Lazer (MS-DOS)

Aim your laser at the target and pull the trigger — that was enough to kill half an hour at the computer back in the nineties. Lazer is a straightforward MS-DOS shooter that doesn't aim for variety, but focuses on one thing and does it decently.

It's a classic arcade shooter from a top-down perspective. You move around the playing field, aim and shoot at incoming enemies. The goal is simple: survive as long as possible and rack up as many points as you can. The game gradually speeds up, enemies multiply, their behavior changes. It's a tried-and-true formula that was used back in the fifties, and everyone copied it in the eighties.

The controls are straightforward — keyboard, arrow keys, shooting. Nothing complicated here. The graphics are basic: single or two-color sprites, simple backgrounds. There's sound, but nothing that'll stick in your head. The game works, progressing through levels is predictable. There's nothing special about it, more like a "kill some time" project that was common during the DOS era.

Lazer certainly has its charm — it's typical computer entertainment from the eighties or early nineties, no story, no dramatic twists. That's precisely why it gets forgotten like a dozen other unremarkable arcade games from that time. It's neither worse nor better, it just exists.

If you're feeling nostalgic for simple DOS shooters and don't want anything complicated, Lazer will do the job. You can play it in your browser during a break without big expectations. But don't look for anything that'll surprise you or pull you back. It's solid mediocrity, and there were plenty of games like it back in the day.