Blast down the river in this great vertical shooter from Activision and keep the fuel tank full.
Play is as simple as the game's concept. Players have three lives to begin with, one is awarded every 10,000 points. Guide the plane down the river, guns blazing. The plane manoeuvres smoothly left and right with good response that feels natural. Going forward smoothly accelerates the plane and going backwards decelerates. Fuel decreases at a constant pace and refueling is done by flying over the many fuel depots floating in the river. The slower the plane passes over these, the more fuel is replenished. These depots are easy to shoot, netting 80 points each, so a little care needs to be taken to ensure they are available when needed. Shooting everything in sight isn't the way to go with this game.
The games levels are merely sections of one huge river. These sections are marked by bridges that once destroyed, the game saves and the plane will re-spawn at that point after death. To mix up play a bit, sections of the river have a huge bank in the middle giving players a choice of two paths to take. Some paths are more difficult to pass than others. Indecision will often result in death. While the sections seem pretty short and sparse, there's still ample opportunity to become toast. The easiest way to die is by crashing into the riverbank or getting nailed by one of the planes that fly across the screen. It gets progressively more challenging through play.
The game's sound rates among the best. The constant noise of the plane's engine dominates the game and how it changes volume and tone relational to the plane's speed is a nice touch. Accelerating through the sections, the plane's engines sound loud and high, while moving more slowly, the engine is but a dull roar in the background. The only other sounds occur while fueling, a warning when your fuel is low, the sound of fired shots, and the explosions of baddies. All these are nice, considering the hardware capabilities, and not annoying in the least.
Graphically, the game's nice. Everything looks like it should, despite the now primitive hardware. The only ugly is the yellow on grey score at the bottom of the screen, but Atari always had it's fair share of odd colours. That's always been part of it's charm.
As far as shooters go, River Raid is among the best of its time with it's smooth play, non-annoying sound, and non-space theme. True shooter fans that give this title a shot won't be disappointed.