Project Firestart Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Developed by Dynamix and published by Electronic Arts in 1989
Follow me on Twitter: / al82_retro
Add me on Google+: bit.ly/1tPwL1u
The year is 2061 and agent Jon Hawkins is sent aboard the research ship Prometheus to make contact with a group of scientists who have failed to communicate with Earth. Having docked with the ship, it doesn't take Hawkins long to realise that something has gone terribly wrong - corpses of the crew are strewn about the halls and the ship is infested with hostile mutants. Taking control of Hawkins, it's up to the player to find out what happened, rescue any survivors and warn Earth about the situation.
The game is depicted from a horizontal cutaway of the Prometheus' interior, with Hawkins navigating his way around the ship and exploring the various rooms, corridors and locations on each of the ship's four decks. Certain rooms contain items that must be collected and used to progress the plot, as well as objects that can be interacted with.
Hawkins is armed with a laser rifle with which he can defend himself from the alien foe. The rifle uses an internal battery that provides power for a limited number of shots before expiring - ammunition is extremely limited, so make sure to make every shot count. In fact, fleeing from the creatures might actually be the safer option, particularly when faced with multiple threats in a tight corridor.
If Hawkins sustains injuries whilst fighting with the monsters, it's possible to regain health by using one of the first aid stations located near some of the ships lift shafts. However, as is to be expected, the station can only be used once before it's empty and becomes useless. There is a med-bay located somewhere in the ship that can heal Hawkins as often as required, but running back to patch up will only slow you down in the long-run.
Project Firestart is quite remarkable for a number of reasons, none more so than it might possibly be one of the earliest examples of a game in the 'survival horror' genre. With limited ammunition, enemies that can spring out of anywhere without warning and a generally deep sense of foreboding, the game is surprisingly tense.
The game makes use of cut-scenes at key points to show things happening elsewhere on the ship, lending the game a genuinely cinematic quality more synonymous with a Cinemaware or Origin Systems game on Amiga or PC platforms - it really is quite impressive to see this kind of game on a humble 8-bit.
The game boasts some impressive graphics for the time, eschewing vibrant colours for drab greys and more subtle shades that help create a brooding atmosphere on the ship. Rather than the flashing lights and bright colours of Star Trek, the the aesthetic here is definitely aping the grimy and industrial interior of the Nostromo from Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, 'Alien'.
The game features basic sound, but it's how it uses it that's most important. I particularly liked the way that everything is so quiet until the creatures attack, at which point the game introduces threatening music that refuses to abate until the creatures are dead, or you've fled to safety.
In some ways, it's a shame that the game couldn't be longer than it is. The C64's limited memory and storage capacity would have curtailed just how much content the programmers were able to include in the game - had more been available, who knows how much deeper the game could have been.
As it is, the game is both a tense and exciting experience with sense of style quite unlike anything else on the platform.
#retrogaming
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
![Aliens Longplay (Arcade) [60 FPS]](/img/1.gif)
Project Firestart Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]: Investigate what has befallen the crew of the USS Prometheus in this tense survival adventure!
Read the video description for my review!
Nice graphics, but I expected Ellen Ripley to grab a laser and help a little instead of going straight into a trash can!
Multiple endings, dynamic music and sound-cues, crisp graphics, plenty of tension (especially when the first ship explodes, turning 24hrs into 25minutes), a feeling of 'adventure' without too much (or too little) action, plenty of puzzles, and a really classic look that could easily be copy/pasted into the modern era with 60FPS and still be praised. Can you imagine if it had the smoothness of, say, "Impossible Mission 2"?
Either way, someone called this the definitive 'Survival Horror Template' - definitely agree.
From what you read on the Firestart notes on the computer in the beginning, it gives a tragic note to this game. As soon as the creatures saw Fred killed by his stress test as soon as he was removed from his vat, the other creatures realized that would be their fates as well, and, from there, it became a matter of kill or be killed. They only fought and killed the humans because the humans would have killed them otherwise.
