Crescent Galaxy
Trevor McFur fails to impress
By TazNovember 6, 1996
Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy is another side-scrolling shooter game
similar to R-Type. When the game begins, you first select which mission you
want to take by selecting one of the four moons surrounding Cosmolite from a
galactic map. You can choose to go to any of the four moons in any order,
however, you cannot go to Cosmolite to attack Odd-It's main base until you
have "liberated" all of the moons first. A small screen below the map shows
you what each moon is and what baddies you will face.
Basically, for any moon you choose, there are two stages you must complete.
First you fly though space avoiding or shooting asteroids and other objects
which can destroy you, collect power-ups and weapons, until you reach the
boss at the end. The first stage is similar on all the moons. There are
asteroids of some type, crystals, blobs, glass cubes which can fire at you,
and spheres which also fire at you.
If you defeat the first boss, you will continue on to battle baddies over the
moon's surface until you reach the second boss at the end. You will have
freed the moon after defeating the second boss, and then you will return to
the galactic map to choose your next mission. Some levels have additional
obstacles, such as on one moon you fly in a cave and cannot fly to high or to
low without hitting the stalactites and stalagmites, and must avoid falling
ones.
Compared to the hyperactive Defender 2000,
Trevor McFur's gameplay is slower. That doesn't mean the game is easy though.
The enemies range from teeny-tiny to huge in size. Like D2K, your ship is kinda
big, which makes maneuvering around objects difficult (especially the bosses!).
This is a pain whenever you're flying in space trying to avoid debris, especially
when you move up or down.
Some of the background graphics look impressive. Others look like cheap PC
screen backgrounds. The enemies look like flat pictures moving around the
screen firing at you, not 3D at all. Also, the space debris in the first
stage of each moon look like they were taken out of the game Maelstrom for the
Apple Macintosh.
Although there is no music during gameplay, there's background music during
the title screen and the galactic map screen. However, the music is
pathetic. It sounds like bad tunes from the Star Wars Cantina group. It's
a good thing there's no music during gameplay if it was going to be anything
like the music from the title screen.
The sound effects in this game are nothing spectacular either. There's the
explosion sounds, which are alright. When you shoot a blob it makes the
sound of a bubble popping. Then there are the sounds of the enemy's fire,
which varies from sounds like small firecrackers to squishy sounds.
Keep in mind that this was one of the first games released for the Atari
Jaguar, so it may have been something back when the Jag was first released
but falls short by today's standards.
Game Data |
Scores
|
| Title |
Crescent Galaxy |
Graphics |
73% |
| Publisher |
Atari |
Sound/Music |
30% |
| Genre |
Shooter |
Gameplay |
67% |
| System |
Jaguar |
Control |
N/A% |
|
|
Overall |
58% |