Guardian (CD32)


Title           Guardian (CD32)
Game Type       3D Action
Players         1
Company		Acid
Compatibility   CD32
Submission      Courtesy of Sean Caszatt

Review
Remember all the hoopla surrounding the release of STARFOX for the Super
Nintendo?  It didn't look all that impressive to me.  Yet, to those people
that have never seen an Amiga in action, it was impressive.  I knew the
Amiga could handle a game like that with no problem (and since the CD³² is
also an Amiga, I knew it could handle it as well.)

GUARDIAN isn't exactly like STARFOX.  It's more of a 3D version of
DEFENDER, the old arcade game that put you in charge of destroying aliens
before they could steal humans from the surface of the planet.

If you've never seen STARFOX, it's a 3D polygon based flight game in which
you witness everything from slightly behind the on-screen representation
of your ship.  GUARDIAN has a similar type of setup, but allows more
freedom in where you can fly and also allows you to change your view to be
pretty much wherever you want it to be.

Numerous enemies come after you in an attempt to snuff you out.  A very
confusing control system (that involves all four action buttons on the
CD³² controller) makes it hard to concentrate on what you're doing while
you should be doing it.  I spent a lot of time flying around in circles
just shooting blindly hoping to hit something until I thinned out the
enemy enough to use the onscreen radar to single out opponents and go
after them.

It's a shame that the game is so hard to control, because it looks fairly
impressive at first glance.  After playing if for awhile, it's another
frustrating and disappointing CD³² game that doesn't do the machine
justice.  The controls do not need to be so confusing and the graphics
appear to be more than the machine can keep up with when a lot is going on
(which is most of the time.)

It's obvious that a lot of work has gone into the game.  The designers
even went so far as to include a preferences option that allows you to
move the screen position to allow the normally PAL mode game to fit on an
NTSC screen.  That's a feature I wish more CD³² games had.

If you've been searching for something a little different, you might want
to try GUARDIAN.  It's limitations aren't severe, just frustrating.  With
a proper amount of patience, it might be possible to salvage some fun from
this disc.



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