Wow. No disrespect to my old games roots as I used to play and love so many old Amiga/Dos/C64 era games as a child, but I had this video playing at 2X and didn't even realize it, thinking it was at 1X speed until I clicked to speed up the video/gameplay to only then realize it was already running faster. Hah.
I was 14-15 when it came out and never finished it. But for the time and age it was a brilliant game, which had all the features of a modern action/survival game. An intro and outro, weapon upgrades, evolving monsters, a proper story, shock moments, optional sidequests and different endings. Also the best running animation together with Prince of Persia.
Truly science fiction... 2061, and the layout of the ship was fax'ed to him, and communications ending in white noise static on the screen!
I played this game more than once since you could play it in within an hour. I loved it and it was great for the time. I miss C64.
This was the first of its kind for the C64 - a survival horror game. This game scared the crap out of me as a kid!
This was the first of its kind, period - C64 or otherwise.
Great game! I'm convinced to this day that this game was the inspiration for Dead Space
I like how he is visible in the elevator window.
One of the best games I've ever played on my commodore 128 back in the 80s .
I always played with my brother and cousin because I was afraid to play alone 😅
I remember playing this as a kid, I was like 10 years old. I was so scared, I couldn't play it longer than 10-15 mins, never managed to finish of course.
Same to me :)
What year did you first play it in?
@@micah3331well, I was 10 in 1990 so around that. I* replaced my c64 to a pc in 1993 so def before that.
*my parents replaced it, of course, I was 13
ok but the music when the monsters chase you is terrifying
Dead space feels like the spiritual successor to this game I would've like to see a modern remake of this game
I was around 15 when I got a copy of this game. I had no idea what I was doing, but the tension was real right from the start.
I died so many times. I was always low on ammo. The timer to self-destruct really put the pressure on - not at first, but then you make it to your ship with plenty of time to spare and BOOOOOOM your ship blows up. Now you're low on time and you have to find an alternate escape. Monsters could appear from everywhere, it felt like. They would relentlessly follow you.
The game came out near the sunset of the C64 era so a lot of people might have missed it which is a shame.
Also, the game was only ever released on disk (and cost about £15) - this put it out of the reach of a lot of people. I only had a tape drive, so I'd never have gotten to play this back in the day.
The load times on disk were pretty atrocious - it would have been murder on tape. I never had a chance to buy it in my country, same for most games - they were just never sold anywhere near where I could buy them, we would all copy from our mates. There was a lot of after school copying going on.
Of course this meant frequent problems with a bad copy which you would only find out about halfway through. Before that I had a tape as well, I now remember fondly trying to adjust the tape head to be able to read someone's cassette, but man at the time it was a chore, ha.
i had such a laugh when i read you're comment. I fondly remember the good old times, going to you're friends house getting new games. And you always had something they did'nt have... Young kids did alot of pirating in those days, especially on the amiga!
Christoph D and the c64....
I'm so friggin old. I bought this game when I was 12. I loved it. I played C64 since I was like 7 years old. When the graphics were crap. The graphics blew my mind back then when this game came out.
The cutscenes and sound actually still have a very scary feel to them. Even though the graphics are primitive by today's standards, the atmosphere is anything but, so I'm actually still impressed by this
5:49 "Looks like love at first sight to me!" - Hicks, Aliens
what an amazing movie atmosphere game on the c64. i never finished it. scrolling & code was slow, could have been done better, but the overall cinematic atmosphere was outstanding. i am glad to see the whole story now, after 32 years :)
The music really doesn't fit either, it could've been done better. But other than that it's an amazing game
I'm gonna say it... the lifts and corridors remind me of Nexus and the semi-isometric rooms remind me of The Great Escape! Please, don't thrash me.
Here is a game that deserved a sequel
We all know nowadays Electronic Arts.
Bad idea.
Dead Space is like reimagination of this game for modern standards.
Remember, there may be a problem in alpha sector...
