[LGR Theme plays]
[whoosh]
[shotgun, grunt]
[sips] Aahhh...
[typing]
[explosion]
[music ends]
In March of 1995,
Parallax Software and Interplay Productions
took the first-person gaming world by storm with Descent.
It was an action-packed first- person shooter that, unlike Doom,
featured true 3D movement with six degrees of freedom.
It was as if lightning had struck first-person gaming
and as such, the imitators soon started appearing.
One of those was Pyrotechnica,
released a few months after Descent in 1995
by Psygnosis and GT Interactive.
I had never even heard of the game until it was donated to me
by a fan of Lazy Game Reviews.
Thank you again, Earl! I am indeed staying solid,
firm and avoiding liquid form.
Just by looking at the somewhat standard sci-fi box art,
you'd have no idea what the game really is,
and even looking on the back at the screenshots and description doesn't help too much, either.
Whatever the case, the game is based in the year 2112,
where the Terran Hardlight Corporation
is paying runners tons of cash to retrieve information capsules
buried in the hearts of ancient stars.
No.
Yes.
But unfortunately, there are these Borg- wannabe aliens known as Adherents
that ruthlessly defend these stars,
so grabbing the capsules is tough business.
It is your job as a runner to get in and get out,
and survive, presumably.
I have no idea why the game is called Pyrotechnica,
since it never explicitly says.
So I suppose you might be a specialist with that ship,
but that's just a guess.
The box also states that it is a game presented by game designer Colin Parrott,
like it's supposed to mean something, even though it doesn't list any credentials.
The only game I could find that he was positively involved with before this
was the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi arcade game.
But whatever, it's cool that they at least acknowledged the designer,
even though it means nothing to the consumer.
After starting the game, you are greeted
with a nifty, pre-rendered intro cinematic video
showing what is presumably your ship
and some locations that you will encounter,
along with some pretty awesome AdLib music.
[AdLib music plays]
Then it's main menu time,
with the options to play the game with one or two players,
change the options, and return to the Microsoft Disk Operating System.
The Options you'll definitely want to hit up, since you can change the options,
which are useful for those of you who like options,
even though they're completely optional.
The controls are a bit confusing, though.
There is no in-game reminder of the keys,
so you'll have to refer to the manual for those.
Except that there is no manual.
It turns out there's a text file on the CD with the manual
that you'll need to read in DOS
or print out if you want to read it.
Thankfully, the inside of the box is exactly the same size
as an 8½ x 11 sheet of paper folded in half,
so it's perfect for storing a printed version of the manual.
Being that this is a 3D first-person spaceship shooter,
I figured a joystick might be a good choice to use for controls,
but after trying to enable it about 100 times in the options,
it never, ever worked.
And I tried multiple joysticks on multiple computers,
and even tried emulating it in DOSBox, but it was just no use.
I don't know if it's my version of the game. I really don't know what it is.
I simply could not get joystick support to work with it.
In fact, the manual actually highly recommends NOT using a joystick,
but to instead use the keyboard due to the complex controls.
So, whatever, dude.
Beginning a one-player game provides you with three difficulty levels
and the option to load a saved game, if you have one.
Choose one of these and you're shown a map screen of the current level,
with a top-down view of the map above and a side view below.
This not only shows you the layout of the map,
but where key items are located.
The goal of the game is extremely simple:
make it to the end of the level without dying and get the highest score.
You have a set number of lives, and once you're out of them, game over.
So, yeah, it's actually more of an arcade game than anything else.
You start in a small empty cube of a room
with your ship's thrust at full blast,
so you'll want to get that under control immediately
by pressing the 1 through 0 keys on the keyboard.
You can pilot your ship in any direction you would like,
but after letting go of the controls,
it will quickly re-orient you to your original orientation.
Kind of odd, I thought,
and it takes some serious getting used to.
You can press Space to fire your primary weapon,
usually missiles and grenades,
and S to fire your secondary weapon,
usually guns or mines.
You actually have unlimited ammo
and access to practically every weapon right from the get-go,
so that's very different from the typical
weapons-collecting system from most first-person games.
Weapons will have to recharge before using them again, though,
as does your shield.
Speaking of your shield, it's practically useless,
because even just a hit or two can totally deplete it.
Then you're open to damage,
and you can take very little before you're demoted
to sitting duck status.
To make things worse, enemies tend to move very quickly,
and due to the auto-centering controls, it can get very annoying.
To make things even worse,
almost every time you get hit, your ship will bounce all over the place
like you're a pinball... in a pinball machine.
In a washing machine. In an earthquake. It's annoying.
And this is on the easiest difficulty.
I do not even want to know how the harder ones are.
You do have chaff and flares to deploy against enemy fire,
which is kind of cool in theory, but I rarely remember that they're there,
especially when I'm getting beat into submission,
and instead just try and retreat.
Half the time you're getting shot before you can even aim at anything
so things can get disorienting really fast.
I guess that's why your ship automatically re-orients you to your default orientation,
but then again, it also makes it worse
because it really makes it hard to aim with any kind of consistency.
Or maybe I just really friggin' suck at this game.
[AdLib music plays]
At least the levels themselves look cool,
with a dark and minimalistic style going on.
Including interesting dashes of color
that really make me feel like I'm flying around a sort of
Rez meets "Tron" world.
Some people might not like how stark things look,
but I'm pretty sure it's awesome.
Plus, it makes the things you need to pay attention to pretty obvious.
The levels are also quite small,
so even though you might get a bit disoriented,
at least you get used to where everything is pretty quickly,
and you have an in-game map to refer to if you need.
The sound effects and music are also appropriate
and definitely adds to that arcadey style that permeates everything.
Well-played booms, zaps, and Sonic the Hedgehog skidding noises
make for awesome auditory arcade aspects.
[skidding sound]
I mean, it really is an arcade game at heart,
as opposed to the more-involved fare
normally seen with PC games of the time, like Descent and Doom.
You've even got score multipliers,
time-limited power-ups,
and extra shields scattered around the level.
It's fun to try to get through the levels as quickly as possible
while only achieving the required goals,
namely shutting down the power generator at the end of the level
and rescuing any trapped wingmen.
But for me, it just gets too frantic too often
and mostly I just feel like my ship has been overpowered and gang raped
before I even had a chance to think about defending myself.
Again, that's part of the arcade game feel, I suppose...
but it's more grating than enjoyable for me.
The only other mode to explore is the two-player mode,
and that's just simply taking turns one after each other,
trying to get the highest score.
It just feels tacked on and is not really a selling point at all,
which is probably why it wasn't mentioned on the box.
So, Pyrotechnica is...a game.
It's a first-person arcade shooter that's really simple and really tough.
The contrasting color scheme is pretty awesome,
and the gameplay CAN be fun,
at least when you feel like you're not fighting the controls
more than you are the unfair AI.
And that's the problem for me.
It's just stuck in an odd place between arcade fun and PC first-person shooting.
As such, I never feel like it achieves either
to the level I would like in order to fully recommend it.
But if you're into Descent-like shooters
and think the brutal gameplay can be a challenging change of pace,
I'd at least give it a shot because it's really not all THAT bad.
But personally, I just completely suck at it
and can't stand it for very long.
[AdLib music plays to the end]