16. Lazarian
Let's play ourselves some more games. They're easy to pick up, fun to write about, and not too demanding. In fact, let's pick up a game that, while not well known, certainly leaves a lasting impression in its own special way. Let's give Bally Midway's 1983 C64 space shooter title Lazarian a whirl.
According to the game's manual, the player is the pilot of a space fighter stationed in a remote sector of the galaxy, with a mission to rescue stranded starships while battling various hazards.
Lazarian is broken down into three phases. The first involves circling around a friendly ship trapped inside of a force field and shooting meteors that then free themselves from the field and hurtle towards you. The second phase is a race up a winding tunnel with various types of baddies along the way, while the third and final phase is a boss battle against the "deadly one-eyed space leviathan, LAZARIAN" (the instruction manual's emphasis, not mine). The level design itself is intuitive, and I was able to figure out what to do on each screen before long. You also get a bit of helpful flavor text along the way - for instance, I knew to shoot the boss in the eye due to the giant "SHOOT THE EYE" text on screen at all times. With all of the C64 manuals that have been thrown into the trash bin over the years, it's nice to have some of the instructions digitally preserved by the developer in advance.
The overall experience of playing this fairly-true-to-form coin-op port is.. well, weird. I understand the intent was to create an alien atmosphere, which implies a bit of foreign imagery here and there. However, when the game's art style is compounded by the low-res minimal-complexity approach of early Commodore titles (particularly the more capacity-limited cartridge versions), it comes off as more of an acid trip than a space quest for the most part.
The controls are OK - I was impressed by how fluidly your ship tends to move around. This is a joystick-only game with support for 8-way movement. You can also shoot in any of 4 directions by aiming with the joystick while holding the fire button. Shooting, however, is a little iffy - you're limited by the short reach of your laser, and I found it sometimes took multiple tries to aim it in the proper direction. Firing also saps your ship's fuel, meaning this inefficiency increases your chance of running out of juice before you can accomplish your objectives.
The graphics also fall into an acceptable midrange. While they're a step below the arcade original (again owing to resolution limitations), they're not terrible. There's not a ton of detail present, and we're left with the flat black background found in so many arcade shooters set in space over the years. However, the color scheme is nice and bright, and none of the sprites get lost in the midst of the action.
The sound is on par with the arcade original, and is arguably less grating, with the coin-op's monophonic background music being replaced with smoother-sounding sine wave instrumentation (though maintaining a few annoying and repetitive sound effects, unfortunately). Don't expect symphonic bliss from your SID chip and you won't be disappointed.
All in all, this isn't what I'd call a terrible game, and I admire developer Andy Finkel for their ambition in stuffing multiple types of levels and variations in gameplay onto a single C64 cart. Like a significant portion of its early-80s CBM contemporaries, this is a competent port and certainly impressive in its historical context as an individual effort. Does that mean it's a classic, or even great? Nah, not really. It's worth a few plays and a bit of slack-jawed befuddlement before it's (likely permanently) placed back onto the Shelf of Dubious Purchases. Points for trying, though.
Think you've got what it takes to beat my high score in Lazarian? Check out our High Scores page and submit a screenshot to earn your spot in Hank's hall of fame!
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