I'm pretty sure Dead Space was originally meant to be a Project Firestart remake that had to be repurposed because of an unforeseen copyright conflict with the current owners of Dynamix's legacy properties, Vivendi.
I was terrified of this when I was 5
Very good Memory c64
Jeff Tunnel (Arctic Fox, The Incredible Machine, Heart of China, Rise of the Dragon, Willy Beamish...) is behind this one
i was just wondering...
The gameplay and pretty much everything looks awesome for the era. I never played this game back then, but probably the pace would’ve been too slow for my preteen brains… 😝
Incredible looking game for the C64
0:08 0:09 0:11 0:12 0:13 0:14 0:15 0:16 0:17 Amazing moment. EA was at their peak! 1:02 1:03 1:04 1:05 1:05 1:06 1:07 The C64 is obviously the most powerful computer ever made 1:27
those where the days when i played games just to "be in there" and enjoy the atmosphere.
i never thought i could beat these games. most of the time i didnt even know what to do.
Yeah we kind of lost it to 'be in there'
I don't think I finished this game on the C64 but I remember the feeling of tension and fear! Great atmosphere especially for those times.
Electronic Arts? How the times have changed. Then again they published it, not made it.
2:32 Still faxing in 2061!
Doctors and lawyers still fax in 2024
I had forgotten it's name for years but this was probably the coolest C64 game I had ever seen. A classmate told me he finished it quickly but I never got far with it. Yep it's Resident's Evil spiritual predecessor. Great atmosphere and graphics for the time.
this was Dead Space's spiritual predecessor.
I never played or had this game. But at least EA was a good company back then.
Awesome game, very atmospheric, even works well still despite being 30yeats old. The only issue I had remember having with this game was all the disk swapping you had to do.
That is a cool sci-fi game. Love it.
I had this game and played it to death. I found it was possible to kill the white monster by leading it to the room where you raise the radiation shield. It dies rather quickly to radiation exposure!
Too bad home computers didn't have more such cinematic survival horror games back then. Instead, we mostly got infantile platformers and generic space shooters.
There were similar isometric games like Last Ninja and Vendetta on c64. It also had Maniac Mansion which (along with Zak McKraken) was probably the most advanced story-driven adventure games released on the platform.
Thanks for the Video! Great game! Project Firestart is definitely the grandmother of all survival horror games. I found it just as exciting and scary as a teenager over 30 years ago as I do today. Isolation, jump-scares, a seemingly hopeless situation, time pressure, little ammunition, physically superior, sneaky enemies, bloody horror scenes, eerie music.... all the ingredients are there. It is an eternal pity that this game was not converted to other systems back then (especially Amiga, PC, Atari ST, consoles).
There is a nice fan 3D remake from 2006, but unfortunately it can't hold a candle to the 8-bit original. Project-Firestart would definitely be a candidate for a remake or an expanded edition. Preferably in 2D and with a retro pixel look but more in a VGA or Amiga style with better scrolling...
this game scared the shit out of me, even i was 16 years old back then
Real loved this game back then! Had the original.
the cut-scenes, the kind of animations and the in-game narrative, the musics and fx remember me on one side Karateka and Prince of Persia, on the other side Another World and Flashback by Delphine on Amiga
Recuerdo que mi amigo me dejaba jugar este juego.
Me hizo recordar cuando empezaba el juego DEADSPACE entrando al USS ISHIMURA
27:53
Lt. Ellen Louise Ripley: (Screams)
Remarkable looking game, thanks for this!
Imagine how cool and Amiga port would be for this.
9:19 Tendril from the Inhumanoids!
This is like Alien Isolation for C64
Never played this looks amazing
Just sixteen colours, less than one Mhz of power, only four colours for screen area, only two colours for screen area in Hi resolution and just 4K of Ram
Impressive. Quite the amazing game for its time.
On this video speed 1.75 does wonders for pacing.
