Volfied is a simple, fun and irritating little game that relies on great gameplay and sheer frustration to keep you coming back.
I first played this on the Amiga 500+ and was delighted to see it come to the PC world.
You play the commander of a small spaceship from planet Volfied. Whilst you were away on your holidays, the planet was invaded by (you guessed it), ALIENS! Being brave, noble and having nowhere else to go, you decide to attack the aliens and reclaim Volfied.
The aim of the game is simple. You start out with a full screen, piloting around the edge. You are safe within your force field unless you try and leave the edge. However, to defeat the aliens you must reclaim segments of Volfied by nibbling off parts of the screen. When you do so, your force field drops and you are in danger of being attacked by the aliens.
As you might expect, to start with these aliens are slow and thick as porridge. However, they soon speed up and become more intelligent. On each level is a "Big Boss" who fires weapons at you. It is him you must isolate. To destroy him you must occupy more than 80% of the territory on the
screen. Once this is done, you move to the next level.
Also on each level are boxes, some of which help, some of which don't! The most common ones are power (increases shield), speed, time-stop (for ten seconds), clear (destroys small aliens) and laser (you can fire at the smaller aliens for a limited period of time). Some boxes are distressingly empty; some have more exciting treasures in. To find out, simply claim the part of the screen that the box is in. A word of caution - some boxes come and go, be careful to claim them whilst they are visible or you won't get the prize.
To get higher scores you need to claim as close to 100% of the territory per level as possible. The best way to do this is to form "traps" for the big boss. You can make a small area of the screen into a cage for him, then, when he bounces inside; close the gate, i.e. cut off the remainder of the screen. This will be much easier than trying to shave off large segments of the screen and much less risky, too. If you score highly enough on a level, you may get an extra life.
It's also possible to form traps for the smaller aliens. This is recommended as reducing their number makes it much easier for you to win the game.
Graphically, this game is simple and effective. It wouldn't benefit from being any more complex. As for the sound, turn it off! You won't be missing anything great, and it can get very annoying after a while. Put on some music instead.
I would recommend this game to any fans of old-style arcade games. The gameplay, simplicity and can't-quite-complete-that-level-must-just-have-one-more-go addictiveness are hard to beat.
Just remember to turn the sound off.
Alex, Sept 2006
N.B. Controls are simple - arrow keys, and space bar to leave the force field/fire your laser.
