Astro Marine Corps

Astro Marine Corps is a 1989 action game tied to the names Dinamic and Creepsoft — that is, to the Spanish development scene, which was living through its golden age in the late eighties. The version in our catalogue belongs to the ZX Spectrum, one of the home machines of Spanish production.

As a space marine you push across hostile planets, cutting down alien creatures that pour in from every direction. Spanish action games of the period had a reputation for being brutally hard, and Astro Marine Corps upholds it — progress is a fight for every metre and mistakes are punished instantly. Seeing the end means memorising the stages, section by section, the old-fashioned way.

Visually the game shows why the Spanish scene earned its name: large, detailed enemy sprites and a dense science-fiction atmosphere put it among the most striking things to appear on the Spectrum in 1989. Dinamic was the biggest Spanish publisher of the day, and its titles were exported to Britain as well, competing directly on the genre's home turf.

From today's perspective this is a fine specimen of the European action school outside the British mainstream — harder, more pictorial and less compromising. It is also a reminder that eight-bit Europe was not only London and Manchester, but Madrid too.

You can boot this piece of Spanish history straight in your browser on OldGame.cz and find out how many attempts you can stomach.