V2000

About

Zarch (also known under its ported name of Virus) is a computer game written by David Braben (better known as the co-author of Elite) in three months in 1987, for the release of the Acorn Archimedes computer. Zarch started off as a demo called Lander which was bundled with almost all releases of the Acorn Archimedes. Zarch was released as Virus and in 1988 ported to the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga (coded by Jez San and his Argonaut team), and IBM PC (coded by Chris Sawyer). It was later ported to the ZX Spectrum by Steven Dunn - an impressive feat considering the inferior processing power and poor graphics of the Spectrum when compared to the Archimedes, Amiga, Atari ST and PC. A few clones/games based on Zarch have also been created fairly recently, namely a version for Linux, also called Zarch, a remake for Windows (written in Blitz BASIC) called Z-Virus, and a version crossing Zarch with Pac-Man called ZarchMan (see External links below). In 1998, ten years after Zarch was released, a sequel, V2000 (also known as Virus 2000), was released for the PC and PlayStation. STORY: Aliens are using a virus to corrupt and possess many creatures from different worlds by opening up links between the worlds they are trying to conquer. From many of these links emerged the hives. GAMEPLAY: The usual mission objectives in the game are to destroy the mutated creatures and the hives, rescue local inhabitants, while "beaming up" weapon upgrades along the way. Players are then awarded "trophies" for each world saved or if it is saved quickly. These trophies allow the player to receive new ships.