If you've ever played
Round 42, you are truly
old school.
This fabulous low-res 16-color CGA shoot-em-up game, written by Mike Pooler, was released in 1986 by Elven Software Company. Its original release was considered shareware, but has since become an abandonware relic. It was written in Turbo Pascal with the help of the Lores Toolbox.
In the game, you encounter 42 levels of space creatures and spacecraft that, of course, are out to destroy you in one of two main ways: Via direct contact with your ship or shooting/defecating what appears to be space matter towards you. The various entities will use kamikaze tactics, along with basic space trickery, to destroy your ships. Some of these creatures will also be able to go through the top of the play area, wrapping around to sneak up from the bottom, which is your default position. To complete each level, you must either destroy all the aliens/craft in that level or overcome the obstacle presented.
As the levels progress, the play gets more difficult, and the enemy more stealth and maneuverable. In addition, there are other obstacles at certain intervals that require increasing speed and skill. Every four levels, there is a tunnel you must guide your ship through. The tunnels become more difficult to navigate (think Pitfall), and guarantee frustration with the speed of the ship's descent, so be quick on the arrow keys. Every seventh level is an asteroid belt of sorts, but the objects you're aiming for look more like space coconuts. They will take more than one shot to kill, and are great for bonus points (with extra ships rewarded as points accumulate). However, as the game goes on, they will fly at you from increasingly dangerous angles, at increasing speeds.
In the battle, you have two weapons to assist you: an auto-firing cannon and a single-use laser. You have unlimited ammo with the cannon, and accumulate one laser per completed level, which is very useful for zapping that one last alien that's by now scrolling too dangerously fast to be caught with the cannon.
One downside to the tweaked CGA video modes of the IBM Color Graphics Adapter, allowing the video to be controlled by registers rather than the BIOS, is that it is less likely that it will even display properly the more recent your video card is.
Personal Note: On my Dell PII 400, and even on my Compaq Deskpro 286, the display is smaller and the colors slightly distorted, which is very common. It's fortunate if you have a machine that can display this game at all without changing video cards. I play it as is, missing the 8086 immensely.
This webpage may help your machine display the graphics, if you can't at all access a 8086/8088 or a video card that can translate the CGA routines properly:
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/help/oldonnew/06_video.shtml
This game is just as addictive today as it was back in the days of old. In addition, it's very well-written for its time and unashamedly difficult. Be warned to steer clear of this entertaining, frustrating game, if you have a term paper due the next morning or are up past your bedtime.
Specs:
A few download locations; if all else fails, Google round42.zip:
http://files.chatnfiles.com/carousel/003C/
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/robo/games1.htm
http://riverbbs.net/files/output/40107.Html
Very special thanks for game reviews and technical info:
MobyGames:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/gameId,209/
Mike Pooler present day:
http://www.pcgame.com