Equinox

"In the interminable depths of space, Asteroid Sury-Ani 7 floats majestically in a 400 year orbit. The crater scarred surface obscures the danger that lies below - a danger conjured by man in his attempt to strive forward in space colonisation. Radio-active canisters that were due for disposal now lie exposed in Sury-Ani 7's mining complex. The human inhabitants have now departed and only you - a disposal droid remain to dispose of the canisters before they become critical and annihilate the whole complex.
Asteroid Sury-Ani 7, rich in minerals, has been hollowed out into a huge mining complex. The complex is sectioned into eight levels. All levels contain radio-active canisters whose contents are dangerously unstable and liable to explode. The canisters must be disposed of as soon as possible. Gaining access to the different levels is achieved with numbered level passes. In order to obtain canisters and level passes, your dedicated disposal droid must use various tools, machines and components which are scattered around the complex."

Before Exolon and Cybernoid there was Equinox. A colourful puzzle adventure like game that has you picking up items and using them in the right place to proceed. The game is split into eight stages and you need to recover the level card key to proceed to the next. Your objective is to locate and recycle eight canisters, one on each stage. There are only a few items and are the same on each level.

To get in your way are enemies that spawn in randomly on each screen. You can shoot them for score or just ignore them. By ignore I mean move swiftly past them as they will kill you if you sit still or fly right into them. To get around you will need to make use of transporters and these need to be fed credits to work. charging the wrong one will not work out well for you. If you have any spare lives though you can find the device that allows you to trade a life for a credit. As you fly around you burn energy. You can replenish that energy by collecting and using the barrels. For replenishing weapon ammo, you can collect the batteries.

Overall, it's not a bad game for 1986. The C64 conversion is missing a couple of effects and looks very much like its spectrum counterpart. It can be frustrating though as it's quite a fast paced game and yo need to be always moving to stay alive. Being able to get into a situation where you cant proceed can also be annoying and requires starting over. The attract mode is interesting but it moves to slowly.

00:00:00 Attract Mode
00:02:40 Stage 1
00:05:04 Stage 2
00:07:30 Stage 3
00:09:14 Stage 4
00:11:33 Stage 5
00:13:33 Stage 6
00:16:08 Stage 7
00:17:52 Stage 8