the big m22 Jul 2025
Outstanding Early Defender Port
The Good
Once again Atari 800 is overlooked. While the Apple 2 ?? is the lead platform, the Atari’s Pokey chip creates cute sound clips and tunes that the Apple could not do. Some how, the Atari has lots of moving multicoloured sprites all over the screen including some twinkling stars. ?? But it isn’t that hectic, which I like.
The Bad
Nada, zero, nothing, ziltch.
The Bottom Line
An overlooked, fun, addictive early Defender clone. I love it!
Allan23 Nov 2022
Manual:
https://archive.org/details/repton-iron-on-sirius/Repton_Sirius/
Monk30 May 2020
This is a nice, cute little game.
I played both the Atari and the C64 versions, and I can't understand why Atari requires you to fire to move. It makes no sense and goes against all gameplaying reflexes and conventions. I started on the C64-version, which does NOT require you to do this, so you have more control over what to shoot, whether to shoot, how to hit enemies, and all. The C64-version also uses sync to give this nice, metallic, pleasurable sound when the craft lifts up, the Atari-version I found a bit more bland, but still enjoyable.
Besides the controls that actually take control away from you if you play this version (why would you FORCE the player to always shoot instead of letting the player decide tactically, when to shoot, etc.? I can't understand this mad decision), the sounds being equally exciting in my opinion, the only other difference is the colors.
Both versions of the games are good and cute, but I find the C64-version's colors are more expressive and lets you see the cute, little sprites better. The better control system also gives you more rewarding gameplay experience, so although I would love to love and praise this Atari-version - I can't, because I am honest.
Atari has plenty of brilliant games, and great versions of many games that are much better than the C64 ones, but sadly, this game misses the mark because of insulting 'control method' (if you can call it that), weird colors that make things look foggy and unclear, and lack of an interesting sound when the craft rises from the ground.
(It's a passable sound, but it's not as inspiring or interesting, it's just kind of bland, it's just "there", and ironically, not very 'uplifting' (if you pardon the pun))
rave.N26 Dec 2015
First impression lame "Defender" rip off, ends up not lame, badass when given the chance! Controls are unique and felt so weird at first. You can steer your ship only while firing, shields are always on when not firing, this layout gets to be so catchy I'd love to see real Defender adopt these controls. I never saw Repton during the 1980s.
The parallel to losing all men and going into hyperspace for Repton is when the enemy completes constructing their base station, the ground opens up around the base station and your ship gets sucked into the underground cavern, this action is called the "Failsafe Interlock Armageddon Bomb Activated". While down below, your shields, your nuke bombs, and your radar scanner thingy all malfunction to increase difficulty and you can crash into the cavern's floor and ceiling. You'll need these:
CHEAT MODE unlimited lives, VAPI disk image (works with and without SIO patch, loads faster with). 8 bytes
change offsets $68E0,68E1 from $C6 $AE to $EAEA
change offsets $68F3,68F4 from $C6 $AE to $EAEA
change offsets $C0E8,C0E9 from $C6 $AE to $EAEA
change offsets $C0FB,C0FC from $C6 $AE to $EAEA
CHEAT MODE unlimited nukes, edit 2 more bytes
change offsets $3E4D,3E4E from $C6 $AC to $EAEA
Repton's built in instructions are worth viewing. Cracked file versions broke the instructions, this disk has them.
http://gwobby.webs.com/16 Jun 2010
Atmospheric horizontal scolling shooter (with nukes!). Plays quite nicely, well worth a quick blast!
Rich6 Mar 2008
good game for it's time
1 / 4