Ace Invaders by Hi-Tech

Ace Invaders

Full title	Ace Invaders
Year of release	1983
Publisher	Hi-Tech Microsoft
Producer / Author(s)	Ralph Hilton
Memory	3K
Type	Game
Cost :	£6.50
Download	Ace Invaders [CRC32 40434FE4] Distribution Permission Allowed \| Group 1

Instructions

ACE INVADERS (3k)

Devised and written by Ralph Hilton

Defend your planet from the alien invasion. Shoot them down before they get you. Yes, your favourite arcade invader game for the Jupiter Ace. Two speeds, fantastic graphics, full sound. Shoot down the sixty invaders, score 600 points and you're doing well but beware when the second wave form...

Loading Instructions

(warning - this programme loads in two parts, follow instructions carefully.)

Type in LOAD GRAPHICS
Press enter key, then start tape.
When OK appears on screen, stop tape.
Type in GR
Press enter key.
Type in FORGET GR
Press enter key.
Type in LOAD RUN.
Press enter key, then start tape.
When OK appears on screen, stop tape.
Type in RUN to play.

Press enter key to start game running.

To obtain fast game, type in FAST RUN and press enter key.
To revert to slow game, type in SLOW RUN and press enter key.

Press key — Z — to move left.
Press key — X — to move right.
Press key — M — to fire.

Screen Shots

Tape Inlay

Cassette Body

Advert

Your Computer Magazine advert, May 1983, Page 166

Reviews

Home Computing Weekly 28 June 1983

Invaders
Jupiter Ace
£6.50

Hi-Tech Microsoft, 42 Cranleigh Drive, Whitfield, Dover, Kent

Feeble version of the well-worn arcade game. No colour, of course, but on a machine with user-defined graphics the invaders ought not to be just white squares and oblongs or the defender's gun merely a small square.

The bombs fall so slowly and jerkily the program might as well be in BASIC and there is no synchronisation between the gunfire and the destruction of the invaders.

If it were not for the in-

creasing but meaningless score in the bottom left hand corner you'd hardly known they'd been zapped. They present so little threat to the player that most people will end up feeling sorry for them!

The program was very difficult to load and came along with three others from the same supplier which totally resisted all attempts. The Ace would put up the dictionary notice but firmly refused to say "OK" - maybe the smart machine was trying to complain about the misuse of its potential.

G.M.

instructions
playability
graphics
value for money

50%
10%
10%
5%

Personal Computer World June 1983.

Ace Invaders

Supplier Hi-Tech
Price: £6.50 (unexpended Ace)

This is getting boring - again I had difficulty in getting this program to load, but in this case it was because of wrong instructions. The program loads in two parts and you have to type in four separate instructions for successful loading. The Ace distinguishes between upper and lower case and, whereas the instructions tell you to type 'LOAD GRAPHICS' this should really have been 'LOAD graphics'. The same thing applied to 'LOAD RUN'. Once I had realised this, it all worked okay.

Ace Invaders is - yes, you guessed - a version of Space Invaders. The limitations of the Ace graphics are painfully apparent and the keyboard is a nightmare for playing games - comparable only with the ZX81. In fact, I found using the Ace very similar to using the '81: the graphics are the same chunky blocks and the whole look and feel of the two machines are almost identical.

You have control of a laser at the bottom of the screen, and the invaders move down in columns from the top of the screen to the bottom. Your laser base is moved by pressing the 'z' and 'x' keys, and you hit the 'm' key to fire.

You have the usual defences to hide behind; these can be destroyed by hits from your laser or from the invaders. There are 60 invaders in all, but you have only one life (with most versions you have three, or sometimes even five). At the slower speed hitting the invaders poses little difficulty, but the keyboard design makes it imperative for you to hit each key dead-centre.

An optional fast version (type 'FAST RUN') speeds things up considerably but, even so, it's hardly arcade action. Given the fact that this game is for the unexpanded Ace, and making allowances for the keyboard, this is a fair implementation. It compares well with Space Invaders for the unexpanded ZX81, but overall it feels like a step backwards - using a low-memory, black and white machine with a silly keyboard seems very strange after the advent of all the all-singing, all-dancing, full-colour, full-sound 48k computers now available. I suppose this is just snobbery: the Ace is a very nice machine for learning Forth and is certainly good value for money. I have been sent a couple of arcade-style games for the 16k Ace. Unfortunately I have not, as yet, managed to get my hands on a 16k expansion - when I do I will be looking at these games, and I am sure they will be considerably more impressive than Ace Invaders.