Hybris


Title           Hybris
Game Type       Shoot-em-up
Publisher       -unsure-
Players         1
Copatibility    OCS, ECS and AGA (no enhancements for better chipsets.)
HD Installable  No
Submission      Nathan Wain Profiled Reviewer

Review
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
This game is your classic style vertically scrolling shooter.  (Like
Xevious, Slapfight, Vulgus, but most especially like Terra Cresta.)
One from the golden age of the A500 days - easily fitting on a single
floppy, and quick to load.

SPECIAL HARDWARE/SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
A joystick.  (Surprise, surprise.)

COPY PROTECTION
None.

MACHINES USED FOR TESTING
A500, 0.5Meg Chip, 0.5Meg Fast, Kickstart 1.2, external Floppy drive,
Thompson RGB monitor.

A1200, 2Meg Chip, 32Meg Fast, Kickstart 3.0, 340 Meg Seagate 2.5" HDD,
GVP Cobra accellerator-board (68030 and 68882 at 50MHz, without SCSI),
additional floppy-drive, Supra 14.4k Modem, 1942 MultiSync monitor.

A4000, 2Meg Chip, 16Meg Fast, Kickstart 3.1, 1.2 Gig Quantum HDD,
Toshiba 16x CD-Rom, additional floppy-drive, Supra 14.4k Modem, 1942
Multisync monitor.  (Standard 25MHz 68030 CPU)

Hybris performed *identically* on all three machines.  (Almost unusual
for a title of this era.) :-)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
This is a Terra Cresta wannabe, no doubt about it.  You can blow up
special installations on the ground which yield additional pieces for
your ship.  The ship can seperate into a flying 'formation' of these
pieces for a limited time.  Some buildings on the ground can block your
shots, and they're usually placed right in front of those damned turrets.

If there were the occasional roaring animal encountered on the landscape
the similarities could be almost legally-questionable.  Fortunately
the shoot 'em up genre lacks originality in abundance, so no Great Giana
Sisters situation was ever likely...  (More fortunately Terra Cresta has
nothing to do with Nintento.) ;-)

GENERAL OPINION
This is a damn good Terra Cresta wannabe.  It contains all of the
gameplay elements that made Terra-Cresta so good, and then the authors
just went and did their own graphics, levels and SFX.  All of which
still look good today.  (Something that cannot always be said of titles
from back then.)  Of all the classic shooters I've seen on the Amiga, I
feel this and BattleStorm are the two greats.  Hybris, though not quite
so full of eye-candy as BattleStorm, does have the advantage of not
having mid-game loading sequences.

This is a game you can just load up and see how far you can get.  It has
it's own autofire, so those who are unable to click the fire button
rapidly for sustained periods needn't be put off.  The levels are purely
linear, so you needn't be stressing about which exit to take.  All you
have to do is build up your ship, and use the three smart-bombs and three
formations to your best advantage.

The graphics and sound are all pretty, functional, and accompanied by a
great soundtrack that just adds to the game without ever becoming
repetitive or annoying.  The level of difficulty progresses at a nice
rate - novices can last more than thirty seconds, and hardcore shooters
will have plenty to keep them occupied.  The themes of the levels also
change markedly at certain points, so it's not just the same aliens in
bigger numbers.

CONCLUSIONS
A great game to while away the evening, or remind people of the great
stuff that made the A500 the legend it was.  It's the kinda shoot 'em up
people make when they don't get sidetracked by too much eye-candy or
effects.  A polished title, right down to the credits-sequence.







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