Lunar Patrol

Break Space

Andy

Dave

LUNAR PATROL Gabriele Amore, with Lee Bee, Goodboy & Isaias Diaz Toledano Free Dave's Review Gabriele Amore is a creative free spirit with an obstinate refusal to use MPAGD the way it was intended*. Due to this, his softography is dominated by the flamboyant & experimental. That's why I'm surprised his Lunar Patrol is so faithful to the arcade game it's inspired by. Having scrolling craters to jump is the minimum requirement to get into the 'Moon Patrol' group in ZXDB. Lunar Patrol of course has that, but also: 3 layer scrolling, 3 types of UFO – including the crater making bombers, mines, bumps, boulders, planty aliens in holes, rear ambushers, beginner & expert courses, an attract mode, an A-Z with checkpoints, a hazard indicator light (sort of), bonuses, a hillscape and a space cityscape, the arcade music... and breathe. In fact it would be easier to say what's missing, which is the sloped hill sections – something that none of the Speccy ports have anyway. I'm no musician, but to my ear Lee Bee's AY rendition of the music is totally on point, as are the pings and ditties when you start and finish a section. Hats off for mingling that with AY spot FX too, so you can enjoy the tune without the pings and explosions interrupting it. GabAm is clear that this is not an attempt to make Moon Patrol RX (though it is the closest thing we have until highrise does it). Even though large parts of it look 'serious', Gab's distinctive cartoony style shines through – he couldn't do HR Giger without it looking a bit cuddly. So even though the term sells the game short, it's not inaccurate to describe it as 'cute' Moon Patrol. I think it looks all the better for it. GabAm has released several versions on this theme, Moon Ranger in 2020 using his trademark highly coloured sprites that move in character squares, followed by Moon Ranger 2021, done with AGD mini. Both are good, and look outstanding, but they are stuttery to play. His best work is when he combines his talent for colourful graphics and frenzied gameplay with some regular smooth sprites, and that's why he's hit paydirt with Lunar Patrol where he's brought it all together. So what's wrong with it? Unfortunately there's a bug where the game freezes on occasion. It's rare, but it's the reason I voted it an 8 not a 9 at SC. At least a fudge-fix has been included: press the R key and the game restores from the last checkpoint. A shame, but not a deal-breaker for me at least. The Speccy was never blessed when it came to Moon Patrol. If you search the SC archive for games in this licence, it's a litany of howlers. With a few exceptions they range from ZX-embarrassments by software houses that should know better to BASIC clunkfests that are little more than glorified pothole surveys. So thank Gab & AGD that we have Lunar Patrol to get us out of this hitherto depressing ditch. *which I reckon is exactly the way Jonathan Cauldwell wants some people to use it.

I'd swear the A59 gets worse every day

It's still preferable to the M25