Galactic Dan: First Seventeen Sectors

Here's one in the category of games I didn't really want to have be three entries, yet don't really want it to be unfinished either. Huzzah. This is another Fourth Dimension published FPS on the Acorn Archimedes (and related computers) with this one being released the same year as Wolfenstein 3D and seeming like a more traditional FPS.

The story is, in short the Vorians have invaded the moon Lygon, and the player, Galactic Dan Quicksmart, agent of the United Planets Bureau of Investigations, is going to rescue them. I found it first on IMDb, and wondered where the writer got it from, but it was in-game. How is IMDb somehow more reliable than other sources? Who is adding these obscure FPS games to IMDb? Who is this crazy guy adding stuff that some legitimate gaming websites don't have? I guess someone had to add all the cast memebers somewhere.

At first glance, it's a low tech mazey FPS. You wanna know why the Archimedes range had so many of these things? So do I. We get a mission briefing in which our superior officer, Commander Cadillac, tells us about whatever it is we're doing. Here is an easy mission with little alien presence. Oh, it's a password game, Joy.

And when I started my mission, it hit me. This is a more advanced version of Hovertank 3D. I have no idea if this is related, but it has the exact same design philosophies, just with true 3D going on. We got heightmaps, baby! We can jump! Oh, and by jump, I mean you can press the middle mouse button. It's mouse-only baby! Keyboard controls are for plebs! (Outside of changing weapons) Left mouse button shoots, and right button moves. Awkwardly, because just pressing it walks, while moving the mouse back, Dan goes backwards; Moving it forward while holding the button and you go fast. You can't pause either, pauses kills you.

I feel like these are not the worst I've played, just the worst to adapt to. Nobody ever presses multiple mouse buttons at the same time intentionally, and nobody presses the middle mouse button outside of specific circumstances. Still, they designed it better than most developers, because I have a chance to get used to them in a safe environment. It plays out like you're in a tank that can turn on a dime. Literally, because your turning speed is fast. My biggest problem with the controls is that going into walls hurts you a little.

We get snowmen as hostages and spiders as aliens. Not like scary spiders, they just wander around and look kind of cute. Perfect fodder for an opening level. Just find the hostages, two, at least, but there are five. You can shoot them, the game doesn't really care outside of reducing your score. Some of them move towards you, some move away. Much like Apocalypse, this game places way too much stock in your score.

Beating sector 1 without gunning down hostages gets me a medal. I guess there's some funny backstory going on in the manual I don't have about how the USA joined the other nations in the intergalactic federation. At the start, there are no scores above 100. You know, I do wish more games would actually include a developer's score in the high score table that you actually have a reason to reach, like Sword of the Samurai, rather than endless joke answers.

I'm digging these briefings, Cadillac is comically casual about everything, and considering how not serious, even though having better technology than 95% of the competition should result in some seriousness. Even as he's telling you about some horrible thing that might very well kill you, he still comes off entirely casual about it.

This level introduces ranged enemies, a giant eyeball that basically stands still. It even seems to have a range on its shots, something I don't have. That, combined with most of the level being a simple corridor with rooms off the side makes this one even easier than the first. I know that's going to be an illusion. Probably because the next mission has me rescue 8 hostages, with each mission doubling. I'm sure there'll be a limit to that eventually, since this is about as many hostages as I've been finding in general.

And I'm right about this being harder, albeit less because of enemies, Cadillac talked up a spider-drone, but it was just a spider with ranged weapons, but he wasn't so tough. Instead, the trouble is in the level design. This is a very mazey level, and you can get stuck on the walls, which is annoying. You also actually have to jump in this level. You simply can't win if you don't jump over an obstacle and you have to platform to get some hostages. Let me tell you, first-person platforming is a cakewalk compared to first-person platforming where the move key is your right mouse button and your jump key is your middle jump button.

There are a few new features over the next two levels. Firstly, doors, opened by shooting a ball. These also come in flavors like blue, which enemies can go through when they're closed. There's a purple one which I think is just another regular door. Then, the most shocking elements of all. Enemies you have to jump to shoot. Annoying, but less annoying than the guys from Escape From Monster Manor. And an elevator. You know, if it weren't these strange mouse controls, this game would be surprisingly advanced.

