"Quintessential five-level classic shooter"

Diagonal movement was a big deal back in the early days of video games. Q*Bert befuddled us all with his lovable swearing and diagonal-only jumping. Heck, games could be pretty good with just two directions(see Mappy.) But Time Pilot is the first willy-nilly shooter where you can move around in many different directions(at any rate, the screen moves the opposite direction you're facing) and your ship isn't just a wedge(sorry, Asteroids.) It keeps your ship in the center and in fact even lets you see which ways your enemies are facing, and which way they will shoot. All this makes up for the slight wrist cramp you will get from an intense game of Time Pilot--and all games are intense even if you don't intend to start them that way. You're constantly moving a joystick with one hand and firing with another.

Time Pilot boasts five levels(1910, 1940, 1970, 1984, and 2001) for your everyship to navigate, with increasingly devious enemy ships and bosses that float randomly on-screen whose destruction(even via kamakaze) promotes you to the next level. The rank-and-file's paths are a little less linear although they hone in on you more, and the bullets(which always have several speeds) tend to curve even more frequently. After two levels that are the same except for colorings and mini-bosses, 1970 helicopters fire missiles, and the 1980 airships can face you while firing them. You need to spiral around a lot, and as levels go on you will get fewer lucky random hits, as craft that appear waste no time tracking you down. A big tactic to learn is to half-circle and fire at a missile or plane that's after you, which you'll need to perfect for chasing the saucers in the final wave. They in fact are tougher than the boss ship, which looks radioactive but is easy enough to get behind and blow away. To achieve your point goal you can pick off formations of ships(2000 points) or parachutes, which increase as you get more(the temptation for points is a good player's bane; you need to keep a parachute or an entire formation on screen once it appears,) or you can even shoot guided missiles later on. The game actually gives a lot of leeway as many ships are quite thin, so you don't wind up getting sideswiped a lot.

One of my favorite pedestrain tricks in all games occurs in Time Pilot; I call it ''wiggling'' and it allows you to move between two of the eight compass positions to create a sixteenth if you need it. Shimmying can make the difference between losing a head-on missile or craft and death, and anyway you must constantly shake off enemies or they will get wise to you. More aggressively, sneaking up on an unsuspecting enemy(especially a boss) is quite fun although, being faster than your enemies, you can't take too much time doing so. Time Pilot affords many simple pleasures and contrasts like that; the bombs you hear dropping in parabolas, the repeated note that signals a lucrative formation and frequently a parachute as well, the explosions, and the introductory tune are all at least as memorable as the time zap-and-warp on finishing a wave. Perhaps the cutest part, though, is the 'Please Insert Coin and Try This Game' in the demo mode. It fits in well with the game's general obliging manner; you also have a good amount of time to cruise your ship around while starting a new level or life.

Be warned that level five is a tough nut to crack. I only had the endurance for a few games at a time, after which I would give up and try to figure how the saucers moved and fired, and how to avoid them. Extended sessions result in total frustration and your first game is often the best. It doesn't help morale that there are no formations(2000 points for killing four or five enemies) or parachutes to pick up(well, it is outer space) and you often wind up with few points to show. Rookie astronauts may find three determined saucers too much and be so discouraged they'll wipe out before level four the next time. Still the level is a logical conclusion of the continued emphasis on stealth, and it is eerie how the sounds of enemy ships are scotched(quiet is distracting after the previous pleasant hubbub of engines,) clouds change to asteroids against the dark backdrop, a change of pace jarring enough to be distracting, and missiles semi-boomerang about to provide the only noise. Solving it was a personal accomplishment, and I would easily have gotten to level ten except for a case of severe hand cramp. I lost out having almost doubled my previous high score--the next levels didn't seem to gain much difficulty on the repeat.

Each level has distinctly different backgrounds; you will always have cloudy shapes floating by, and the fast ones actually cover planes and missiles in their paths. Levels one and two are a bit similar but level three's helicopters with twirling blades(a long-time surefire pixelated pleaser) made me want to put helicopters in every game I made from the Apple Arcade Machine. All the bosses look impressive as well, but they are too big not to be sitting ducks. My favorites are the blimp in 1910 and a weird double helicopter in 1970 although the shocking purple in 1984 offsets the light-blue enemies well. But the graphics can even be practical; a gauge at the bottom shows how many ships are left. And although Sinistar is my clear favorite for off-screen clue sounds, Time Pilot got there first with a distant road of a boss ship's engines.

So the Time Pilot writers did a lot right although thankfully they misprognosticated the war with flying saucers in 2001. Although generally blowing things up in the first three levels is fun, level four isn't exactly soft, and level five is nasty without being immediately threatening. The game is fatiguing and may leave a blister as its own red badge of courage for good players who play it more than twice in a row, and so it's enjoyably addictive without sucking too much of your time away. In a way it's a lot like Robotron only it's fairer(monsters never trap you,) less discordantly colorful, and perhaps a bit slower paced. But you still have rapid fire action, close shaves, and cool enemies to blow up, with the added adrenaline rush of turning on a missile or ship and blasting it at close range and splendid frustration of realizing you could've avoided running into that missile. It's skill and endurance, with good variety but relatively little luck.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/00, Updated 05/26/02