Blackthorne

(Interplay, 1994)

One of the last of the arcade-style 2D action games on PCs, this was the typical tale of macho, fully-armed human against alien soldiers. The graphics were well done, as was the animation, mapping, and overall gameplay. One of the more amusing animations was when an alien laughs after shooting you once, and you get the last laugh...by shooting him right back! However, this did have a tendency to get old after a while, and some jumping puzzles were a lot more difficult, without the ability to scroll from screen to screen (you often had to jump with a leap of faith, in screen 1, hoping that you make it to the cliff/end-of-bridge shown in screen 2). Regardless, it's worth a marginal thumbs up, if just because it was so much fun, elsewhere in the game...

Rating : Small Crater.

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