Poloid Caves or Sector 6. Gotta love my briefing has satellite scans of a presumably underground place. This sector is interesting, for having a bunch of houses, one of which you have to somehow jump to open from the outside...I didn't manage to do that. I didn't even manage to succeed in all the platforming sections, simply because some of them were too difficult for me to do. Foreshadowing? There was also one hostage flying away, presumably some alien stole him, never to return again. (Actually, they got killed, they just fly away like angels) The game is starting to put the eyes outside of my immediate shooting level, so I think this is starting to reveal most of its regular features with jumping now mandatory.

Sector 7, or Operation Charlie Chan. (That's the password in case you missed it earlier) The game warns me that I'll be shot once I set down, and so it is. More polite than most games which do that sort of thing. This level is very dense with not much time to do it all in. There's no health packs on this level and the bigger enemies take multiple shots to take down. It's easy to end up missing enemies and stuck in a firefight you shouldn't be in. At least your shots shoot enemy shots.

Sector 8 or Operation Beaver Scout is where the game expects you to have things figured out. Which, given the game, you would think would be being able to shoot enemies. Maybe that's true, but running past enemies you don't need to fight is a lot better. So is reaching hostages before enemies can kill them, this level has 13 and it's very difficult to get 12, enemies and hostages are placed so you have to get the latter quickly. Not helping is a very tight time limit.

Sector 9, Operation Chocolate continues the theme of be quick or be dead. Hostages aren't as limited and time isn't as tight, but now you need to platform to the exit in a massive area full of enemies. It isn't even obvious where the exit is, until you realize some walls are walk-through or can be destroyed. You can take out the enemies, but that doesn't help how precise the game expects you to be jumping here.  There's also some ammo for the second weapon here, it just does more damage. Which I guess is helpful, but I really wish I had a machine gun or a shotgun. They're also needed to blow out walls protecting the exit.

Sector 10, Operation Revco, 3 minutes for 30 hostages. Easier than it sounds because there are four enemies and it's a small area. More annoying than it sounds because you have to go to one corner of the map to get on one of the two elevators to grab half of them, and the other half run away from you. The elevator goes up and down automatically, so you have to time your jumps off it. Ever since the last mission I've been keenly aware that this does the Tomb Raider thing of having your jump button work a moment before your jump. I think I've discovered a way to make everyone agree that can suck, have it in first person and without any animation that gives it a reason to work that way.

Did I say easier? I meant incredibly frustrating and aggravating. Those enemies are no threat to you, just your chance of completing this mission. There aren't a lot more than 30 hostages, so if they kill too many, you'll get screwed. You have to time your jumps precisely off the elevator or you waste time. Every hostage on the ground runs away and some are jumping so high you can grab them while jumping over a gap above. This is an accomplishment, making a barely voiced snowman a target of hatred, other games have mocked their hostage characters for far less. When I eventually won, it was pure luck, with not even a second left on the clock.

Sector 11, Operation Thunderbowl, now Captain Fudge is in command. If you intend on playing this, I just want to be helpful and point out that the operations are the passwords. Nobody should have to complete that last mission. This next one is simpler, and also eye-searing. This one's a lot less what it has been and more a normal level around this time. Don't mistake this for easier. Now enemies are properly difficult, and I realize that you have a limited number of shots on-screen. That's how bad they are.

This level is also tricky, not just because enemies are difficult to kill, but you can't let enemies kill hostages anymore. You've got to be good and grab the hostages before they get killed or you simply won't have enough, there's no leeway now. To top it off, there's a tower you need to platform up. I'm not ever going to complain about platforming in first person again, so long as I don't have to use to mouse buttons to make the jump.

Then on my third attempt, the level turned out to be easier than I thought it was. There were walls you need a high powered weapon to get, and I kept assuming that you needed to get past the last one with some remaining. No, there's an area with some, including the third, the powerful neutron disruptor, which has fast bullets and kills everything in one hit. And a small but very helpful health pack. This, along with some hostages in these areas, make all the difference in making this level actually winnable.

Sector 12, Operation Fire Walk starts with Cadillac talking to me again, insisting that he's not a spy and everyone else is a liar. Is this a joke or is this something I'm supposed to be able to notice? This has easier objectives than the last few, it even starts off with a tower full of goodies, but...no, despite the level being a free for all, and a lot of hostages dying the first time, it's not that difficult. Just don't get onto any high ledges and make sure to take out those spinning spike shooters. I just realized they've been here the entire time and I haven't mentioned them, they're just like the eyes except they move around in a set pattern.

