Paradroid 90

Paradroid 90 is the remake of the old classic C64 game by Andrew Braybrook, who designed quite some great games. In earlier years, people were far more ingenious when it came to video game designing, although it is true that nowadays it can be difficult to invent something that doesn’t exist yet.

In Paradroid you control a droid, which is stuck on a huge spaceship containing 16 different decks with other droids flying, moving, hovering around. You are a unit 001 droid, which is obviously the smallest unit on the ship, and your job is to clean all the 16 decks and get rid of all the other droids onboard. Easier said than done, as the higher rank robots also come with different weapons, and want to destroy you.

You have a small laser beam too, although not a very powerful one, but your biggest weapon is probably your hacking ability. You have a kind of electrical interface tool which allows you to “dock” to other droids, and hack them to be able to control them.

The game then switches to the hacking screen, where you can first chose which side you wanna be, the layout is always different, and you might pick the side which favors you, also because as a smaller unit droid, you have less power nods to use as the higher rank ones. You also have a time limit, so studying the layout before starting is key here. Attacking a unit 999 with your 001 will definitely not work and will end in immediate termination.

You will need to work your way up slowly to higher ranked droids, as controlling stronger units, helps you cleaning a deck a lot faster. There’s another major problem though, you are able to control the droids after hacking them, but only for a certain period of time, at some point, you will lose control of them, and return to your initial 001 unit droid, so hacking others on a regular basis is mandatory. Also keep in mind that higher rank droids, are controlled even less long, so units from 800 to 999 are probably not your best choice, as you control them only for very short time, perhaps controlling one to get rid of some upper, higher rank droid controlled decks is a good move.

You also have a nicely done droid interface, where you can collect information about all the droids, their movement type, weaponry, class or type. Again, the Amiga version has some really nice and detailed graphics of all the droids, and it’s rewarding to try to control every single unit, just to see what they look like, and which features they have. Just wait until you control once unit 999.

This is how you continue your journey, cleaning deck after deck, trying to survive, and not getting destroyed by the other droids. The game is a lot of fun, and you can pass some great time with it. I never managed to finish the game, it will be rather difficult to wipe all the decks off the droids, and sometimes it can get quite hectic. The Amiga conversion is a real beauty compared to the C64, although the game being exactly the same, 1:1 conversion, no changes or additions have been made.

Music is not really existing besides the title one, the game uses droid beeping, hacking and laser shooting sounds, which are all well done, and totally fit the atmosphere.

For me it stays still one of my all time favorite retro games, which I play from time to time. I would recommend playing the Amiga version, as it is the best one available by far.

TRANSMISSION ENDED!!!

DeadVoivod