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Funkmaster V Reviews
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7800 Rank: Unranked
Genre: SHMUP
Awards: None
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Its Star Wars! If the AT-STs were stick figures and the Millennium Falcon dropped bombs. |
Pros:
The Millennium Falcon looks good, Increased challenge over Xevious
Cons:
The Xevious music sounds terrible in a Star Wars game |
Well now... there's some odd stuff going on at the marina. |
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Overview: You may be surprised to find out that there are not one, but TWO Star Wars 7800 carts floating around the galaxy. These are not original homebrews or ports of the tremendous Atari arcade game, but graphic hacks of two arcade ports. This game, Star Wars, (also called Star Wars X or Star Wars 7800 in some nasty cantinas) is a graphical hack of the classic arcade port of Xevious from the mind of Gambler172.
What We Gotz Here: Although "Star Wars" is just a graphic hack, I feel like Gambler unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) made this game more challenging by converting the round "bullets" that the Empire shoots into elongated laser blasts (wish they were red instead of white). These laser blasts can be quite difficult to dodge. The main Xevious ship has been replaced by a pretty good looking Millennium Falcon... although its equipped with bombs. (That should drive Star Wars fans that hate the new trilogy bonkers). The tie fighters look good, but other ships are harder to identify as to what in the Empire armada they are supposed to be. The AT-ATs look pretty OK, but they move too fast, and the AT-STs are pretty rudimentary looking but they look decent (although they tend to freak out in the water like they are being electrocuted). Gambler added odd symbols (T's and Y's) to various ground bases. I love Star Wars but I'm confused on what these are supposed to be... I have no idea. Maybe the symbols are not tied to Star Wars. Maybe he's just saying Thank You over and over again. There's also Atari Fujis on the flipping metal walls (Bad Ass for sure... but not very Star Wars-y). The mothership has been replaced by what I assume is the Death Star... but it looks pretty terrible.
The absolute best thing about Star Wars 7800 is the patch Gambler172 included with the cart. I love this thing. Just look at it! So impressive! Every man my age needs a Star Wars 7800 patch in their lives!!! I don't know who made this but its brilliant.
Verdict: Its Xevious. That's a pretty good thing. But the Xevious music is definitely not the John Williams score, and the lack of Star Wars strings hurts the immersion experience IMO. Still, you get to pretend to be flying the Millennium Falcon in a new adventure on a far off wooded planet and that's always a fun time.
May the Force be with you Curious Oddity
Additional Information: I would like to thank myself for the screenshots used in this review, and Trebor for his compiling of all available 7800 ROMS in his ROM pack.
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