Garrison

Garrison was produced by Rainbow Arts, a highly skilled European Amiga demo group, as a Gauntlet clone.

In case you're not familiar with Gauntlet, it's a multi-directional-scrolling, top-down view, dungeon based shoot-em-up, (phew). You and some friends dash around various dungeon levels, collect potions, treasure and food, killing ghosts, goblins and anything else that looks at you oddly. The various baddies are generated by some object or other, a collection of bones in the case of the ghosts, and if you destroy these generators, you at least know that after wiping all the remaining enemy no more will be produced. Some enemies fire projectiles at you, some just drain health by making physical contact. Death, a character in black, pursues you doggedly, and when he touches you, your health decreases at an alarming rate.

It's all very good, and for it's time was a pretty a good programming job with some nice touches that typically eluded US Gold's official version. The rock guitar music in the intro is slightly reminiscent of Dire Straits' 'Money for Nothing' and there's the odd 'copper' trick that doubtless made us feel superior to owners of the Atari ST. The player's sprites are pretty slow at covering ground though, and generally it feels much less frantic than it did back in 1987.

This is an excellent Gauntlet clone that is best played with two players, due to the high difficulty of the game. There is a plot involving a princess, and the graphics and sound is great. There is actually one data disk that can be used with the original game. With the data disk, the levels are modified and the title screen looks similar to Gauntlet II. This is the only Gauntlet clone on the Amiga, so I'll say this: if you have played Atari's arcade game and want to play it at home, then Garrison is for you.

Search gameplay videos on YouTube (opens in a new tab)