Exodus - Memories

Exodus was originally the 7th game in Firebird Silver's first batch of £1.99 budget releases. It was initially written for the Sinclair Spectrum, and was also converted to the C64 (as release #18).

The gameplay was obviously influenced by the Atari coin-op Tempest, with a few extra elements thrown in for good measure. Enemies that escaped from The Pit (renamed the vortex for the C64 version) simply ran off the screen, rather than chasing the player around the perimeter as they did in the coin-op. However, allowing the Mutant Llamas to escape would cost the player a life.

Other enemies included helicopters, potted plants, commodores (as in the company who made the Vic 20 and C64), spheres, hover-mowers, cylons (from Battlestar Galactica), galleons and witches to name just a few. Funnily enough, the C64 version also required the player to shoot at Commodore logos!

A few other interesting snippets of information from the in-game instructions; if you shot a TV set which was tuned into Channel 4, you got an extra points bonus for it being a rare occurence! This is a subtle reference to the introduction of the UK Channel 4 in the early 1980s, when people had problems tuning to the new service. If they thought that was bad, what would they have made of the introduction of Channel 5 in the UK?