![rescue on fractalis rescue on fractalis](http://supercpu.cbm8bit.com/screenshots/jaggi.gif)
![rescue on fractalis rescue on fractalis](https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/covers/images/001/002/878/large/jomar-machado-rescue-on-fractalus-blog.jpg)
In some future time, in some future space, some humans were waging a war against evil aliens called “Jaggis.” Some of the most brave, heroic pilots faced off against these evil foes on their inhospitable planet, Fractalus. Obligatory remix (language warning!) Rescue Mission (Rescue on Fractalus, or Behind Jaggi Lines) Even with those omissions, it was still an incredible game, and I give it extremely high marks! Get it now! Also, don’t get the Nintendo version! That one sucked! This is because the version I had was actually a pirated beta version that was missing several frills (although the gameplay is unchanged) such as flashing skies when a goal was scored, the loser spinning out at the end of a game, the entire AI system (you were forced to play against a friend), and, sadly, that awesome Coltrane-like line on top of the theme song. Some may notice that I actually titled this “Ballblaster” not “Ballblazer” and I said it came out in 1983, where other sources state 1984. How many times must Lee Corso tell me to keep the CLOCK running?!?!?Sorry, had to get something off my chest I’ll be OK.) If LucasArts ever makes a sports game, I sure hope they hire outside people to do the commenting (although, as a rule, sports game commentators are always annoying. They even made a sportscast video to advertise, featuring the most annoying sportscasters this side of Greg Proops in The Phantom Menace. Apparently in some future year in some future space, players mount their “rotofoils” (the triangles) to shoot the “plasmorb” (the ball) into the “goals” (the goals). Being a Lucasfilm games, it also received an unusual amount of backstory thanks to corporate synergy. While you can play against the computer at varying skill levels, the best is to go against a friend. The game itself is also infectiously fun. No disrespect to the C64, but its version of the theme sucked compared to the Atari 8-bit’s so I’m including how it should sound here.) (Incidentally, the same article includes a snippet of the C64 version of the theme. But wait! How in the world can a computer improv a solo? Well, it’s actually not a programmed-in sequence of notes instead, it uses a fractal-based algorithm to simulate a solo that, according to one reporter quoted on Wikipedia, sounded like John Coltrane was playing it. There’s a repeating bass and harmony pattern, and layered on top of it is an undulating, jazzy improvisatory solo. But the most amazing part is the theme tune, which is possibly one of the most creative theme tunes I’ve seen anywhere, not just on the Atari. Also, when the two players get too close to each other there’s a weird buzzing sound, like when a bee flies into your ear (except quite a bit lower, like when a mutant bee flies into your ear). During the match itself there’s this sort of hi-hat sounding “rat-a-tat” pumping up the tension that gets a little more subdued whenever someone is in possession of the ball. That’s almost ten years before Wolfenstein 3D came out! There’s no real rotation, however, and the perspective changes at 90-degree jumps, which can be disorienting for new players. The graphics themselves are fairly basic by today’s standards (checkerboard, ball, posts), and even the two players are little more than a triangle on top of another triangle with a triangle in the middle, but just the fact that they scale according to perspective in 1983 ought to count for something. Not only is it the only first-person-perspective scrolling game for the Atari (as far as I know, anyway), but it scrolls incredibly smoothly for the hardware, with no skips, jumps, lag time, etc. But these guys take it to the next level. This premise could easily and quickly be accomplished using some sort of top-down static view. On the surface it seems simple enough: two triangles with bases are playing some sort of one-on-one soccer match where the goalposts move and get smaller every time a goal is scored through them, and the farther away you are from the goal when you shoot the ball, the more points you score. However, not many people know that before they were LucasArts, they were Lucasfilm games, and they even created two of the most impressive games to be found on the Atari 8-bit system, both of which are found on this disk. From Star Wars flight sims to hilarious pirate adventure games, the company was a wonderful purveyor of top-quality games.
![rescue on fractalis rescue on fractalis](https://server.emulator.games/images/atari-5200/Rescue%20on%20Fractalus!%20(USA).jpg)
One of the most well-loved game companies of the ’90’s was LucasArts.