Pang (aka Buster Bros) is an arcade platform game initially developed for the coin-op machines. It consists of 50 different levels in which you must smash the big bubbles that bounce around the level. Pang was developed by Mitchell Corp and published by Ocean. In 1990 the game was converted to the Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad CPC Plus, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 home computers.
The Amiga version comes in on disk.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY Pang is an arcade platform game that takes you (a young boy) across the world, with a main cause to shoot down bubbles that bounce around the screen. Only when all the bubbles are destroyed you may proceed to the next stage. Your main weapon is a projectile gun that shoots wires (!) that spike the bubbles and can be upgraded through a variety of bonuses! There is also a laser gun (as extra bonus) with which you can shoot the "evil" bubbles from a distance. Other bonuses include a time-freeze clock, a brief shield field, a double-shot wire and more. You can move on the horizontal platforms and go up or down any available ladder that may be nearby. Apart from the bubbles there are additionally some nice little living things like owls or lobsters that occasionally pass across the screen and must be shot as well. Upon spiking them, the large bubbles turn into smaller ones, swarming the screen like mad. The gameplay is awesome and addictive, especially when the game is played in a 2-players mode. Note also that the game is set against a time limit and, as you progress, this time limit decreases! There are 50 levels in total that feature famous sceneries (monuments) from different countries, like the Athens' Acropolis, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Kilimanjaro, Taj Mahal and more. Overall, Pang is among the best coin-op conversions ever made for a number of retro home gaming systems and surely a game that needs some skills since you'll die instantly when touched by a bubble!
GRAPHICS / SOUND The Amiga version has great visuals with colorful backdrops (35 colors on-screen) that look almost similar to the arcade original and add to the game's overall appeal! The main sprite (the young boy) is well defined and superbly animated while the action is fast and flawless! Pang's sound is equally good and adds to the game's presentation with some cool (but rather repetitive) in-game tunes and a plethora of sampled sound effects.
CPU: Motorola MC68000 7.16 MHz MEMORY: 512KB of Chip RAM (OCS chipset - A500), 512 KB of Slow RAM or Trapdoor RAM can be added via the trapdoor expansion, up to 8 MB of Fast RAM or a Hard drive can be added via the side expansion slot. The ECS chipset (A500+) offered 1MB on board to 2MB (extended) of Chip RAM. GRAPHICS: The OCS chipset (Amiga 500) features planar graphics (codename Denise custom chip), with up to 5 bit-planes (4 in hires), allowing 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 color screens, from a 12bit RGB palette of 4096 colors. Resolutions varied from 320x256 (PAL, non-interlaced, up to 4096 colors) to 640x512 (interlace, up to 4 colors). Two special graphics modes where also included: Extra Half Bright with 64 colors and HAM with all 4096 colors on-screen. The ECS chipset models (Amiga 500+) offered same features but also extra high resolution screens up to 1280x512 pixels (4 colors at once). SOUND: (Paula) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs