A Blast from my Past

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grRWWGKcV2I

Way back in 1991, before Playstation and Xbox, the Commodore Amiga reigned supreme on the home markets. A 16 bit computer, it was famed for its (then) unique video facilities and a host of great games. One of the most popular genres was the Shoot Em Up, which began with the humble Space Invaders and evolved over time into complex games which required considerable skill to master.

Besides the usual array of mutant and aliens blasting space games, there were other shooters based on military themes such as Operation Wolf, Ikari Warriors and Silkworm.

Silkworm was a side scrolling game for one or two players driving an armoured jeep or a attack helicopter, either simultaneously or alone. Whilst Silkworm wasn't the best of its type, it was an enjoyable blast, shooting tanks, bombers and missiles sweeping in from the side. 

However, the sequel to it, SWIV or Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicle was a different beast altogether. Vertically scrolling, it kept the two vehicles, but by 90's standards was much more graphically superior, with slickly designed vehicles and intense waves of enemy fighters.

A similar game, although much less sophisticated was Black Hornet, a budget game based on a stealth fighter attacking armed forces, again a vertical scroller, but with much simpler graphics.

Both games had a lot in common and had clearly been influenced by Anderson tv shows and toy lines. Black Hornet was assailed by flying saucers and Micronaut style robots and SWIV had elements in it which could clearly have been lifted from Captain Scarlets Cloudbase. There is a section where small Flying Subs appear, aircraft with forward facing wings and rocket launchers raising up from hidden silos underground.

The two games shared similar ideas too, as railway tracks crossed the screen, with BattleSpace like trains rolling past, which could either be destroyed by shooting the engine, or flown underneath a bridge by the Black Hornet fighter.

SWIV has a regular sequence of SR71 Blackbird planes zooming down the screen and armoured vehicles shower the copter with white missiles which could have come straight from Triang.

Whilst both games look dated and blocky by todays standards, they were at the time great fun to play and very reminiscent of some of my favourite toy lines as well.