A.E. - Broderbund Really Did Port It to the VIC 20!

 I probably mention this is every VIC 20 article I’ve written, but in the early days of computer gaming, magazines were our main source for what was being released for consoles and computers. While the news and reviews did their best to keep up with an exploding market of game releases, the print ads filled in a lot of the blanks.

Some ads showcased multiple games together while others would focus on a single game, using the full page to show box art, screenshots, and usually a text description of the game. When you’ve got a gorgeous game with high resolution backgrounds, you pay for the full page ad. Broderbund decided to do that with A.E., at first released for the Apple and Atari computers, machines that could certainly handle the high resolution background graphics.

Broderbund actually partnered with a Japanese studio called Programmers-3, from which Jun Wada and Makoto Horai brought forth A.E. The VIC 20 version came a year later thanks to Steven Ohmert, who worked miracles with the hardware limitations of the machine.

From the description, A.E. is somehow Japanese for stingray, and our pollution-cleaning-stingray-shaped-robots are rebelling. As far as what is happening in those gorgeous backgrounds, the game is a fixed position shooter and the enemies deploy in squads of eight, flying around in complex, slithering patterns like the saucers in Attack of the Timelord on the Odyssey 2. 

So A.E. became just another one of those out-of-reach games for the lucky elite who had Apple and Atari computers. However, hope was kindled when months later the same ad appeared, with the addition of text saying it was either “now available” or “coming soon” for the VIC 20. Hey, the same thing happened with Crush, Crumble, & Chomp by Epyx and that game turned out to be very real.

I never saw it in my time as a VIC 20 owner then, and never tried to hunt it down later. I just assumed that it was never released and moved on. A lot of companies were promising lots of games ahead of the 1983 crash. When I began searching Ebay for VIC 20 games, though, it popped up and I remembered that old ad. I watched the sale of the game on Ebay for a few months before pulling the trigger on the most expensive VIC 20 title I have purchased so far.

The copy that I got from Ebay had the gorgeous box, instructions, and the cartridge, all in great shape. This rare treasure of a game was once rented out at a place called Fireside Video ($3.50 a day according to the sticker), which the Ebay seller claims had closed in the mid 1990s and whose stock was just now being sold off. There were several games I got for the VIC 20 last year with the Fireside Video stickers on the boxes or games. One wonders how many other stashes of old games are sitting out there waiting to be discovered in such places. 

Anyways, A.E. at last! I was eager to see if the VIC 20 version even came close to the Apple and Atari screenshots shown in the ad. The VIC 20 is not as powerful of a computer and is not known for handling sprites on the screen, meaning the designers usually work with the graphics of the VIC 20's built-in character set.

Plugging in the cartridge and firing it up, the player is greeted by a good title screen, with the original designers and the VIC 20 programmer who achieved this software marvel all credited in flashing letters. The classic Broderbund logo is shown at the top as well. If the player does nothing, the attract mode shows a quick sample of gameplay before going back to the title screen. This mode eventually cycles through the four different backgrounds used on the VIC 20, which is good since I haven't gotten good enough at A.E. yet to see the last screen.

I started the game and expected the usual fixed position Space Invaders shooter vibe, but something else was going on. The enemies appeared, tiny but visible, and when I pressed fire the twin bullets just exploded above my ship. I was trying to shoot frantically at first, but then assumed that this was one of those one-shot-at-a-time games. Ok, I can adjust and aim. Something was still off, though, as each bullet was still just exploding in a cloud over my head as soon as I released the fire button.

Once again, I realized that while there was only a small instruction sheet, I should probably read it. Sure enough, the missiles one fires detonate when the player releases the button, so the player needs to hold the fire button down until the right moment to release its explosion. Preferably, just ahead of the serpentine movements of the pack of enemy ships. Where have I had to detonate a missile to stop another missile before? 

Missile Command, one of the greatest games of the arcade age, had the player do that from three fixed positions on the bottom of the screen. A.E. does that as well, but with missile batteries that move left and right. That is a very original take on a fixed position shooter and something I had not expected. Nor had I expected the tiny enemy ships to sometimes disappear behind parts of the high resolution backgrounds, but they do!  I guess it was to give the game an early "2.5D" sense of depth to the screen, but it really adds to the challenge.

The VIC 20 version has four different backgrounds while the original Apple and Atari versions had eight. The eight ships emerge and twist their way around the screen, occasionally taking a shot at the player, or flying low enough to crash into their missile battery, and then disappear. Taking out all eight before they disappear and eight new ships emerge nets the player a "Perfect Attack". A counter on the right, below the score and cool logo, tracks the perfect attacks and when three are made, a tone sounds and the next screen loads up.

The backgrounds are a nice change, but the more important difference in the subsequent screens is that the enemy movements become completely different. It's relatively easy to sort of memorize the several different attack patterns on the first screen, but that knowledge becomes useless on the second one. Also seen on the second screen - the eight ships split into two groups of four, each doing their own thing in a different part of the screen. Essentially, the player has to learn the movement patterns of each screen's attackers and aim and shoot accorindly. I assume they are different on the later screens I did not reach.

A.E. plays quick and fast like a good arcade shooter should, but there is a lot of very original gameplay and depth of challenge in front of, and sometimes behind, the pretty screens. It's an extremely rare cartridge for the VIC 20 and was very expensive, but it was worth it to close the forty-plus year gap between me seeing that ad and actually playing the game. A.E. shines graphically even on the VIC 20 and is a refreshingly original take on shooters as well.