Slick and enjoyable blaster
This is a little known shooter from a company who produced plenty of shareware titles which, although, generally unoriginal, made for entertaining enough diversions. B.A.D. is one such game which takes its inspiration from things like Space Invaders, Xenon and every other vertically scrolling blaster you've ever played and combines it into a simple but enjoyable little game. What little background there is to the game explains that the inhabitants of Mars have grown tired of making crop circles on Earth and are now making their presence known in an aggressive and war-like manner. Led by the implausibly named Rupert, these dastardly Martians have sent their best fighters into space to start off the invasion, but wouldn't you just know it, there's one lone Earth pilot standing between them and their goal. Yes, that's right. In classic arcade game style, it's you! While not exactly original or innovative, B.A.D. is certainly a fun enough blaster. The graphics are reasonably impressive for such a title, with plenty of nicely detailed sprites on screen at any time and which move around at a fair old pace. There are some pretty cool weapons to slice your way through the waves of bad guys and which display some neat enough effects, while being extremely satisfying to use. Perhaps the game's best feature is the two player mode, which doubles your fun and it is undeniably enjoyable taking down the aliens in the company of a friend. While there isn't an over abundance of levels, what is on display is fairly challenging and all in all, this makes for some solid blasting action.
