Review by Jordy on 10 Nov 2014 (Rating: 2)
Easily not the best shooter on the Spectrum. The graphics are quite nice but the gameplay is pretty average, it's quite slow and it's easy to hit an enemy with your own ship rather than with bullets. I certainly wasn't impressed with this.
Review by Stack on 27 Jan 2015 (Rating: 4)
I bet System 3 were bewildered by the 'yet another shooter' response in 1989 as this is at times quite a special game.
A wonderful atmosphere is created by 4 big scrolling levels, 1 vertical, 3 horizontal, showing off exceptional colourful graphics, grim enemies and destructive scenery. The fish faces and bulging eyes of level 2 are drawn with real excellence.
For colour scrolling shmups only R Type, does better. Dominator's scroll is not startlingly quick paced but the massive variety of aliens and their attacks is amazing and the power ups when they come, are very welcome.
Sound is also well used.
The mistake System 3 made was that first vertical level. It is congested, requires attacks to be memorised and has not breaker points to stop you being sent back to the beginning. Where the first level of R Type is challenging but accessible, Dominator sets out its hard core stall too soon and cuts a number of its potential fanbase adrift. Level 2 is even harder, even poked for infinite lives its a heck of a challenge. There are very few let up moments where the player can revel in the carnage from his newly upgraded craft.
If you are the sort of player who made mincemeat of games like Airwolf then Dominator is a chance to see a really detailed and colourful game scroll across your Spectrum screens. The huge effort that the programmers made in setting this hard core challenge is relatively unknown, a shame, albeit understandable given L1.
Review by YOR on 04 Apr 2019 (Rating: 2)
It's colourful yes but it plays like tripe. There's a degree of dodgy collision detection going on which only adds to the pain. I found it funny that the game preview snapshot and the preview pic of the RZX Archive walkthrough on YouTube show a horizontal view whereas I only got to see the vertical side of the game, says it all really.