You can actually kill the white monster by exposing it to the X-rays (after raising the shield).
or with a special green gun you get in some place and with a lot of hit. It was great, the game had many endings.
I love how:
- They make “limited energy pulse lasers” but have to fax shit in space
- Make spaceships that can’t withstand common gunfire (space being full of cosmic debris travelling at high velocities and all …), when you couldn’t blow a hole in a common commercial fishing boat with a gun if you tried. Spaceships = birthday balloons of the galaxy.
- We spend all this time talking about big analog guns that are not included anyway?
- Mission control don’t just blow the whole thing up by remote when they can if they’re TRULY concerned about catastrophic contamination, just to “find out what went wrong” and then send a guy who’d be in obvious danger of contamination, because actually they do seem to understand that contamination was probably the problem seeing as jon was just sent for a science log, not to rescue anyone.
- Main character finds out right away what the problem was and that is wast actually just as expected 👍 - but the story doesn’t end there with a quick report back on the “subspace radio”, a quick pickup from a waiting spaceship and a safe remote blast.
- Base find it necessary to have a timed “rendezvous” for an operation expected to last a few hours, when they probably either just delivered him themselves or could have just arrived with Jon to hang out in nearby space for safety, or had Jon wait there in his own ship until they arrived.
- If they did NOT bring Jon there, where the fuck is his ship then?
- The genetic reshaping scientists refer to their work as “creatures” when they are stressed out but otherwise more formally as “Promiverirate” and more fondly “Fred”, “Sid”, “Marty” or “Jack”
- Creature strength is apparently measured in … “kilos per square inch”?
- The science log has no mention of any work done with the two creatures in the big jars, but ok lets assume its the mortal coils of Fred, Sid or Marty, blessum.
- They transplanted the general graphics scheme from the “Aliens” game.
- Airtight sliding doors with a sort of squarish saw tooth closing mechanism actually have more 3-4 times more outline where something can go wrong tand uses as much more lining material as a common sliding door with a simple straight line down the middle and common locking systems. Some space-door designer probably got fired over that one when mass production set in.
- Spacegirls are kept in cryo until asked, they don’t wear socks and can’t handle using a laser - but they do go in the space bin, pending further processing.
- Jon has to set self destruct manually while in the building when they could just do it from a safe distance by remote upon retrieval. Whats the hurry, it’s a sealed container with actual space around it.
- Self destruct of a huge commercial vessel is a one-click digital option with no access codes or special physical keys.
- Time limit is set to 25 minutes just to make sure youre fucked if something goes wrong or the taxi is delayed.
- “Self destruct” is even a thing. Wtf! Why load ANYTHING with enough explosives to willingly or accidentally destroy everything unless you’re a kamikaze pilot or a pilot planning to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan?
- Everyone in the ship who weren’t killed on the spot were apparently running for the exit when things went south, only there is of course only empty space outside.
- Lots of neat stuff in space happens “meanwhile”. Like LOTS …
- Creatures based on ox and fungus DNA lay eggs but must also be able to self-impregnate, seeing as there was only gender fluid old “Jack” to begin with.
- Mission control won’t dock with a ship thats set to self destruct but they just sent a ship to pick up a guy whose job was to set a ship to self destruct before getting picked up.
- They will however redirect a nearby trade ship to do their dirty work, except the shuttle actually works fine as is. They’re never heard from again.
- Raving fungus monsters turn out to be pretty handy with elevators
- Countdown to zero is immediately cut short as soon as you get in a shuttle
- Turns out head researchers guard their secrets fiercely even though they actually just did what they were hired to do. This is because they are mainly emotional creatures who don’t tend to think straight outside the lab.
- Spacegirl somehow found an 80s jumpsuit and white sneakers in the space-bin so she could look cool for her return on the shuttle.
- Getting thrown in the spacebin and jettisoned into the void upon brief acquaintance ALWAYS merits a good end snog.
- Jon earns a vacation for saving mankind - but just a SHORT one, lets not get carried away here.
