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Another fine version of the classic arcade game Scramble, Penetrator was released for the ZX Spectrum by Melbourne House in 1983.

As everyone knows, the game was a right to left scrolling shooter and you had to destroy suface to air missiles and radar stations.

Your fighter could move up and down as well as \'thrusting\' forwards and \'braking\' backwards.

ZX Spectrum Games Penetrator

The game actually went some way to explaining your crafts movements: The minimum height your fighter could reach was determined by the terrain. Your maximum height was determined by the \'fighter aerodynamics\', but could also be limited by the surroundings. So when you entered the underground defence caverns, there would be a rocky ceiling to avoid.

Also, due to the forward momentum requirements of your fighter, you could not stop the craft for any length of time - this is why the game was a constant scroller!

Your fighter was also equiped with a forward firing missile launcher (allow rapid fire) and a bomb launcher to destroy ground targets. Only two bombs could be in the air at one time though.

The enemy radar bases added some depth to the game. The bases did not fire at you, but attempted to track your flight path. They would then send more accurate information to the missile launchers making them more difficult to avoid. Destroying the radar bases quickly was an effective strategy to keeping the \'danger level\' to a minimum.

Penetrator on the ZX SpectrumThe danger level was displayed on your console, and continued to build as you penetrated further into enemy territory. There was only one sure fire way to reduce the danger level - blowing up the cool sounding neutron bomb store, thereby damaging the enemy missile command centre. Bwah ha haa!

The game was kept fresh by the varying levels (flying through caverns was quite tricky) and differing enemies. Some levels had paratroopers to shoot and avoid - a nice twist to Scramble!

On release:
Scramble arcade games were all the rage when this game was released on the ZX Spectrum and Penetrator was a pretty good version. The game was quite \'customisable\' too - allowing you to run training simulations with unlimited lives, re-define the landscape and even alter the positions of enemy missiles and radar stations. Impressive stuff. Penetrator is a true retro game (check out the opening!) and was popular way back in 1983.

The test of time:
Well Scramble is a classic arcade game, and Penetrator is a pretty playable version on the good old Spectrum. We here in Spectrum Games reckon it\'s one of the better versions and is definately worth a go. It will keep you amused for a little while.

Grab your joystick and give it your best Penetrator.

We recommend getting hold of the real Sinclair hardware but if not then download Penetrator for a ZX Spectrum emulator. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other ZX Spectrum retro game reviews and programmer interviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Scrolling arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1983
RELEASED BY: Melbourne House
DEVELOPER(S): Veronika Megler, Philip Mitchell
PRICE: £6.95 - UK

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, Spectrum gaming was so new and, ahem, basic, that software houses felt the need to show off that their latest game was ‘written entirely in machine language, and takes up almost all of the 48K memory.’ And it was into this brave new world that Melbourne House released Penetrator in 1982, boldly proclaiming it ‘the fastest and most exciting game for your 48K Spectrum.’ A bold claim, Melbourne House; shall we put it to the test?

Penetrator is a straight up clone of Konami’s Scramble arcade game, a sideways scrolling shooter in which your mission is to fly a heavily modified Bond Bug through four defence rings and blow up an illegal cache of neutron bombs. In order to succeed you must navigate treacherous landscapes, shoot or avoid the surface to air rockets which will take pot-shots at you, and blow up the radar bases which are tracking your progress.

First impressions are mixed: the first thing you’re treated to on loading it is a brief firework display, followed by an animation of somebody writing the game title on an etch-a-sketch and some very irritating sirens. Thankfully, in 1982 you’d have just spent ten minutes praying to the Chuntey gods so it would take more than an annoying sound effect to make you switch the thing off. Also, you get the option to disable the sirens, which is nice.

It has a slightly odd control system, in that the same key is used for firing your forward lasers, and if held down, accelerating. Although the game is technically Kempston compatible, I couldn’t figure out how to fly the Bond Bug by joystick and not die horribly; thankfully keyboard controls are a little more forgiving. Ok, I hear you say, but what about the game? Well, Penetrator sits squarely in the ‘less is more’ camp of game design; for three out of the four main levels there are only three sprites – the radar bases and missiles, and the Bond Bug - plus your bombs and laser beams. Sound wise you are treated to just enough to do the game justice: a few different engine noises, weapon sounds and explosions.

So is it any good? Is it, indeed, fast and/or exciting? Well yes, it actually is. After a couple of rounds to get to grips with the controls I was able to blast my way through the first couple of levels pretty quickly. That’s not to say it’s easy, mind you; the puke inducing green artificial tunnels of level 3 take being penetrated very seriously, and will do their best to wipe you out at any opportunity. And then in level four we are introduced to a fourth sprite – the instructions refer to them as paratroopers, but they look more like giant disembodied skulls of some sort. And the buggers will laugh at you if they see you wipe out.

You get five ships, and although having to start at the beginning of each level when you lose one can be frustrating, it’s enough to get through the four levels once you get your eye in. But the fifth and final level – a short one where all you have to do is drop a bomb into the illegal weapon dump – is a killer. Because your Bond Bug is constantly moving forwards, you only get one pass before slamming yourself into the back wall, repeatedly, until the last of your lives is used up. If the force is not with you at this point, you’ve pretty much had it.


Succeed, however, and you get 1000 bonus points, an extended firework display, and the momentary feeling that you’ve actually beaten the game – until it points out that you’re still deep in enemy territory in a Bond Bug, and gently shoves you out the door, whereupon you have to do the whole thing again – backwards.


Penetrator is very much pared back to the bare minimum in every respect – except gameplay. I’m sure faster and more exciting games have appeared for your 48K Spectrum since its release, but it remains evidence that if your game plays well, and has the right difficulty level and learning curve, great graphics are not really necessary.

And should you be better at it than me and find the learning curve and overall difficulty level not quite tough enough, Penetrator was also the first game I owned that had a built in level editor – but I’ll let someone else review that, I’ve given myself RSI from so many attempts at level 4…

Review by Steve Trower

@SPTrowerEsq
www.stevetrower.com

Penetrator is a 1982 Sinclair ZX Spectrum game made by Melbourne House programmers Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler. The game is a clone of Konami's 1981 Scramble arcade game. Penetrator was later ported to the TRS-80 and Commodore 64.

Gameplay

In Penetrator, the gamer flies a ship, which can shoot forwards and drop bombs beneath the ship. The first level is on open air, with just mountains to dodge, missiles which try to hit the ship, and animated radars. From the second level onwards, the game is inside increasingly complex caverns, so the ceiling is also a danger, as well as new enemies - the missiles are now sometimes replaced with skulls that can move up and down, blocking the path.

The levels change with no pause, only the screen colour changes. After four levels there is a short fifth level where a base needs to be destroyed by dropping a bomb precisely, and then there is a firework animation as a reward. After all levels are finished, the ship goes back through inversed levels, with backward turned landscape. The ultimate level results in an seemingly impassible landscape, however due to a bug if you accelerate into it you could actually get through but the game crash shortly after.

There is an edit mode for designing levels, and a training mode with infinite number of lives in which one can start from any level. Also, there is a simultaneous two-player mode. The game's sound consisted of a characteristic uplifting theme before ship launch, while in-game there were simultaneous shooting/explosion effects, which was relatively advanced use of the limited one channel Spectrum beeper system at the time.
Reception

Reviews at the time said that graphics and the game were impressive, even stunning.

BYTE praised the graphics of the TRS-80 version of Penetrator and described the game as "eminently playable".