0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - B-Movie

      

B-Movie also known as Invasion from Beyond in North America and France is a 3^rd person Sci-Fi flight combat game developed by King of the Jungle and published by GT Interactive, exclusively for the Playstation.

The game released in Europe and North America in November of 1998 with exact release dates for the game limited, the North American release was on the 30^th of the month the same for Germany, but Finland is down as the 1^st of November, other releases have the release date down as just November 1998.

Notable members of the development team at King of the Jungle, designer and programmer Paul Margrave has since worked on Charlotte’s Web, Tales From Deep Space, Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster the last two as a Senior Tools Programmer.

Set over the course of 30 missions of air combat and air to ground combat with additional secret levels, ships and weapons that can be unlocked, the prime focus of the missions is to kill all of the invading Martian forces, EarthLink Command will also provide specific objectives to complete while progressing through missions such as clearing out a crop circle of enemies and protecting scientists from attack.

 

When you first start out you have just two weapons, the standard machine gun and the Pummel Rockets, the machine guns is an auto targeting chain gun while the pummel rocket is unguided that requires timing and accuracy from the player. In total there are 12 weapons to find in the game as you progress.

In addition to weapons the players ships have additional tech to help in your resistance against the Martian scum with radar, cargo holds and weapons mounts for additional firepower, They also have something called The Suck-O-Matic, an experimental device which is used to teleport and blow items out of your cargo hold, as well as retrieve items and people in order for them to reach safety.

 

When it comes to ships there are a total of 12 in the game with 3 initially available, the Silverfish is the first and the first candidate in the U.N. frontline fleet, you have the fast and responsive Red Devil and the speedy but dangerous Whiplash MK.2, the remainder of the ships can be found during your progress through the game.

B-Movie or Invasion From Beyond has the feel of a classic science fiction alien invasion B-Movie, with farm working being abducted, and crop circles appearing in farmland outside of Washington DC. 

The insults and superstitious fears of the local population were a welcome party for the Martians that were ready to strike and take over the planet. Bring on the EarthLink and their highly trained pilots who are the last line of defence for the Earth against the invading Martian forces with one goal destroy them all.

Largely the game received good to above average review scores from critics with only a few reviews falling below that with an average, below average review score received, the game did however also received the humiliating score of 0 from one critic.

Starting with the best though which is an 83 from German publication Video Games with their review praising the bad sci-fi horror and classic B-Movie style with scientist having long white hair and the aliens being green, cuddly and ugly.

Dutch publication Power Unlimited were the next highest review score with a solid 80 with their review calling it something else, they went on to say, on the one hand you have a series flying shooter but on the other you have the corny and lazy game full of B-Movie references.

GameSpot rated the game at a 76, their review praising the non cookie cutter approach that has become the norm for new releases and praised developer King of the Jungle, calling it impressive as well as saying it bodes well for the developers future games.

Dropping down to a 71 rating we find two review the first from NowGamer  who compared the game to the Strike series and if you are a fan of that series this game could prove the ideal tonic. Also rating this game at a 71 was Absolute Playstation they were much more critical of the game, while admitting the game looks cool, sadly the gameplay does not follow suit.

The reviewer finding that avoiding incoming fire was impossible however the review then went on to contradict themselves by saying the skill factor is virtually nil, which is clearly not the case if you could not avoid enemy fire.

Moving to the other end of the review scale we find the truly depressing site of a 0 review score which comes from The Video Game Critic. The reviewer was disappointed with the combat saying firing into a group of flying saucers, it was hard to tell if you were causing any damage, the review carried on saying the world below looks nice with its rolling hills and detailed landmarks and a cheesy soundtrack suits the game well, however these are let down by the extremely dull gameplay.

Joypad the French publication are up next with their below average 40 review score, the review calling the game original and funny, however the game is on the difficult side and the missions are not very motivating with them being very similar and short as a result you tire of them quickly.

Back to Germany for Mega Fun who scored the game at an above average 56, their review calling the gameplay much too hectic, despite the good graphics and good gameplay ideas they are let down by orders that a kept to a too tight schedule and over time pushes the players motivation (translated may not be word for word identical)

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who will give you just 25 cents if you are looking to trade in your copy of B-Movie, listed as Invasion From Beyond on their site. If on the other hand you are wanting to buy a copy of the game from them you can pick one up for $3.

Moving on to Retrogames.co.uk who sadly don’t have either of the title variants available, so moving quickly on to eStarland.com we find the game listed, however the game is currently out of stock, with prices usually ranging between $3.83 and $8.50 for a used copy. eStarland.com also offer a trade in for this game and are willing to pay up to $3.50 for a copy of the game, this price will vary depending on its completeness with a disc only copy worth just $1.22 when traded in.

Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a pretty decent supply of the game available, several of the cheapest copies are disc only and a few more while listed as being in good or very good condition don’t have any more details which I am not keen on (would it kill you to write if it is complete or not).

Moving on we finally find a copy that says complete, this copy is a like new copy of the game and is priced up at $8.74 once shipping has been added in. Several more copies are available that say they are complete but none as cheap as this, with the majority coming In at the $10 to $11 price range, several of the copies on offer are the rare black label version of the game.

Used prices remain pretty reasonable for this game with the odd exception of course moving on to the new copies that are on the market, you will be looking at a minimum of around $13 for a new copy of the game, with the price for a new copy generally reaching a high of $21, one copy currently on offer does smash this price though and is available for $43.57.

Written by

P J Gibbon