Uridium

The Good
Graphically Uridium was in a league of it's own. Running at a consistent silky smooth 50-frames per second - Uridium's crisp detailed metallic stylings looked like a coin-op, and was every arcade loving C64 owners dream come true. Aside from the varied and detailed enemy ships, Uridium gave you huge dreadnaughts to carve up and ultra-rapid fire with which to do it, leaving detailed craters and debris in your wake. Being able to flip the ship on it's side was inspired design also - giving some of gaming's most heart-stopping moments. Once you'd landed the craft and triggered the destruction of the dreadnaught (via a simple yet brilliant mini-game) You got to fly over it one last time as it melted beneath you satisfyingly, giving you a few seconds to relax and compose yourself for the next stage. Sonically the game excelled too, with a great title-screen tune and wide range of memorable sound fx.
The presentation, balance, gameplay, style and downright fun this game offered were unique. Often copied - never equalled. Andrew Braybrook's genius oozed from every pixel.

Just awesome.

The Bad
Not a thing - It was perfect.

The Bottom Line
Amongst the greatest shoot-em-ups of all time.

The Good
What Braybrook did had never been done before. Shooting games are either horizontally or vertically scrolling, but even though Uridium seems like another horizontally scrolling shooting game for the first few seconds, you will soon notice that you may turn around on the spot and hunt down the enemies which just passed you by. You turn around once again, and notice that you may raise your speed several times. Uridium is a fast game, but not only that. When you've passed the dreadnought, all the while dodging not only enemies but also obstacles installed on the ship, you are forced to turn around. This is not a horizontally scrolling game, it's a game where you strafe back and forth across a giant ship, destroying it piece by piece, until you are required to land and "destroy the core". Surprisingly, few other games have taken this style, preferring the traditional forced scroll format.

The Bad
The original Uridium is a very difficult game. It's very fast, so fast that you need lightning reflexes in order to avoid the obstacles on the dreadnought. It is very frustrating, to the point where even an experienced shoot'em-up player struggles to complete the first level.

The follow-up on the Amiga, Uridium 2, is a much more approachable game, much thanks to its radar which warns you in proper time of both enemy waves and obstacles.

The Bottom Line
This game must be played, it's a C64 classic and more than that. It is an entirely new "direction" in shooting games.

The Good
many different targets to shoot at, and some interesting dreadnaught ship designs. This is a classic game that should have got a bit more attention on the market (compared to others)

The Bad
Some times things happen too quickly in the game, like you'd have an enemy ship come by you so fast and shoot you (and your ship destroyed).

The Bottom Line
If you've never played it, give it a shot, it certainly kills a few minutes if you want something to do.