Tomcat is a vertical shoot 'em up developed and published in 1989 by Players for the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro and MSX home computers.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY
The game's story is set somewhere in the future, where humans developed a technology to build their own artificial islands (!) Yes, this time mankind managed to create something beyond imagination and brought islands to "life". While everything was quiet and seemed to work under control, a red alert was released from a particular island called ART ROCK! This time it's serious as this island surpassed the control system and now it makes its own "decisions" like a living and breathing creature (!). ART ROCK was basically built as an armed defense island and now has turned against its creators, attacking every ship on sight Your main goal as a combat pilot is to fly your F-14 Tomcat through intense action and destroy every airborne or ground defense system. Shooting power pods scattered around the level, allows you to further increase your firepower. Overall, this game is very tough to play due to its quite slow action and the fact that the enemy bullets cannot be seen easily.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The C64 version features low resolution but nice looking graphics with vivid colors. The animation on this particular version the smoothest among the 8bit home computers and also the playable area is larger than the CPC, which makes the game more playable. The C64 sound consists of some good sound effects like explosions and gunfire and also includes a cool intro music theme.