Artillery '90 is an updated version of Xonox's classic Artillery Duel from 1983. It's a game for two players (or one player against a computer AI) who barricade themselves in stationary turrets and take turns in shooting projectiles at each other until one blows up in a fiery explosion.
The title screen is quite awesome already and pushes the artillery turret right into your face, letting you know what the game is all about.
The whole intro sequence is worth watching, as it features some nicely pixelled logos of Double Density and Masters' Design Group (MDG), the developers of Artillery '90:
Some funky music is playing during this sequence. Charles Deenen composed the tune and named it, if you excuse my French, Shitty Disco Dump. Allegedly, he didn't like it very much, but he gave Masters' Design Group permission to use the track in their intros.
Compared to that, the game's menu is a bit barren, even though it uses a flashy multicolor font. In the lower third of the screen, you can already see the game's interface. At the moment it doesn't do anything because Artillery '90 first wants me to choose between ARCADE or TACTIC game type.
TACTIC Mode works just like normal Artillery Duel where the game is strictly turn-based: One player selects the turret's angle plus the power of the shot and then fires. The projectile flies off, and once it has landed (or left the play area), it's the other player's turn to do the same.
In ARCADE Mode, both players can control their turrets at the same time, so the game becomes more of a race to hit each other as quickly as possible. The controls are slightly different here: In order to charge up the shot's power, one has to keep the fire button pressed. As soon as the button is released, the shot gets fired off.
The game offers quite a lot of options: I get to choose if I want to play against another human player or the computer, and I can even let two computer players duke it out. Furthermore, I can set the height of the terrain which makes it easier or harder to hit the opponent. Lastly, I have to decide whether I want to hear sound effects or music during the game.
After this flood of options, the game starts in earnest:
This background is the one I associate with Artillery '90 the most, mainly because it calls back one of the more iconic scenes from the 1984 fantasy movie The NeverEnding Story. The sphinxes with lethal laser eyes were somewhat harrowing for a little kid to witness. So was the horse drowning in the swamp. Hm, I forgot how frightening that film was.
Anyway, this game features neither murderous statues nor dying horses, but good old military warfare instead. At least, I assume this depicts an armed conflict between two nations and not just a disagreement between two neighbors that somehow escalated into both installing turrets in their backyards. On second thought, I actually prefer the latter, and since the game doesn't provide a backstory, I'm just going to call my version canon.
The terrain is randomly generated each time. I chose an average mountain height and got one of the more balanced-looking seeds that don't immediately put one player at an advantage.
Like in most of these artillery games, you can adjust the angle and the firepower by moving the joystick up/down and left/right. Once you press the fire button, the projectile flies across the screen in an arc that can get shorter or longer, depending on the current wind speed and direction. If your shot lands on the terrain, it leaves behind a hole. If it lands on the opponent's turret, it reduces part of its shield.
My first shot was a good guess, but it didn't reach far enough to hit the target. Since I'm playing in Tactic Mode, I can wait for the wind to settle down if it is changing a lot.
Of course, my opponent can do the same and promptly lands the first shot. I'm currently playing in Two Player Mode, and due to a lack of a real second player, I'm my own enemy for the length of this game. I'm going to call my antagonistic side Bob so I appear less crazy if I refer to myself in the third person.
A turret can take between four and five hits before it explodes. At first I thought that the amount of damage was determined by the impact speed of the projectile, but after some experimentation, I'm not sure if velocity is the only determining factor.
Here you can see me exacting sweet revenge on Bob and cause more damage to boot. My counterstrike shaved one additional pixel line off his turret's shield, probably thanks to the higher arc of my shot. In fact, the bullet briefly leaves the C64's regular screen space and enters the opened top border where the blimp and hot air balloon cruise around.
Once the players have managed to hit each other, the game usually comes down to adjusting the angle/firepower to compensate for any wind changes. Wherever this duel is taking place, the local weather forecast must have a really hard time predicting anything with intense storms coming and going in a matter of seconds.
Welp, I dodged a bullet right there. If the wind reaches a level around 30, it's near impossible to fire an accurate shot. Aiming against the wind's direction can blow your projectile right back onto your turret which is just as embarrassing as it sounds.
Judging by the rocket that just flew past, we don't seem to be the only people in dire disagreement. Whatever is going on in the background doesn't have any effect on the actual game, though. For a while, I tried to see if I could shoot anything down, but bullets just fly through any sprites in the sky. And yeah, Bob exploited the tailwind and just hit me a second time, reducing my turret's shield to 50%.
SEVERAL TURNS LATER
I've lost the round and, judging by the number of explosions, the game really wants to make sure I'm aware of this fact. As you can see by the shields, it was a pretty close call. I wasted quite a few shots trying to counteract the erratic wind changes while Bob could just aim really low and let the air drag his projectiles over to my side.
The next stage, as beautiful as it looks, seems like an accident waiting to happen. If I didn't know that the background remains static, I'd fully expect this petty conflict to result in some highrise buildings inadvertently getting punctured.
This time, my turret got placed as far to the left as possible. While my position is rather exposed, it could still be an advantage, as Bob will have to be careful not to fire his shots out of bounds.
