If you were at the recent London Show, you may have noticed some people wearing cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses – and if you investigated, you’ll have discovered that it was because AMCOG Games had a new title on sale that makes use of such glasses.
That game was 3D Moonbase Attack, and it is now available to purchase from !Store.
3D Moonbase Attack is, as its name suggests, a 3D game – but usually when a game is described as 3D it means game play takes place in a three dimensional space. These games are often (but not always) first person perspective games (aka first person shooters, or FPSs), where what’s on the screen represents what can be seen in front of the player, who can move about within that 3D space.
In this case, however, while the game does give you a first person perspective, the 3D element takes on another dimension (see what I did there?). 3D Moonbase Attack can optionally run with anaglyph graphics, which puts additional red and blue elements to either side of the main image – and with the aid of red/blue-lensed glasses, this can provide a three dimensional appearance1.
The plot of the game is that while the Earth and Moon are protected by force fields, the field surrounding the Moon is a weaker one, and as a result the base on the Moon are under attack from an alien fleet. Sustained attacks on the field has opened up a hole above the Moonbase, which would allow the aliens through.
Your goal, therefore, is to fly into low orbit and defend the hole (and therefore the base) from the attacking force.
Between each attack wave, you’ll need to refuel – but this means landing, and the computer system that normally automates this is non-functional, so you’ll have to bring the ship down by hand
According to AMCOG’s Tony Bartram, the arcade action in the game is inspired by classics such as Cylon Attack, and TV gems such as Space 1999. As well as the optional red/blue 3D mode, the game features seven original music tracks, composed using a combination of analogue and digital synthesizers, and guitars, sound effects courtesy of AMCOG’s sound module, RDSP, and high quality graphics created by taking green-screen photographs of scratch-built and kit-bashed models.
The new release is version 3.25, which includes a number of bug fixes over and above the version available to buy at London, as well as improvements to game play in later levels, and twelve megapixel green screen shots of the models used in the game (so much better quality graphics). Updates are free of charge, so if you purchased the game at the show, you are very much encouraged to download the updated version.
Meanwhile, if you have yet to purchase it, 3D Moonbase Attack is available from !Store at £14.99.
If you want to see the game in action before you buy, there is a video available to watch on AMCOG’s YouTube channel. The first half demonstrates the game with normal graphics, and from about 3:42 you can see the anaglyph graphics in use.
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- Not everybody can benefit from the 3D effect, which is why using the anaglyph mode is optional. If you don’t know if you can see 3D images using this method, you don’t need to spend a large amount to find out – the glasses are readily available from places like Amazon at a very low cost.
