Msx nostalgia: looking for a game..

Supporter (3)

03-12-2007, 11:36

..maybe you can help me. I can't recall the name of this game I used to play with friends back in 1986 when my age wasn't even a 2 digits number yet The game saw an asteroid falling on Earth - you had a 1 hour time limit to prevent it to crash on our planet. In the beginning you had to choose among 4-5 different characters with weird names - each one having particular characteristics (one could jump higher, another one was immune to certain attacks etc.). Then, you ventured to search for objects and solve puzzles, trying to provide a scientist the things he needed to build a machine that would destroy the asteroid. The graphics were high res but colourless - a là zx spectrum. Here in Italy it was renamed to "Earth Crash" but since I can't find anything about it anywhere, I suppose the original title was far different.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,

- Andrea

By evulopah

Paladin (669)

03-12-2007, 11:58

I think it's Terramex!! Fun game and I remember that the main song (if there were more than 1 song) was very nice!!

Look @ http://www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/2702 for more info on Terramex!

By resle

Supporter (3)

03-12-2007, 12:01

Terramex indeed! God bless the newsgroups, forums and such!
Thansk a lot Evulopah.

- A.

By ro

Scribe (4924)

04-12-2007, 09:59

www.generation-msx.nl/modules/msxdb/image_popup.php?type=screenshot&imagetype=game&filename=2702.png
Hmm, never played that game. Is it any good?

By [DK]

Resident (59)

04-12-2007, 10:03

I used to play it a lot, damn difficult it was The best, the music, even if it sounds Spectrumian! And the gameplay was quite good too; it was fun to play.

By jltursan

Prophet (2619)

04-12-2007, 11:15

IMHO it's excellent, the "thinking" feature (using "T" key) is a very nice & cool idea for an action adeventure game. I've never seen it again...

By resle

Supporter (3)

04-12-2007, 11:36

You know, in Italy in the 80s, piracy was more or less... legal! How? Well, there were publishers that ignored coypright laws on software.. just because there wasn't any copyright law that applied to software at all in our country back then. So, such publishers grouped 5 to 30 games in a single tape and sold them along with tiny pocket magazines that vaguely described the gameplay, often completely reinventing the background story and the objectives. The games, too, where randomly renamed - so for example "Castle Excellent" was "Avventura magica" (Magic adventure) in a couple tapes, and "Mostri" (monsters) in another.

All of this to tell that what we loved in Terramex, was that the magazine didn't explain anything of the gameplay at all, and left without any kind of instructions, the game atmosphere was as eerie as it could be. We were totally unable to understand how to "make it work" and we always died in the first couple screens ... until an afternoon I'll remember forever, when for some reason we managed to make a couple things work in a row, and that spark of understanding fueled the whole journey to the game ending.

Aaaaaah the memories...

By only_69

Hero (565)

04-12-2007, 11:55

BTW, great game. WE cannot say all convertions of spectrum are a piece of shit. at least the gameplay and the structure of the game are very cool.

By ro

Scribe (4924)

04-12-2007, 14:09

so, time to map it then 69?

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10096)