Trevor Mc Fur in the Crescent Galaxy:

"The Crescent Galaxy been conquered by an entity known as Odd-It, and all of the planets in the galaxy are under his rule and guarded by his blockade. So begins your day as Trevor McFur, a corporal in the Crescent Galaxy's chapter of the Interplanetary Defense Squad. You and your female partner Cutter set your coordinates for home and engage at warp nine. You and Cutter have split up, with Cutter taking the shuttle craft and sneaking through each moon's blockade to get help below while you battle the deadly armadas in the sky above. Odd-It's main base is on the planet Cosmolite and can only be penetrated by first destroying the four moons that surround Cosmolite."

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy is another side-scrolling shooter game similar to R-Type. When the game begins, you first select which mission you want to take by selecting one of the four moons surrounding Cosmolite from a galactic map. You can choose to go to any of the four moons in any order, however, you cannot go to Cosmolite to attack Odd-It's main base until you have "liberated" all of the moons first. A small screen below the map shows you what each moon is and what baddies you will face.

Once you have selected a moon, a picture of Trevor's superior appears to send you off on your mission. The character looks like General Patton with a lion's head pasted over his face.

Your ship is armed with a forward cannon, bombs, and special weapons; all three can be fired at the same time. The D-pad of the Jag controller controls your ship, the A-button drops the bombs, the B-button fires your cannon, and the C-button fires the special weapon. The key pad can be used to select which special weapon you want to use, or you can use the option button to select a weapon. Only one special weapon can be fired at a time. You start off with one of each special weapon, and powerups can be collected later in gameplay.

Basically, for any moon you choose, there are two stages you must complete. First you fly though space avoiding or shooting asteroids and other objects which can destroy you, collect power-ups and weapons, until you reach the boss at the end. The first stage is similar on all the moons. There are asteroids of some type, crystals, blobs, glass cubes which can fire at you, and spheres which also fire at you. One of the moons also has pyramids which can fly apart and the pieces can destroy you. Watch out for the blobs since these can follow you around for a short time! I advise you not try to destroy all the space debre since there will be so many fragments flying around at high speeds making your death quicker! BTW, you start with three ships and a few continues.

If you defeat the first boss, you will continue on to battle baddies over the moon's surface until you reach the second boss at the end. You will have freed the moon after defeating the second boss, and then you will return to the galactic map to choose your next mission. Some levels have additional obstacles, such as on one moon you fly in a cave and cannot fly to high or to low without hitting the stalagtites and stalagmites, and must avoid falling ones.

A Bonus World will be accessable after each moon is completed. You will have an opportunity to collect more power-ups as you fly through Space Rings. Crashing into a ring, however, will end the level.

I haven't finished the game yet, so I cannot tell you anything about Cosmolite. Sorry. :(

Gameplay:

• Compared to Defender 2000 (which is hyperactive), Trevor McFur is slower. That doesn't mean the game is easy though. The enemies range from teeny-tiny to huge in size. Like D2K, your ship is kinda big , which makes manuvering around objects difficult (especially the bosses!). This is a pain whenever you're flying in space trying to avoid debre, especially when you move up or down. Whenever you move up or down, your ship rolls, like the ship does in D2K, expanding the wing length and making manuverability worse since an object can hit your wing and destroy you.

Graphics:

• Some of the backgound graphics look impressive. Others look like cheap PC screen backgounds. The enemies look like flat pictures moving around the screen firing at you, not 3D at all. Also, the space debre in the first stage of each moon look like they were taken out of the game Malstrom for the Apple Macintosh. Sound: Although there is no music during gameplay, there's background music during the title screen and the galactic map screen. However, the music is pathetic. It sounds like bad tunes from the Star Wars Canteena group. It's a good thing there's no music during gameplay if it was going to be anything like the music from the title screen.

Sound:

• The sound effects in this game are nothing spectacular either. There's the explosion sounds, which are alright. When you shoot a blob it makes the sound of a bubble popping. Then there are the sounds of the enemy's fire, which varies from sounds like small firecrackers to squishy sounds.

Control:

• No problems here.

Keep in mind that this was one of the first games released for the Atari Jaguar, so it may have been something back when the Jag was first released but falls short by today's standards. But hey, I bought this game for only $2, so what the hell. I give this game 2 out of 5 stars.

--Taz

• <TazmanianDevil2@juno.com>