Debris EE arrived, damaged + long review

So not only is Color Clash damaged, but so Debris EE which arrived yesterday.
I'm not exactly sure how this could have happened, unless it was deliberate
because it just seems too much of a coincidence. The game wasn't taped in
packing material, but rather just sat loosely between sheets of (dirty) bubble
wrap. You can view photographs of the shipping box and the game box.

http://sdf.lonestar.org/curiosity/debris/

I can't remember how long I've been waiting.. 7 or 8 months? Either way,
I'm glad it is finally here even though the box is permanently damaged.

Some may believe that I deserve this for giving my opinion on Martijn's
business practice, or my disdain that we should all abandon rec.games.vectrex
in order to move to his http based forum and his self proclaimed news source
for everything vectrex. I should note that I did pay fully for these items
and I expected them all to arrive safely and undamaged. He did offer a
token reimbursement for color clash which I did accept.

Interestingly, the Vectorzoa's games that arrived in a timely matter
and undamaged from overseas, though their boxes might seem a bit more
'rubbery'. Maybe they could be mashed too, but they'd spring back.

So here is the review of Debris EE.

The box doesn't copy the Vectrex style, and looks more like a game cover
you would have seen on a shelf at CompUSA around 1994 for some cheap $9.99
Windows 3.1/DOS Asteroids Clone. There are two very small and dark 'game
play' shots which show the starting screen and a level 'end boss' with what
appears to be a missle fired from your ship towards the boss (a first
inspection I thought the box was scratched).

Game play is a little better than I expected and I must confess the music
is much better than I was misled to believe with the 'trailer' video.
The music is simple, but works well. I have an early Vecvox so I was happy
to hook it up. Unfortunately you need one for the laser fire, explosions,
redundant speech and .. the 'ahhh' (not sure) sound when you collide with
something. After a few plays its very easy to second guess your enemy
because their movements are predictable and not random. I did like the
swooping ships, but they were easy to knock out because you can learn
exactly where they're going. The asteroids and the boss can be a
bit tedious because they just require you to fire at them over and over
again, though you can quickly defeat the asteroids with three shots.

One thing I noticed is that the game slows down and speeds up when enemy
objects appear on the screen and are subsequently defeated.
I'm not sure there is any way around this except for maybe not to use
bit map images, but then that would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

There is also a noticble delay on explosions sometimes in that when the
screen was bogged down they would occur up to 1 second after the explosion
on the screen. I do like how the explosions change amplitude based on ship
proximity.

The credits screen is interesting, though I think Martijn's name appears
by itself too much. Too much struting for sure, but then he is a very
proud person.

I like Debris better than Color Clash, and I will spend more time playing it
and enjoying it. Its still very weird though. Its sort of like driving a
DeLorean to a Bricklin convention. People come over, look at it, compare
and then go back to their Bricklins. Its not using the vectrex in a manner
in which it excels at, but rather forcing the vectrex to 'play' like a raster
system, of which there are too many of. On top of that, this notion that a
game like this is 'retro' seems odd to demonstrate on the Vectrex anyway.
It seems more suited for something like the Atari Lynx or the NES.

Stephen

Well your packaging box turned up in better condition than mine
then... although my contents seemingly were protected by the rightful
sword of Domar and remained completely untouched by the molestation
going on around outside...

http://www.vectrexforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=145

Maybe TPG Post like kicking boxes about...?