
	Platform Colecovision Genre Action Developer / Publisher Bally Midway Year released 1983
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Gorf

Gorf was first released in the arcades in 1981. The Colecovision version was released a couple of years later and the translation is fairly accurate from what I remember of the arcade game.

gorf,colecovision

Imagine a game that doesn’t concern itself with surround sound or great looking graphics and concentrates on pure gameplay, and you get a good idea of what Gorf is all about. Gameplay is similar to Space Invaders. You control a small spaceship, blasting wave after wave of approaching bad guys. There is an important difference though - Gorf adds shields to the mix.

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There are four basic levels - including one in “3D” - and two of them involve shields. The first provides you with a planetary shield and the last provides a big shield for an alien flagship. Only your shots pass through your shield, and vice versa for the alien flagship. The speed of the enemies movements increase quickly and they begin to practice saturation bombing so the shield can’t be forever relied upon. And don’t think you can just

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hit the fire button really quickly. Hitting “fire” shoots a laser projectile that will instantly vanish when your cannons go off again. This encourages accurate shooting over fast shooting. (Unless of course the bad guys are really close.) There’s no “smart bomb” either, so a last resort isn’t available. As simple as the concept is, Gorf manages to get under your skin. It must have to do with the stripped down nature of the game - it doesn’t try to dazzle you with brilliant graphics and sound, it simply presents gameplay.

Your ship can be moved left and right, and to a lesser extent, up and down. And always at the same speed. It never seems to get moving faster, which is especially noticeable when the enemies are going so damn fast!

The graphics and sound wouldn’t merit a second look by today’s standards, which doesn’t mean they were group shaking at the time. The sound effects are of the “Boi-oop” variety. Music seems to be totally absent, unless there’s something wrong with my cartridge. (It was covered in a good layer of dust when I found it.) The graphics are blocky as hell but the enemies manage to look unique. One of the extras I never get tired of is watching a flagship explode. It slips into slow motion and presents a huge multipart explosion. (At least by Coleco standards.)

Simply a shooter, a deceivingly simple shooter.

- Omni