Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future

Spectrum 48k

Dan Dare released for the Spectrum in 1986. One of the best games for the Spectrum and it strikes me that its a lot of the earlier games that make the best use of colour and the spectrums way of working. As you head into the nineties, spectrum games tended to be entirely monochrome and used dithered assets from other platforms and often seemed that the game only existed to make a quick buck from any remaining spectrum users.

Back to the game. While void of any music and just a few beeper sounds, the game is very detailed, well presented and fast paced. The game is also difficult especially if you do not know where to go. Ammo is quite limited so you cant just blast everything although I do waste it here shooting those floating turret gun things which almost costs me the game! Don't pick up health/ammo unless you really need it as towards the end you will wish you had saved some What does annoy me is that occasionally you can run into soldiers that seem invincible and other that bleed you dry if they run into you. The game feels like the enemies are doing more damage the further you progress (not sure if it actually does though)

It should be noted the game is entirely different to the C64 release.