Old vs. New: Mutant Fortress vs. Mechwars Centipede

CURRENT SCORE: OLD GAMES 4

NEW GAMES 8

This is about two thirds of a nice loading screen

MUTANT FORTRESS

(Players, 1989)

Six people made this. Does it show? Game by committee perhaps? Evil mutants have stolen your beloved. Truck, that is, hence this game is also known as The Muties Stole My Truck. A shiny 18 wheeler too. Let's hope it's not the Coca Cola one or holidays won't be comin' till you get that bad mother back.

Old men attack. "Do you know where the nearest post office is?"

Battle through forest and wasteland, and destroy all mutants, including dinosaurs, Frankenstein's monsters and angry birds. Pick up new weapons, health top-ups and avoid bear traps and excessive radiation. This must be just outside Chernobyl.

You've picked up a great gun, that's good. But now you've mis-aimed and a seagull is about to slam full into your face

It's all a bit Ghosts 'N' Goblins. Only a bit slows 'n' monochromes. And rather hards 'n' harshes, since I couldn't master the first level at all. There's an okay tune on the menu screen, but only splatty noises in-game. Graphics are nice and sharp, if monochrome. It's just a little unexciting and feels like a mission Joe Blade might have passed on.

Walking lizards with stiff arm muscles are after you now. Get jumping

This scenario is begging for a bad B-movie to be made of it

MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

(ZXBitles, 2021)

Straight outta ZX Dev. 2021 came this follow-up to Mechwars Arena, by thoses nice Red Raid people. Colonists escaped the cursed world (Isn't that where Judge Dredd lives?) and landed on a planet far, far away. Then comms went down. So off you toddle to see what the heck went wrong. Probably something to do with huge centipedes.

Henhouse Harry got himself an upgrade since Chuckie Egg

You have 5 missions to complete, and a survival mode if surviving is your thing. You stomp around in your Robot Jox/Pacific Rim mechanism, shooting baddies and collecting mushrooms (eh?) There are trees and buildings to admire.

The white thing flying across the screen to the far right is my robot's noggin

It's pretty cunning to put a storyline into a Centipede game, so props for that. Your robot gubbins moves around reasonably well considering its bulk, and fires alternately out of its two turrets, which can prove tricky. Graphics, colour and sound are all good, with digitised speech demanding "Put down your weapon" (RoboCop I think) plus some funky, unusual music on loading after a cracking load screen. Spot effects only in the game. The high point? When the centipede rips off your robot's head and spits it across the screen. Nice!

Clearly this is no ordinary Centipede clone...

VERDICT

BEST GRAPHICS - MUTANT FORTRESS

BEST COLOUR - MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

BEST SOUND - MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

MOST ORIGINAL - MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

MOST PLAYABLE - MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

MOST ADDICTIVE - MECHWARS CENTIPEDE

FINAL SCORE

MUTANT FORTRESS 1 MECHWARS CENTIPEDE 5

Mechwars Centipede wins!