Indeed, the wind is at my side now as well. Even at maximum firepower, Bob's shot only barely makes it to the other side. The game is nice enough to keep on calculating the bullet's trajectory, even if it temporarily leaves the visible playfield.
SOON
So much for having an advantage. I lost again.
The third stage takes place in a more rural area. The steep cliffs with a few buildings sprinkled on top of them remind me of several establishing shots from Game of Thrones for no particular reason. Maybe these are the famous Norwegian fjords I've heard so much about. In any case, we're not here to adore the scenery, we're here for wanton destruction.
Destruction of my turret, to be more precise. The wind was very tame during this round, and once I had a lock on my opponent's position, he could just copy my settings in order to reach me. Then the wind slightly changed, causing me to hit the terrain right in front of Bob's turret, and that was enough for him to get the lead and smash me to bits shortly thereafter.
I love how chilled out the music is compared to what is happening on the screen. There is only one track playing in the background, but the tune is strong enough that it doesn't get repetitive even after several loops. It was composed by Michael Hendriks who was also responsible for Baby Jack's soundtrack. If you listen to both games back-to-back you can kind of tell they had the same musician, as there is a certain style the tracks have in common. Here's a YouTube video for your listening pleasure. It also features two computer AIs frantically trying to hit each other in Arcade Mode:
And now, back to my ongoing battle with Bob:
In our selection of the fourth stage, we show a complete disregard for historical buildings and archaeology in general. Nobody lives in these dwellings anymore, so let's just continue our ballistic duel right here. One more hole won't be noticed.
AND THEN
Risking the destruction of an ancient city was totally worth it for me because I managed to win this round. Whoever was in that helicopter is probably going to report our shenanigans, so I declare this series of battles to be over. The game allows for as many rounds as the players desire, but since the backgrounds start repeating after the fourth stage, this seems like a good spot to cease fire. Bob won 3 to 1, so whatever our disagreement was about, he can consider himself in the right.
  Artillery '90 runs in Multicolor Bitmap Mode which allows for more colorful graphics. One telltale sign that a game uses this mode, aside from the higher color count, can be the complete absence of single color (full resolution) characters (e.g. all Last Ninja games have chunky multicolor fonts). In Multicolor Character Mode it's still possible to use single color characters, but it comes with the restriction that three of the four colors have to be shared across the entire screen.An interesting thing to note, at least in my opinion, is that once the game starts, the disk is not accessed anymore. Similar to Puzzle Shuffle (which was released on the same Golden Disk 64 issue), all the game's backgrounds reside in memory in one large, continuous junk of memory. The image to the left shows this memory block which spans three screens worth of bitmap information. Since the actual color values are stored elsewhere and can vary from one 8x8 pixel tile to another, I just picked the C64's three grays (plus black) as a neutral gradient to make the pictures recognizable. Whenever a new round starts, one of the backgrounds gets copied onto the screen at address $E000. At this point, the visible background is actually stored twice in memory. This might look like a waste of space at first, but there is a good reason or this. The copied bitmap gets painted over in the next step when the game draws the terrain:  I slowed down the level buildup in the above animation. At first, the black outline of the terrain is drawn over the background with a "brush" that is 2 pixels wide and 7 pixels high. Then the blue terrain is drawn over the outline with a routine that leaves a black line of at least 2 by 2 pixels. After that, some simple decorative elements, like trees and buildings, are copied into the terrain. And lastly, the two turret sprites are positioned. Apart from sprites, the C64 has no concept of layers. There is no way to draw a bitmap (e.g. the terrain in this game) in front of another (the background) without overwriting pixel information. The terrain gets stripped away over time in Artillery '90 which means that parts of the background become visible again and have to be restored. In that case, the background pixels that get revealed are copied from the untouched bitmap. |
CONCLUSION
Artillery '90 is a game for two players, first and foremost. For that reason, it is certainly not one of my most played games on the C64. Playing against the computer is a bit dull, and I think the number of times I played against a friend can be counted on two hands. Regardless, I think Artillery '90 provides some good entertainment for what it is.
The game's most innovative feature is the Arcade Mode where both players can shoot simultaneously. The game gets way more frantic here and is, in my opinion, the most enjoyable way to play if you have a human opponent at hand.
Apart from that, the game feels a bit barebones. All you can do is adjust your turret's angle and firepower and that's it. I would have liked the option to choose between several weapons with different effects when they hit the ground. As it stands, the impact of one shot on the terrain is rather minimal and ignores gravity entirely.
What Artillery '90 may lack in game variety it makes up for in great presentation. The awesome background graphics were drawn by Peter van Driel who also contributed his pixel skills to Puzzle Shuffle. Michael Hendrik's music gives the game a relaxed atmosphere. While this might appear a bit contradictory at first, it turns out to work really well here. Any urges to strangle your opponent during a tense battle are subdued by the game's calming tones.
If you are looking for a two-player game that provides some competitive fun for half an hour, Artillery '90 is certainly worth your time. It is a very competent representative of the artillery genre and probably one of the best looking and sounding on the C64.
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