 Three billion
miles is a long way from home. But there's no shorter
route from outer Neptune to Earth.
As if that weren't enough . . it's got to be a shoot-out
all the way. You alone in your rapid-firing spaceship,
swirling in a circular flight pattern . . . orbiting to
the right . . . arcing to the left . . . trying to mow
down
wave after wave of enemy plane formations, rocketing
meteors and run- away satellites. Stops at Uranus,
Saturn, Jupiter and Mars will mark your progression
towards Earth. Each one's a short visit, though. Then
it's off again to the next planet--and the next wave of
enemies. Reach Earth in one piece and maybe you'll think
twice about leaving home. Then again . . .
maybe not!
From
Atari 2600 manual
Gyruss
is a unique and timeless piece of arcade game
design, a pure, simple and unadulterated shooter of the
kind they just don't make any more..and more's the pity.
The game was designed by Konami
programmer Yoshiki
Okamoto, who also created the classic Time Pilot. It can
best be described as a pseudo-3D version of Galaga,
with
the player controlling a ship which can move through 360
degrees around the edges of the screen, while alien ships
swirl in from all directions converging in a formation at
the vanishing point at the screens centre. As you clear
each stage you get progressively closer to Earth,
the game's
final objective.
Playing
Gyruss is an almost hypnotic experience,
while the aliens zoom in from the edges of the screen
and the stars swirl and spiral in the background, and
a great pop-synth version of Bach's Tocatta
blares out
on the soundtrack, it's all too easy to lose
concentration
for a second or two. Which can be a fatal mistake at the
higher levels, as they are Hard with a capital H!
While I was a
huge fan of the arcade version the nearest
I could get at home to the Gyruss experience was with Parker
Bros (admittedly good) C64 version. The NES
version also warrants a mention due to the fact that it
included a few added end-of-stage bosses, unlike the
original. Hmm.. there's a time and place for bosses but
Gyruss wasn't really one of them in my opinion.. However
now we can enjoy the original (and best) arcade version
in all it's glory (great music and all) in MAME.
Interestingly,
Gyruss programmer Yoshiki Okamoto left Konami soon after
it was released after it failed to do as well as Time
Pilot - he went on to design 1942, 1943, Sidearms, Final
Fight and Street Fighter 2 for Capcom (where he still works) soon
after..
Further reading: hyper-space over to Justin Carpenter's
excellent ' Three Warps Till Neptune ' site for a full run-down on
everything you ever wanted to know about Gyruss.
Another nice
Gyruss page! :
Computolio's Gyruss Home Page
Also well
worth reading is a fascinating
interview with Gyruss creator Okamoto here:
Videogame Spot's interview with
Yoshiki Okamoto
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