Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994 Classic Edition)

Now this is one that hasn’t aged gracefully. For the time - and even today, to be fair - there is some nice spritework to be appreciated. The small cutscenes are fairly impressive, in fact, showing the work of someone who knew their mechanical design. The ships don’t just have simple shadows, but shadows that change position depending on where a ship is placed on the screen, which is a sign of attention to detail. Now and then, there are also some ground objects to destroy, which is a nice touch. To play, however, it really doesn’t hold up. You just face repetitive waves of enemies in equally repetitive levels, trying to earn enough money to upgrade your ship and move from a starting peashooter to something that can overwhelm the enemies. Did I already say it’s very repetitive? And the ship doesn’t handle very tightly. Better to keep the memory of its soundtrack and leave it there.

This is, of course, a phenomenal game. Revolutionary in its time, and a classic. I still have a copy, so I wasn't trying to buy the game, I was trying to buy the work to get it running well on a modern system plus steam distribution. Everything works great except that it's pretty unplayable with a controller because if you try to move diagonally, it decides for you whether you're going to move horizontally or vertically. There's no recognition of "both" being an option. I switched to a keyboard and it worked as expected. But if someone else isn't going to make the controller work well, what am I even paying for? Putting raptor.exe in to the dosbox autoexec? Why would I pay someone else for that? Realistically, going through the steam return process for $0.83 isn't worth the effort. But I'm gonna do it anyway -- it's the principal of the thing

Plane go wousshhh ratatatatatatata. Enemy go boom. Much nostalgia.

Back in the old DOS days, there were a ton of games where shareware was the name of the game for us poor kids. Raptor was one such title, and perhaps the most relevant and pertinent title that would introduce me to the sh'mup genre. Only Bravo Sector was present in the shareware version, and I played for hours and hours looping through this on my dad's old 386. 30 some years later, color me surprised when Raptor, of all things, shows up on Steam. While it's nothing fancy and is little more than a prepacked DOSBOX emulation -- something those of us who cared enough likely dredged up from the abandonware sites years ago -- the fundamental convenience of having it integrated smoothly into Steam for a whopping $1 on sale, and subsequently throwing some change back to Apogee after all these years. It's really cool seeing someone go through the effort of trying to preserve these types of games as, though aged, they really harken back to how far computing has come. The gameplay feels as you'd expect from a DOS game, but it doesn't play clunky and, unlike some old DOS titles which really struggle to map into the modern age, the game is definitely still enjoyable. There are still plenty of challenging quips playing on Veteran mode, and Elite certainly will keep any genre vet on their toes. Spritework remains crisp and delivers satisfactory explosions and visual mayhem as you shred everything in sight. I've only yet completed Bravo Sector, so I'm looking forward to actually stepping in and playing the other two sectors gated behind childhood imagination and poverty. What an awesome effort by Apogee (despite the transition of studio owners) to keep their work alive.

3/10

Con 40 años he vuelto a mi infancia jugando a este gran juego. En unas cuantas horas te lo pasas, pero se disfruta mucho y se nota el cariño con el que fue programado hace tantos años. Entretenido y directo sin tonterias. Juegalo no te arrepnetiras.

Loved this game back in the 90s and love it now. I realize I was slightly better then as opposed to today...game is still one of the best