IO
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Tempted as I am to fill this post with comments on how he never seems to stop remaking, I won’t. But I will use this time to let you know that Trevor “Good Lord, Man” Storey is at it again with his unceasing remaking urges.
This time he’s tackling the aberration in the history of the C64 that was IO. A potentially fantastic game absolutely ruined by its needlessly high difficulty levels that required you to not just have lightning reflexes but foresight and psychic abilities that would put Derek Accorah to shame. One of the worst cases of gaming as a learning exercise to ever darken the C64’s brown doors.
Mmmm, shiny.
Now, that may sound like an incredibly discouraging introduction if you’ve never seen or played the game before now, but rest assured that scratching the surface of IO has a game thats begging to be set free from its restraints and to be burst forth on the public in a much more playable state. Luckily, Trev knows and understands that the phrase “it takes the piss” would be the most accurate description of the games difficulty and has pledged to tone it down and make it more accessible and enjoyable and *shock* fun.
Given the dearth of decent shooter remakes in the grand scheme of things, I for one welcome our new easier to play IO overlords. Visit the WIP thread here
And whilst you’re hanging around - don’t forget to vote in our poll a little further down the front page. David Bowie won the last round by the way, with a huge supermassive proportion of people believing that in a fight - he’d kick Pitfall Harries arse. And I agree.
Speak your brains
9 Responses to “IO”
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c’mon man. Io isn’t the super rat-bastard hard crazy-unfair game you portray it to be. It simply offers a good, tough challenge for self-respecting shmup fans. And just as well that it does, as otherwise it would all be over too soon.
I dunno, I consider myself a self respecting shmup fan - but I’m also not insane (much). I just can’t bring myself to equate move one, die one game mechanics with a challenge - which is all IO really is.
IO is just plain unfair and amateurish in its level design. Anyone can make a game kick your ass every 5 seconds, thats not a challenge - thats merely a memory exercise and crucially, I just don’t find that fun.
If I wanted self flagellation I’d go and play “staple my nuts to the table”.
However, I am always chuffed to find people who do find some love in games regardless of wether I hate them or not!
Mmm, nicotine withdrawal… :s
You don’t have to memorise the waves really. The main thing is to play aggressively — do everything you can to kill the baddies before they kill you. (Eg. Due to the limited firepower you start off with, often you’re better off getting right in the ‘face’ of an enemy attack wave, rather than hanging back and trying to pick them off.)
And don’t forget that once you’ve picked up an orb (or both orbs), it’s not as if one hit will kill you outright. One hit just removes one orb. Only when they’re both gone does the next hit kill you.
But yeah, I mean, it -is- difficult, but I’d say it’s easier than the later levels in R-Type (and requires far less memorisation). And it’s much much fairer than Project X on Amiga. At least I was able to complete IO. Project X just made me splutter and fume in fruitless rage. (Actually, maybe not fruitless. I think I had a banana. But there was definitely rage involved.)
Anyway, it’s always good to hear two views on the subject. Hopefully Smila will have time to implement two difficulty settings: ‘No, no, IO is not too hard!’ and ‘Oh yes it is, mister!’
Gah, damn you Simon - I’m going to have to go back and give it a go now.
*shakes fist*
:-)
Heh heh. Here’s a youtube vid of io to get you motivated. ; )
whoops. forgot to paste link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgH8HkeWcdE
One of my favorite shooters on the c-64 , would love to play the remake.
I remember Commodore User mag having pictures of all the levels and enemies , never got past level 3 myself though.
Auto-fire would help a lot!
autofire included.
when shot you go down 1 weapon upgrade (5 in total) and only die when you have 1 none left.