Microbes

1992 saw the release of Microbes on the Amiga systems, a Shooter game, created by Vision and published by Amiga Format for free as a Public Domain.

I was fairly looking forward to what sounded like a lively and zap-crazed Tempest derivative. But yet again, in what's becoming a horribly familiar scenario, shattered dreams were the order of the day. It all starts promisingly, and for the first few minutes you think 'Yeah, corking stuff!' as you whizz around the rim of a circle blazing away heroically at the pulsating horde of tiny amoeba-like baddies throbbing their way out at you.

Sadly, an hour and a half later when you're on level 53 with all your lives still intact and the difficulty level not significantly higher than it was at the start you begin to have doubts. I ended up playing this one-handed while conducting a telephone conversation and not even watching the screen, and I still couldn't get killed. It's all lushly presented and professionally done, but this is strictly for those of you who find Fun School 4 too taxing.

Very nicely done, but an unutterably dull game beneath the attractive facade. For the terminally untalented only.

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