Raptor: Call of the Shadows

Originally written on 3/27/2011

The Best Game Never Played

Introducing the Genre

I don’t have too much experience with the top down, auto scrolling arcade style shooter. I suppose the first example was Space Invaders. Then came the likes of Gradius, Solar Striker, or 1942. The latest entry is a mini-game The Lost Viking, an easter egg in Starcraft II.

Introducing the Game

Another entry from the Shareware era. This is a top down shooter with one fighter aircraft against a few million. That’s all you really need to know about Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

Gameplay

Fire, fire, fire! The game automatically scrolls forward and wave after wave of enemies come at you. Shoot them all. It’s a classic formula at its best. I’m not even a big shooter fan, but I enjoyed this one.

After each mission, you get a chance to upgrade your ship with all sorts of weapons, using all the cash you earned from blowing up everything in the level before. The choice of how to upgrade looks like there are options, but really the top tier are all you’ll need.

It’s simple to learn, and challenging enough to be satisfying.

Story

There might be a story, I’m not so sure. Games where you shoot anything that moves don’t usually need much of a story.

Graphics

For the era, the graphics were top notch. The graphics for this kind of game need only be so good. Monitors at the time were higher resolution than most televisions. So, graphics on a computer based shooter were superior to anything on a console.

Music

There is music, but other than the main menu theme, I can’t recall much of it. It’s present, but not exceptional. It may even be absent and it would not affect the gameplay much.

Sound

There’s the gunfire and explosions that you’d expect. And it’s solid enough. Like the music, it’s not exceptional. It would take more away from the game if you turned off the sound more than if you turned off the music, but that’s not saying much.

Controls

Hold down fire, never let up! Unlike Space Invaders, besides left and right, you can move up and down around the screen. The most difficult aspect of the control scheme is collecting so many weapons, swapping through them can take some time, enough time that by the time you find the one you need, you most likely won’t need it anymore. But that’s easily solved by selling all the weapons you don’t need and only keeping the strongest and functionally unique.

Multiplayer

There’s no official multiplayer. You can always compete for high scores, though.

Depth/Replayability

It appears to have slightly more depth than it would at first appear. There are a dozen or so different weapons, but you’ll end up using only the top tier. Once you get as strong as possible, there’s not much else to shoot for other than finishing all the levels.

You can save your game, which is a feature not usually seen in this kind of shooter. So you can pick up and play, or drop it within moments, making it easier to pick up than most. Normally when you pick up a shooter, if you intend to finish it, it could take about an hour. I’d sooner pick up this shooter than most others for that reason.

Personal

One of my favorite shooters, including Space Invaders Extreme and The Lost Viking.

As simple as this game is, I’m surprised I like it so much. It has some real staying power. I normally don’t even like those type of shooters.

Boiling it Down

Solid shooter for anyone.

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