Settle down enthusiast - it looks like a fun game with more narrative dimension than most c64s m’kay xD
I think that Horror of salazar house was inspired by this game
This game is template of today's horror survival ones.
This game was great. I got it 1989 and played the shit out of it.
LOL though at part in the beginning with the guy talking to Jon where he says he FAX'd over the info. 2061 and they're still using FAX machines. Hahaha
I stopped the video to search the comments for this haha
Back to the Future II thought we'd still be using them in 2015!
In 2024 many healthcare and legal professionals still prefer fax machines over text/email for certain documents. Reasons: legal signature, security, confidentiality, etc.
What a cool game! 👍
The monster looks just like Tendril from Inhumanoids.
Too bad the developers were too lazy to create an original design but it's a good game nonetheless.
Totally missed out on this game. What year is it from?
1989
@@Steuerknueppelthe credits say it was made 1988, but it wasn't released as a product until 1989. The hardware it ran on, was it released 1982?
Great explanation. You missed a couple of things in your gameplay though.
1) You can defeat the super-creature, in either the room with the reactor, or the room with the O2 Valve. This was hinted at in the lab tape.
ruclips.net/video/sUb-oWAkuX0/видео.html
2) What was Dr. Arno really up to, who is Annar, and why was there a super-creature in the first place?
ruclips.net/video/paYBsza9fm8/видео.html
Looks fantastic!
Never played this looks dark nice
There were two ways to kill the white alien: the one that i remember was to take him to the reactor core room and lower the shield. You would have taken damage too, but the alien would have died. Didn't you kill him on purpose? Anyway great game and great longplay!
From what i've heard there is also another way to kill that alien by going to the storage with explosives and the moment it pops up, shoot at the crates filled with explosives. The alien dies but you survive.
I think this game takes place before space quest
Damn, this was on the C64? I can only imagine how long it must have taken to load on the actual system, lol
It was only ever released on disk - tape would have been impossible 🙂
I see in a magazine " retyrogamer collection" a revie'w on this game and he is very incredible i find for the epoch really ! he is realized on C64 anyway
I finished the game, but I never knew you could save the girl.
Prometheus, just like the Alien movie.
9:17
Del Spooner: Oh Heck No
Wow!! amazing game!
Never played this game as a kid. Am I lucky in that I can play it for the first time as an adult with new eyes?
The best game forever!!!
This deserves an official remake imo.
Dead Space is it :)
@@RichieCavsRetrocade This game is closer to the Alien movies than dead space.
15:37
Lt. Ellen Louise Ripley: Get away her you witch
I wonder how many people pressed "R"?
Amazing!!
Back When EA weren't such a Shitty Company.
Cool but looks like it would be really hard trying to figure out what to do since there isn't many clues in-game like text with his internal dialogue or something. It seems like you already know what to do or are following a guide and going through the motions. It's hard to follow along with what's happening just watching. Who's this Annar that just shows up at the end?
There are clues scattered around the ship. In floor 1, for example, the lead scientist reveals that he actually designed the monsters to be weapons of war, and called the weakness in their specimens a failure of the project. It's assumed that he sabotaged the safety measures to leave no witnesses. Annar was his accomplice, IIRC. He's the one who shut the power down. You should also check the logs in all the ship's computers.
@@ricardogarcia7886 So this LP kind of speedruns it without reading all the logs in the game which add additional context?
Shite! This looks great!!!
Does anybody tell my who is on the screen at 33:38? Is it the main character?
That's the screen you get when you die. I guess the video creator tacked it on at the end just to show what it looks like.
@@hadlee73 Ah, I thought it was the cliched horror ending where "the lone survivor escapes, but ...oh no... he dies anyway!"
Duuudeee how come I'm not aware of this game 🤓
@33:29 what was that about?
This deserves an Amiga port
This doesn’t scream Dead Space to anyone?
From the day I started playing Dead Space I was like, Wow, they were inspired by Project Firestart :). Same company, EA
Barbarian 2