’s a completely different format inside.