Eliminator

The Good
Great graphics, fast and frantic action and a great theme tune.

The Bad
Nothing really - Kind of like a modern day Galaxians on speed - learn the patterns, collect the pick-ups and survive to the end of the track

The Bottom Line
An essential addition to any 80's games collection, Fast, 3d shooting action coupled with great graphics and good sound.

The Good
Eliminator is not to be confused with the 1981 arcade game by Sega/Gremlin where you have to fly around and try to destroy a spheroid. This version was released in 1988 and it was created by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson. Before this game, Philips designed an arcade adventure called Scavenger, and its use of shadows proved too much for the system he was designing for.

The game starts off with an awesome introduction by Linel Switzerland, showing some credits drifting off into the horizon, accompanied by an excellent piece of music. The intro only runs on Amigas carrying the OCS chipset. You won't be able to see this intro if you are using a cracked version of Eliminator from the likes of Bamiga Sector One or Ackerlight due to the reduced file size.

There are fourteen stages, and each stage involves you shooting enemies and avoiding obstacles on a moving walkway. Coming in contact with ramps allow you to either jump over them or onto another walkway that lets you travel upside-down. I was quite impressed that you can this. The walkway itself looks very good, and the backgrounds that serve each stage usually contain gradients and other things like stars and planets (that move around depending on what angle the walkway is).

The sound effects are quite good, but the music can be quite annoying since it repeats the same pattern over and over again, but with different pitches. Fortunately, you can turn it off during the game. The music that plays on the title screen and the end-of-level statistics is well composed.

Eliminator uses a password system where you can start at any stage other than the first one. This makes it ideal for people wanting to take a break from the game and restart at another stage they left off without having to go back and replay the stage. Or, if they already finish the stage, they can play it again just to admire the graphics or want to experience it again. In between stages, I like how the game reminds you how to enter the password.

The Bad
Like most games that were made in the Eighties, people often seen this as an Atari ST port, which does not take full advantage of the Amiga's capabilities. I have seen both ports, and they are basically the same but the Amiga version has improved music.

The Bottom Line
Although Eliminator for the Amiga may be a straight ST port, it features a superb introduction before you get straight into the game, and in my opinion, this introduction isn't seen on any other port besides this one. The game has you traveling along a moving walkway, shooting down enemies and jumping over obstacles. The way that you can travel upside-down is quite impressive, and there is a password feature that lets you restart a game at a different level other than the first one. All in all, an excellent game.