Malta Storm

When I looked at Malta Storm, I was taken back to the days when a computer could only do what its boards and processors allowed, with the volume of an industrial press fan. Malta Storm is a shooter from the late eighties that tries to be action-packed, but stays within its modest means like a figure carefully balancing on a tightrope.

You control a character who shoots at the screen from the front or from a top-down view — I couldn't verify the specific perspective from preserved sources, but the mechanics are always the same: a little character, bullets, target dummies, and trying to navigate across the screen without getting hit by enemies. The name Malta Storm suggests some kind of military operation around Malta, at least that's the pose, but in practice it's classic wave-based enemy and obstacle shooting. The game field is clear; you have no chance of getting lost in what you see.

The game runs in the frame of eighties graphics and Sound Blaster sounds, if you're lucky. Shooting is simple reflex — you hold the button, move around, and try to stay alive. There's no hidden depth or complex puzzles here. It's like a physical exercise: do it well, move to the next level, make a mistake, and you see Game Over. The difficulty ratio rises gradually, which keeps the game alive longer than it would deserve if it had just one set of enemies.

Malta Storm is never written into game history, nor should it be. It's an average affair from the time when computer shooters were manufactured on assembly lines and only occasionally something came out interesting enough that people remember the name. Here the name is forgotten and the game remains a diligent chicken egg in the archives. The graphics are functional, the controls aren't confusing, but there's nothing here that would make you want to come back to it next time if you don't care either way.

If you're yearning to return to eighties shooting elements without major ambitions, Malta Storm can be played in an emulator — it has a certain retro purity that makes it a case study rather than entertainment. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just there.