Citadel was the long-awaited follow-up to Martin Walker's cult classic Hunter's Moon, and the subject of the Zzap! Diary with the story of it’s development. Like its predecessor, Citadel had a multi-way scrolling world that involved hostile enemies that functioned in a set way, and puzzles to be solved to progress. The way that the hostile robots functioned is generally excellent and makes even a firefight into a puzzle itself - some enemies can only fire diagonally, some can fire vertically, some can do both, some fire slow-moving projectiles, others fire fast - you get the picture.
But ultimately they will do nothing unless you do something first (apart from the suicidal assassin droids, which home in on you and collide with you) - this promotes a careful, considered style of play, rather than just running around blasting everything in sight. The learning curve is gauged perfectly; the early levels ease the player into the gameplay well, familiarizing you with the methods for opening doors, capturing robots, draining energy banks etc, but the later levels are fiendishly difficult. Very rarely does this kind of perfection in game design get seen in this day and age, but Martin Walker has surely created one of the most perfectly scaled games I've ever played.
The graphics are outstanding. The colorful, animated and detailed sprites are
a joy to behold, especially when your own robot goes down a lift shaft and disappears into shadow - beautiful effect. The bas-relief backgrounds are equally polished, each level having its own graphical and sonic theme. Sound effects are up to Walker's usual exceptional standards, with a selection of wonderfully warbling robots and atmospheric hums and drones. The music is also effective; the brooding, dark title track sets the mood well, and the pounding, rhythmic high score table track is a joy to listen to. The multiplexed chords give the sound that characteristic SID sound that brings a tear to the eye of many an old C64 veteran.
I'd say that this, and a select few other games, represent the absolute pinnacle of the 8-bit computer age in terms of innovative and original gameplay, squeezing the absolute best from the hardware, and good, thoughtful design.