Sector 13, Operation Black Lodge. Fudge is telling me to ignore any transmissions from non-United Planets sources, before informing me I'm going directly into a Vorian military complex. Doesn't seem too bad...48 hostages!? It's certainly a complex. It's very large, and with the added bonus of multiple potentially one-way paths if you don't do things in the right order. It's not very different, but it's playing out kind of how it should be playing, rather than the insane platforming I've had to do to get here. It feels like a Doom level. One of the tricks is even realizing you can do Doom-style walking over a ledge to reach another ledge stuff.

Victory was hard fought, because once again this is a matter of not letting the hostages die. In a lot of areas you need to take advantage of enemies that don't move in order to prevent them from attacking you. Getting in a fight is going to kill the hostages. Ironically enough, this feels like a tactical shooter in practice, even if it's the goofiest tactical shooter anyone's ever made. When I won, it was just barely even with all I had learned over the course of a few tries.

Sector 14, Windom Earle. They have an invisibility shield, but I only have to rescue 20 hostages. This is an incredibly simple level were it not for that invisibility thing. I got close to the number of hostages the first time, but because I was focused on speeding through the area, I didn't find the switches I needed first. The problem is that enemies invisibility is more like kind of see-thru, not actually invisible at all. Instead, you can't actually hurt them. You have to shoot the shield generator, which is in a locked room. It's easy to find though.

The trickier bit is that you may need to do some climbing on top of the walls. Not in the pre-planned, of course you do this sense, but in the trickier, oh, wow, I'm exploiting the game somehow way. The key word is may, there are enough hostages to allow you to not have to do this, but it might require some wrangling on your part.

Sector 15, Operation Night Stalk, get 28 out of around 30, they're understaffed. 12 minutes, okay, what is the game hiding? Well, as you can see, this level is massive. It's rare to see a level this truly massive in this era. This is honestly getting to be quite ahead of its time for a game dedicated to the bit of rescuing hostages. It's a huge, massive complex...but there aren't that many rooms and what there are the game struggles to fill. Don't mistake this for dislike, it's just that this level should have been much earlier, where the gimmick of having to figure out enemy locations then rush in would have been new.

Sector 16, Operation Candyfloss. "The politicians are asking for a night attack because it looks good on holovision." Yeah, yeah, sure, 50 hostages though? The problem isn't the lighting at all. There might be a few parts where it can cause you trouble, but quickly there's are infrared gobbles. Every single thing that's a mild inconvenience in this game stacks up for one annoying level. Hostages that won't let you save them, enemies having too high a firing rate, hunting for the one switch/key card that opens up a door. In fact, I'm not really sure how anyone was supposed to beat this one legitimately.

Yeah, shocker, I decided to use Game Conqueror to get to the end of this one again. This was only happening if I actually did this, and the final point that convinced me was that my emulator decided to stop locking the mouse to the window. The method to win is fine, you need to find a hidden corridor which has one level of clearance, but the enemies are more annoying than I realized. They're just damage sponges now. I don't even know how someone could win this legitimately, between slowdown and hostages there is just nothing you can do against them without ending up torn to shreds. This level is very tight with hostages, and I was forced to constantly restart AFTER cheating to have infinite health. I had to cheat to get enough hostages to get out. It's so bad I'm not sure how anyone legitimately won this one.

Sector 17, Midsummer. Capital city, but 30 hostages and 12 minutes. One of the tricks here are that this is just a very long and large level. You'll spend a long time rushing through corridors. The other trick is that in order to get out, you need to know where to use the limited amount of plasma ammo you get, you can't waste it, you need to use it against a specific wall and then a panel to allow entrance to the area its in...and another panel possibly.

It was very difficult to win this one. I only did, just barely on my fifth attempt, but the game expects you to pull off some serious platforming miracles towards the end of the level to get out alive. Lots of doing stuff at weird angles I really shouldn't have to do it at. But, I did in the end. The actual fighting was just sort of there, no trouble whatsoever. I'm going to have a Tomb Raider mod in-between this and the next entry, possibly Mazer II if I get really, really lucky. For now, I hope you have a happy Christmas.

This Session: 6 hours