Reviews

quite strange early shoot'em up, in which you often have to strike the enemies shooting backward. by the way, they move wavening, in a similar way to zynaps starships. just not as smooth.

a more recent review [I forgot I had already reviewed it]:
It's a nice and very professionally done horizontal space shoot'em up, with enemies advancing with a sort of swinging movement reminding of Zynaps, although without its the sheer smoothness. So there are these enemies spacecraft swarming together from the right or the left side and shooting, some of them looks like syringes, probably the programmers were afraid of doctors and vaccinations. Also, there are some fixed space mines to avoid. So, you destroy swarm after swarm, and the shape of the enemies change, but I don't seen much progress in the gameplay, difficulty or such. Nonetheless, it's ok. 3/5

Edit: now 4/5

This is not a bad wee shmup which allows you to shoot in both directions, but there's hardly any progress in the game and you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. Definately not the most exciting game out there.

Not bad , not bad for its day at all ... although a bit confusing at times .

Sound is ok . This time you must select which way to shoot before actually shooting .

Accelerator is a fine arcade if you like shooters with a vintage flavour .

Quite a surprising schmup with action in two directions, good use of colour and a variety of attack waves.
Decent controls, everything works,fast moving and better than some higher rated shmup titles from 1984.
The downside is some unfair deaths on restarts and a fairly rapid rinse and repeat.

1984 Century City Software (UK)
by Stephen Curtis and Mark Jacobs

Yes, this is a surprising shoot 'em up . The 2 ways firing is at the least, unusual. But honestly, although I fancied playing it, for a 48K game, I think it should have been perfected and specially given more variety in levels. It looks too much like any 16K Space Invaders game, simply viewed from a different angle and with the firing novelty.

2,5 points

It's a shooter and it's published by Century City Software, and that already is a red flag because Century City released bad games, such as Laser Lord and Man Trap. And it's written by Stephen Curtis, and that is a second red flag because he too wrote bad games, like Arena and Jackle and Wide, so we're not off to a good start with this at all and we haven't even played the damn thing yet. The game's in-game instructions are a gem, first it boasts the game to be a “real-time arcade game”, if it is why is the frame rate so slow when you start the game then? It also states that the failure to destroy all 20 waves “means your death, which could be fatal”, I'm pretty certain all deaths are fatal, or at least the last time I check they were. What could I say about this? Well, at least it's a game and at least you can do something in it, unlike Jackle and Wide, the problem though is it's not very good. It's slow and jerky, so much for “real-time” then, some of the enemies are quicker than you which creates a problem in avoiding them, and while firing in both directions is unique, it can also work against you. You're looking to fire ahead but move back away from the enemy, but you can't because it will fire in the opposite direction instead. Also, if you clear wave and there's enemy fire coming towards you does it clear away? Hell no, the new wave starts and the enemy fire remains and hits you anyway. It's not REALLY bad but it's still bad and it's a game I'll thankfully never play again. Look out for those red flags people.