Retro Recall: Project X – A shooter from the masters of the Amiga

Team 17. I owe these guys an eternal debt of gratitude, as they were a big part of my teenage years, and way into adulthood as well. They could squeeze anything out of the Commodore Amiga, and that’s not too surprising considering that many a member of the team came from the Amiga demo scene. You know, those floppy disks with some amazing animations and music that you used to show to your friends to impress them.

Sure, not every game was a success, and there were some missteps along the way. But how can you focus on the negative when they have delivered classics such as Worms, Alien Breed, and of course, Project X?

Project-X is a side-scrolling shooter released in 1992, a genre that was extremely popular at the time on the Amiga. This is the first attempt from Team 17 in this genre, and it was widely regarded as one of the best shooters ever made, featuring amazing graphics and a stellar soundtrack by famous composer Allister Brimble.

It wasn’t without its flaws, however. For all its visual and aural flair, you had some very unbalanced, oft-generic gameplay, almost as if no one at the studio decided to playtest the full game all the way through. It was hellishly difficult, with one-hit deaths, and that is why most Project X players barely managed to reach the third level, let alone complete the entirety of the five levels available. I love a good challenge, but come on, reaching the third level boss was the best that I – and most players – could do.

Eventually, a Project X Special Edition was released a year later, toning down the difficulty and making all the stages finally accessible to the average human being. How this inhuman difficulty level slipped by Team 17 in the first place remains a mystery.

In Project X, you can choose from three different spacecrafts, each one with its own specifics. One would be slower but offers a heavier arsenal, while on the other side of the coin we have a fast craft but with limited arsenal. Needless to say, the more balanced Cruiser class was the fighter craft of champions, the number one choice. Power-ups are obviously part of the deal, with diagonal and vertical fire being one of the options, and pretty much vital at that.

Project X may feel a bit too generic or soulless at times – for instance, when compared to the bright and lively backdrops of rival shooter Apidya – but that was one of Team 17’s inherited traits from the demo scene: cold, almost mechanical perfection that wasn’t suited to everyone’s tastes. Assassin and Overdrive are perfect examples of that.

The masterminds at Team 17 are responsible for some of the most acclaimed games on the Commodore Amiga, and in various genres. The team clearly looked for inspiration in popular games or movies, and then delivered their own spin on whatever was hot at the time. Alien Breed, for example, is obviously inspired by the ever-popular Alien movies, while Body Blows took to Street Fighter 2 for inspiration. Superfrog was the team’s attempt at the cutesy platformer with mascot character potential (does that ring a bell?), and Worms was clearly inspired by tank-battle game Scorched Earth.

No matter their sources of inspiration, Team 17 always delivered good or great games, and the name itself was synonym with quality.

Well, except for Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. Just what the hell was this spawn of the devil thing? Al Lowe’s frustrated but funny lover boy (nephew, in this case) should never have to suffer through this trash.

Team 17 is still active after all these years, but their role is now more of a publisher than a developer. Unless you count all those Worms games, of course.

Project X is the perfect evolution of classic horizontally scrolling shooters such as Gradius and R-Type. While the first version was successful (mostly in Europe), it could have been a misfire due to the unreal difficulty spikes. The game was nonetheless appreciated by any fan of the genre. The challenge was actually one of the things that kept me playing, just to see a bit more of the game, as it was very tough but never unfair. I would always return to it after a while, for another round of delightful frustration.

In a day and age when everyone is crying about Dark Souls, they should have lived to witness the hell that was playing the third level of Project X.

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