51: Virus

Number 51
(111 points)
Virus
1991: 5 (9.6)
1992: 41 (12.0)
1993: 52 (19.6)
1994: 68 (19.8)
1995: 56 (36.0)
1996: 87 (14.0)

A classic from the creator of Elite, and our third six-time appearance, you'll need to turn the DPI on your mouse right down for this one.

Aliens are infecting the landscape with a deadly virus that is killing the vegetation, and you are tasked with stopping them. There are different aliens to contend with, but your biggest adversary at the beginning will be the controls: although it can be controlled using the keyboard, the mouse is recommended, and it takes a lot of practice to get used to it. Once you get the hang of flying your rocket ship around, however, the game becomes a fun shoot 'em up with a high degree of difficulty.

An Amiga 1200 is recommended here, but there is no frame limit, so cranking up the CPU power in an emulator will make the game unplayable. Still, I'm obviously not the only one who found the controls a nightmare at first, but the best advice is to maintain a central point on your mousepad, and make very small adjustments to it. Obviously, turning your mouse sensitivity as low as possible will make that fine control easier, too, but doing that on a real Amiga might be tricky.

Recommended TOSEC disk(s):
Virus (1988)(Firebird)[cr QTX]