Recovery

The Atari ST cannot scroll

Don't be too eager to assume that's right!! This is Recovery, a shooter by New Deal Productions, not something I heard of until recently. It takes us on a *Fantastic Voyage* through the lower parts of some poor soul in need of medical assistance. I presume we're trying to help him recover from something nasty as we begin at the bottom, working our way up through the liver (I think), and then onto the heart before finally smashing through the old grey matter.

Recovery is much in the vein of something like Menace or R-Type but runs at a far slicker pace with many of the patient's body parts whizzing around the screen. It's like Anarchy and just as tough - almost nigh on impossible when trying to dodge everything. But our ship is spritely and we're armed with a laser so shoot first and never ask dumb questions.

I love finding something 'new' to play and this is an exciting game so let's see a screenshot...

I got AGT vibes from this screenshot which pleased and depressed me equally.

It's a shooter so, shoot!

Each body part is a separate stage, and incredibly long, almost to the point where you think it will never end! However, they all feel much the same with a vast array of "aliens" to avoid or kill. These use a variety of attack patterns but touching any reduces energy levels, so bad pilots ultimately end up losing yet another life. Strangely, there is no end-of-level boss. A beastly tumour would have been nice to destroy - now there's a sentence I thought I would never say!

The joystick controls are excellent - very swift and responsive without any sluggishness. Our main weapon is a laser beam and quite effective too - pressing and holding fire shoots this laser and kills anything in front of you. Sadly, there are no other types of upgrades or special weapons so all we have is one laser and nothing more.

Thankfully, our sleeping patient appears to have popped many pills, which you'll see floating through his body just waiting to be collected. These can boost your weapon's rate of fire, energy and shields which are all displayed in the status bar. I never figured out what "LIGH" is for - I hit every key but nothing, nada, zip. Does anyone know?

Okay, let's take a break from the boring reading and view another lovely screenshot...

A menacing screenshot with the colour. It's fast, so shoot and move quick!

Aesthetics?

Visually, this is a mixed-body bag that isn't quite as healthy as you would hope. Don't get me wrong, a scrolling shooter needs to scroll. And this game scrolls smoothly with parallax layers. Sadly, the backgrounds are sometimes a bare-bones. Although, there are tons of funky sprites zooming around the screen at impressively speedy rates!

Hitting F4 flips between 50/60Hz which speeds things up even more - if you can handle it?

Sonically, this is going to appeal to lovers of chip music. To be blunt, it's simply fantastic and foot-tappingly awesome - makes you realise just how cool your ST is. However, any insane people might wish to turn it off for the sound effects. No problem, just hit F2/F3 but why would you ever wanna do that? I know, because you're stupid.

Okay, you've guessed it - stop reading and enjoy another gorgeous screenshot...

Come on, you cannot deny the style of this game?

The CryptO'pinion?

Recovery is technically impressive and a damn good shoot 'em up. It slaps the faces of those lazy programmers who said the ST cannot scroll. However, the gameplay could be better, each stage feels overly long with zillions of frantic 'aliens' constantly buzzing about. This static style doesn't progress so it gets samey after a while. Also, our weapons cannot be upgraded which is a massive disappointment but not as much as having no bosses to fight.

I'm sure you can tell that this isn't the greatest shoot 'em up but it's far from the worst. I've enjoyed blasting through some fella's intimate body parts all in the name of science fiction. Recovery is definitely worth booting up for a quick game or two - especially to see who can survive the longest!! Good luck with that because you will deffinetly need it.

Check out my screenshots before deciding whether to download for hard disk or floppy...