Espial

Name:	Espial
Company:	Tigervision
Model #:	7-012
Programmer:	Unknown
Year:	1984
Released?	Yes
Notes:	Port of the 1983 Orca arcade game

Espial is yet another Tigervision port of an obscure Orca arcade game.  As the larger companies had the big name developers locked up smaller companies like Tigervision had to make due with smaller companies like Orca.  Sometimes this worked out quite well such as when Coleco ported many of Exidy's sleeper hits to various home systems.  Other times the results were mixed like with Tigervision and Orca.  While Orca's arcade games weren't bad, they weren't chart toppers by any means.  In all Tigervision ported three Orca arcade games to the 2600: River Patrol, Springer, and of course Espial.  Tigervision had also planned on porting two other Orca games (Sky Lancer and Changes) but these never made it out the doors.

Although it sounds like yet another made up name for a game, Espial is actually a real word which means to watch and observe.  Of course this has nothing to do with the actual game it's attached to...  Espial is basically a Xevious clone with less variety.  The background story states that you are a plucky space pilot attempting to attack a giant star ship with your fighter (where have I hear that one before?).  As is the standard with space themed shooters you have your standard laser shots that you use to destroy incoming enemies and as this is a Xevious knock off you also have a bomb crosshair which you can use to bomb ground targets.  Since the 2600 only has one fire button you shoot and drop bombs at the same time.

The only really interesting thing that stands out with Espial are the scrolling backgrounds.  The programmer did an amazing job with using the blocky playfield graphics to make interesting backgrounds that give the illusion of flying over a giant star ship or alien landscape.  Using playfield graphics also freed up other resources for the programmer to use for the incoming enemy objects, of which there are a lot.  The programmer used an interesting technique to manage the flicker that is normally associated with 2600 games that have a lot of moving enemies.  Instead of just having the enemies flicker at a 'normal' rate, the programmer made them flicker so fast that they end up looking ethereal and ghostly.  This solves the problem of distracting flicker at the cost of the enemies looking very light and getting somewhat lost in the background.

There are three different levels but they're all pretty much the same with the exception of the backgrounds.  The first level has standard ships and two different kinds of ground targets which may or may not shoot bombs at you.  The second level (an outright rip off of the famous Xevious Nazca bird graphics except in butterfly form) is more of the same with some different looking enemies and ground targets that always fire at you (and much faster).  The third level has a funky diamond looking background with no ground targets but is entirely populated with diamond shaped ships which home in on you and will start coming at you from behind!  Thankfully all three stages are quite short so you won't get too bored as they cycle through.  At the start and end of each level a short plucky little tune is played but there is no music during the levels themselves.

Espial is a competent little shooter but brings absolutely nothing new to the table.  It's a game you'd play for a week or so then move onto something else while mourning the $49.99 you spent on it.  As Espial was released at the start of the crash in early 1984, it had a fairly small print run which makes it a bit of a rarity today.  Interestingly Espial was also released for the TI-99/4a, which is even rarer than the 2600 version but looks and plays about the same.  It's hard to make a game stand out when the source material is pretty bland itself but the 2600 version of Espial tries its best and is worth at least one playthrough if you can find it.

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