Today's game plays like Missile Command as if it were coded by someone who never saw the 1980 Atari classic, but instead had somebody else describe it to him in a confusing manner. Welcome to Anti:
Here's the intro picture which isn't used in the game but gets shown ahead of the instructions in the Game On diskmag itself. Even if you haven't seen the game yet, you can probably guess that your task involves piloting a green aircraft and defending the area from incoming missiles. The way to ward off enemy projectiles is rather odd and involves placing green balls that float in mid-air. More on that when we start the game.
Looking at the image, I get the impression that it was made in a bit of a rush. While the shapes and also the perspective look all right, the pixel art is rather messy. The dithering mainly consists of randomly placed stray pixels and sloppy lines which mar the overall impression. I do like how the missiles cast shadows on the clouds, which help to place them in the three-dimensional space of the scene.
Anti is another game whose backstory is only found in the diskmag article. It's not quite as ridiculous as some of the other stories of previous games I came across on this blog, and it might even be what the game's author originally had in mind. Here's a summary:
Terrorist organizations around the world have banded together to destroy all facilities they deem harmful to the environment. You have been appointed to protect one of their targets, a nuclear power plant, which is about to get attacked by remote-controlled missiles.
So much for the story. As I said, it's not quite as ridiculous. Anyway, let's jump into the game:
Anti opens with this somewhat plain screen which simply states the game's title, its author, and the last achieved score. The curiously aggressive slogan PLAY OR DIE is not really accurate. PLAY AND INEVITABLY DIE ANYWAY is much closer to what you can expect. There is also a short scrolltext that sends thanks to the game's testers.
The best thing about the title screen, in my opinion, is the author's signature in the bottom right. It consists of four single-color sprites that were moved into the border area. It's a neat idea and appropriate for a game that was made entirely by one person.
The music that's playing here is happy to remain exclusively in the bass region, searching for a melody that refuses to emerge. The tune is not bad, but you won't hear me humming it anytime soon.
There are no options other than pressing fire to start a new game...
... which triggers one of the most metal GET READY screens I've encountered in a while, accompanied by a sound akin to an electric guitar running out of control.
Boy, nuclear power plants sure look different in the future. Is it normal that the chimney is emitting a web of brown smoke and the pipe to the left is spitting out what looks like green sludge? I'm already questioning my mission, and it has hardly even begun.
As you can see, it doesn't take long for the missiles to appear. My measure of defense consists of a VTOL jet that can release floating "air mines". The jet is currently in the screen's center, engulfed by smoke, and a mine is already hovering to the right. How it got there I have no idea. I need to place a mine into the path of an incoming missile. Once both collide, the rocket will disintegrate. Unfortunately, I can only place one mine at a time, and it takes four seconds until I can spawn a new one. Placing a mine makes the previous one disappear, so there's is only ever one mine on screen.
In any case, to make the above GIF, I intentionally didn't move because I wanted to show off the incoming volley of missiles. Let me restart the game so I can play it properly.
Actually, first let me demonstrate how the jet handles:
There are a couple of issues here, some more immediately obvious than others. For one, the jet's movement is inertia-based, which isn't bad in and of itself. But the screen edges are treated as if they were elastic walls that cause the jet to crazily bounce around like a rubber ball. What's worse, small movements are needlessly hard to pull off. The jet either barely moves at all or starts moving in sudden jumps. All this in a game that wants me to quickly move from one spot to another so I can place the mines with pixel precision.
All right, enough faffing about, let me have a serious go at the game:
Gah, these controls are just as aggravating as I remember them! I managed to neutralize the first three missiles, but for the fourth, I was battling my jet to move a bit further to the right, to no avail. The resulting mine was just one pixel off, and the rocket passed by unharmed.
Each time I destroy a missile, a new one spawns from the top. There are never more than six missiles on screen at a time, thanks to the C64's eight sprite limit (one sprite is taken by the jet, and another one by the mine).
The purpose of the timer in the bottom right is never explained. Each time it reaches zero, it wraps back to 999 and the missiles drop slightly faster.
Sooner or later I can no longer keep up with the influx of projectiles. If three missiles get past my defenses and reach the power plant, the mission is terminated with a GAME OVER screen. I'd have liked to see what exactly happened to the nuclear facility because bombing it doesn't strike me as a particularly clever move if improving the environment is the terrorists' goal. Instead, all I get to see is my score on the title screen. The score isn't saved, and like in Decton, only the latest score is displayed, regardless of how high or low it was.
Anti's scoring is a bit strange: The first destroyed rocket awards seven points. Then the next three missiles give eight points. Then again I get seven, and after that, I get eight points for the next four missiles. And then the pattern loops. Except, if the score reaches a number that's less than twenty points away from the next hundred, I get ten points on top of the regular points for the next rocket. Why? I have no idea! Without looking at the code, I can't tell what the logic is behind that scoring system, or if it is an unintentional bug. Not that it matters in any way, as no extra lives are awarded for reaching a certain score. I just wanted to mention the oddity and thus justify the fifteen minutes I spent noting down each score increase.
And that's all there is to the game. There are no other background graphics, no level progression, nor are there any new enemies. You can literally see everything the game has to offer within the first few seconds of playing it.
CONCLUSION
Anti is a short game, not least because of its difficulty. If you start a new game and don't do anything, it's over in just under twenty seconds.
My main problem is the controls. It's possible to eventually get a feel for the jet's inertia, but small positional adjustments are way too fiddly to pull off. I almost always lose the game because I can't place my jet exactly under a missile without wasting too much time.
There isn't much going on in the graphics department, but overall the game is okay to look at. I like the turning animation of the jet, and the missile explosions look satisfying. The nuclear power plant in the background is a bit rough and has similar problems as the intro picture. I should reiterate that everything in the game was done by one person who probably was more of a coder than a pixel artist.
The audio is sparse and mainly consists of a low-key music track and two metallic sound effects that spruce up the GET READY and GAME OVER screens. During the game, the same title track is played on an infinite loop. Thankfully, the melody is subtle enough to not become annoying.
I think my overall opinion of Anti would be more favorable if the game weren't quite so hard from the very beginning. Anti could start out with a maximum of only three missiles on screen at a time and then ramp up the difficulty by adding more over time. This isn't an arcade cabinet where a game that lasts longer than three minutes without another coin being inserted means a financial loss.
The article in the diskmag part praises Anti for being an action game that doesn't involve shooting at stuff. Note that at the time there was still a widespread preconception in Germany that shoot 'em ups were too violent and represented a glorification of war. Honestly, I think the ability to actually shoot down the missiles would've made for a more enjoyable game.
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