Uploaded December 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Project-X Original release developed and published by Team 17 in 1992.
"It's the same old story, someone else's mistake has become your problem. The fools, the mad fools.. The scientists did it for fun, they must have done - no one wanted massive mutated insect-like droids, the ugly by-products of early bio-mechanical experiments with powerful x-rays, not me and certainly not you. Dumped on the planet Ryxx and left to stagnate and fade out - the sickening mutations not only survived but thrived. Their intelligence circuits warped, left seeking revenge for their tortured past. Fears of an all- out attack have forced the Federation into action! Your mission brief is simple.. Fly to Ryxx, into the heart of the station that the evil beings have made their lair.. and blow the whole thing sky-high. "
This is a recording of the Original four disk release. In 1993, a Project-X Special edition was released as a budget title with changes to gameplay to make it easier, more accessible and a bit shorter as well as having cut content in order to fit on three disks. The game is highly regarded as a great Amiga game but not without its issues mainly it's difficulty as it has that euro game dev mentality of finding creative ways for having cheap deaths for the player slowing progress. In this case its mostly annoying things falling from the top of the screen.
As with most shoot em ups, there is not much to it. Just destroy everything and survive to the end of the stage, kill the boss and move onto the next. Along the way you can collect powerups to boost your weapons. Die though and your weapons will be reduced requiring charging them up again. In this original game death can be costly as checkpoints are far apart and you may end up replaying long sections.
Most notable changes between the two versions include having a choice of title music. Levels are a little longer with a few repeated enemy waves. As noted above, stages are longer and you can be thrown back to a checkpoint. There are two difficulty modes (rookie/Arcade) with rookie making the enemies die much quicker. In this version, you only get to play the first two levels on rookie and completing them is an abrupt and unexplained throwback to the title screen without entry to the high score table. The special edition also loses the final stage jumping right to the ending which re-uses the title music.
Overall, a great Amiga game for the time making good use of overscan for a large playfield. The longplay shows an initial run in Rookie mode which is only two levels but highlights difficulty differences. I then show a full run of the game on Arcade difficulty and once complete I show the bad ending. I have also left most of the title music's intact as well as the quite long ending track.
00:00:00 Title Music (Rave)
00:04:50 Level 1 (Rookie)
00:13:50 Level 2 (Rookie)
00:21:18 Title Music (Old-Timer)
00:27:55 Level 1 (Arcade)
00:36:44 Level 2 (Arcade)
00:45:15 Bonus Stage
00:47:17 Level 3 (Arcade)
00:53:25 Bonus Stage
00:55:35 Level 4 (Arcade)
01:01:30 Bonus Stage
01:03:46 Level 5 (Arcade)
01:09:35 Bombing Run
01:11:09 Ending
--------------------------
01:17:40 Bad Ending
Project-X Original release developed and published by Team 17 in 1992.
"It's the same old story, someone else's mistake has become your problem. The fools, the mad fools.. The scientists did it for fun, they must have done - no one wanted massive mutated insect-like droids, the ugly by-products of early bio-mechanical experiments with powerful x-rays, not me and certainly not you. Dumped on the planet Ryxx and left to stagnate and fade out - the sickening mutations not only survived but thrived. Their intelligence circuits warped, left seeking revenge for their tortured past. Fears of an all- out attack have forced the Federation into action! Your mission brief is simple.. Fly to Ryxx, into the heart of the station that the evil beings have made their lair.. and blow the whole thing sky-high. "
This is a recording of the Original four disk release. In 1993, a Project-X Special edition was released as a budget title with changes to gameplay to make it easier, more accessible and a bit shorter as well as having cut content in order to fit on three disks. The game is highly regarded as a great Amiga game but not without its issues mainly it's difficulty as it has that euro game dev mentality of finding creative ways for having cheap deaths for the player slowing progress. In this case its mostly annoying things falling from the top of the screen.
As with most shoot em ups, there is not much to it. Just destroy everything and survive to the end of the stage, kill the boss and move onto the next. Along the way you can collect powerups to boost your weapons. Die though and your weapons will be reduced requiring charging them up again. In this original game death can be costly as checkpoints are far apart and you may end up replaying long sections.
Most notable changes between the two versions include having a choice of title music. Levels are a little longer with a few repeated enemy waves. As noted above, stages are longer and you can be thrown back to a checkpoint. There are two difficulty modes (rookie/Arcade) with rookie making the enemies die much quicker. In this version, you only get to play the first two levels on rookie and completing them is an abrupt and unexplained throwback to the title screen without entry to the high score table. The special edition also loses the final stage jumping right to the ending which re-uses the title music.
Overall, a great Amiga game for the time making good use of overscan for a large playfield. The longplay shows an initial run in Rookie mode which is only two levels but highlights difficulty differences. I then show a full run of the game on Arcade difficulty and once complete I show the bad ending. I have also left most of the title music's intact as well as the quite long ending track.
00:00:00 Title Music (Rave)
00:04:50 Level 1 (Rookie)
00:13:50 Level 2 (Rookie)
00:21:18 Title Music (Old-Timer)
00:27:55 Level 1 (Arcade)
00:36:44 Level 2 (Arcade)
00:45:15 Bonus Stage
00:47:17 Level 3 (Arcade)
00:53:25 Bonus Stage
00:55:35 Level 4 (Arcade)
01:01:30 Bonus Stage
01:03:46 Level 5 (Arcade)
01:09:35 Bombing Run
01:11:09 Ending
--------------------------
01:17:40 Bad Ending
