Net Yaroze Month: Shroud

In Net Yaroze Month, we are playing every Net Yaroze game featured on the UK Official Playstation Magazine, and ranking them all in the order we liked them. You may have other opinions as to the ranking, which is awesome.

To learn more about Net Yaroze, read our introductory article here.

We’ve played a few Ben James games by now, and it’s been proved that he’s good at making versions of other games. Psychon was a fun version of Alien Breed; Squeak, reviewed earlier today, is an ace Bejewelled game. He also had the foresight to clone Doodle Jump before it was even made, with Katapila!

So we come to a problem.

Shroud is a clone of a classic William’s game by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, that hit the arcade back in 1981.

I’m obviously talking about Defender.

The problem is, I hate Defender.

I know, I know, take my retro-gamer card away from me, and take away my broken Atari joysticks. I know I’m supposed to like Defender, and I know a lot of people do, as it regularly turns up in top-games lists, but I just can’t get the hang of it.

I hate the controls, I hate the fact that I just die all the time, and accidentally press hyperspace, and then die again. I hate the fact that if I’m supposed to save the little people, why do I have to wait until they get picked up before I can rescue them. Why can’t I just fly down and swoop them up? Prevention is better than a cure surely? Also, why are they all standing about waiting to be picked up, they could just go home.

And Ben James’ Shroud, is for what I can see, a pretty decent version of Defender. And my gripes with it are the same as with Defender. And I still hate it.

Defender fans though, you go ahead!

Game: Shroud
By: Ben James
Genre: Shooter
Available on Euro Demos: 84, 108

Legacy

We’ve covered what Ben James has been up to lately previously here and here. Since then however he has released a new cutesy pixel Metroidvania style game on itchi.io called Sector 781, which is worth checking out.

Net Yaroze Month rankings:

Shroud, through no fault of its own, just my hatred of Defender, gets in at 22. Despite hating Defender, I’d still rather play Shroud than have to play Between the Eyes again.

1. Blitter Boy
2. Rocks n Gems
3. Terra Incognita
4. Super Bub Contest
5. Robot Ron
6. Decaying Orbit
7. Psychon
8. INVS
9. Haunted Maze
10. Roller
11. Gravitation
12. Squeak
13. Adventure Game
14. Katapila
15. Pssst!
16. Game Involving Triangles
17. Yarozians
18. Tanx
19. PingPing
20. Opera of Destruction
21. Video Poker Simulator
22. Shroud
23. Between the Eyes
24. Bouncer 2
25. Yaroze Rally
26. Sphere
27. Blockz
28. Surf Game

Still to play:

• Total Soccer Yaroze
• Time Slip
• Sam the Boulderman
• Technical Demo
• Pushy IIb
• Pandora’s Box
• Down
• Snowball Fight
• Arena
• A Dog Tale
• Mah Jongg
• Samsaric Asymptotes
• Hover Car Racing
• Clone