Death Mask on the Commodore Amiga - First Person Shooter

Amiga First Person Shooters already reviewed on the Channel are Gloom and Alien Breed 3D. They were released at a time where these style of games were becoming extremely popular on PCs and the Commodore Amiga was reaching the end of it's commercial run. While these games were okay, you could tell the Commodore Amiga wasn't originally designed with these type of games in mind. Seems like it was just trying to keep up with the competition.

And so, we come to Death Mask. Again in the style of the super successful PC Doom games, it was published by Alternative Software in 1994. You can see the systems limitations, but it does pull off a fairly decent job. The video review hosted on Youtube reveals all.

The are 34 levels to explore which gives you plenty to do. These missions can involve simply finding an exit to more advanced ones such as destroying a number of generators or chambered alien embryos. You can bring up a map at any time to get your bearings, see the position of your enemy who patrol the area and your important mission targets.

What about those limitations then?

Oddly, you can't move diagonally. You can only move in four directions which quite often causes some navigation problems. Although you never see them, the person you're controlling seems very short indeed. Your view-point is so low, it looks like you might be controlling a little pixie or Mini-Me! The enemy soldiers will turn up and tower above you.

One-on-one combat is not very tactical. It appears to boil down to who can shoot the quickest and keep shooting to victory.

The game play area is only half of the screen... even in single player mode which is a real pain. They could have so easily have used the other half for the map if they had wanted to. I'm told that if you put the game into 2 Player mode, you can use Players 2's side of the screen to permanently have the map in place. That would be a big help and well worth exploring. Would save a lot of time too because when you bring up the map, the game does not pause. So easy to get shot to death while you're still looking at the map! In the real world, you'd probably notice someone shooting you in the rear end. I know I would.

In summary, Death Mask is a competent game, with lots of objectives to complete and well worth the odd play. Is comparable to Gloom and Alien Breed 3D mentioned earlier.  Would have offered value if you'd bought it back in the day, but definitely wouldn't make my Top 10. 

Nick  :o)