To The Earth

The Short


Pros
- Light-gun game for the NES where you SHOOT SPACESHIPS
- The spaceships look kind of cool
- Also, more lightgun games are always appreciated
- Only four levels, but each level is quite long

Cons
- Game is boooooring
- Also it gets atrociously hard quite quickly
- There really isn't much to this game to critique, honestly

Hur hur "To Uranus" hur hur

The Long

So I actually own two light guns for some reason (both an orange AND gray one) and I specifically bought an old TV for my retro games just so the stupid guns would work (they don't work on modern, flat screen LCD or Plasma TVs), so I was pretty adamant on getting more games that the guns would work with. The only one I ever played growing up was Duck Hunt, which is a fine game but doesn't really have any variety (or challenge). So when I heard there was a space shootin' game, To The Earth, I went out and snagged a copy.

And...this is going to be a hard (and probably short) review because there really isn't much to To The Earth, to be completely honest.

You are fighting a war among the stars. 

Essentially you have four levels that involve you trying to get to certain planets, ending on Earth. All you do is shoot everything that shows up. You have unlimited bullets, and the stuff takes for-freaking-ever to show up during the first stage. It starts out as just ships flying by, but quickly escalates out of control. The ships fly by super fast so you'd better catch 'em quick or they'll be gone. They also shoot very fast homing missiles at you (which is the only way to die) and you regain life by shooting more down without taking damage. Easy enough, right?

Well, yeah, but that's the whole game. Staring at space, waiting for a tiny dot to appear in the distance, and frantically shooting at it hoping it doesn't zip past too fast.

I have to admit, though, that earth looks pretty good. 

The game has an extremely dull start (which you'll replay a lot because even the first mission gets absurdly difficult) and then the levels ramp up out of control. But while being a hard game, I still was bored. All you do is stare out into the inky blackness of space and wait for the slightest hint of movement before gunning it down. What's the backstory, here? Why was I hanging out in Uranus (hur hur) and now I have to go back to Earth? Who am I shooting, anyway? Aliens? People? People-Alien hybrids? Alas, the deep fiction of To The Earth is never revealed. I'm just going to assume it's a Star Wars prequel. 

This is also a hard game to find screenshots for. 

Graphically the game is also boring. The ships look fine, but they just zip past super fast so don't expect to see much of them. I do like the explosions, and the little hud at the bottom is cute, but that's really all you see. It probably took them like fifteen minutes to draw all this stuff. 

The music is also delightfully droll. Not bad, but certainly not interesting either. It just...is. Much like the vacuum of space, it's nothing to write home about.

An epic cutscene. 

Honestly, this game isn't bad, it just isn't memorable. At all. There were a limited number of zapper games, and in order to justify me owning two of the darn things I figure To The Earth is alright. I still boot it up when I want to shoot stuff down (having space ships explode is more satisfying than just shooting some ducks), but the lack of variety, game modes, and just about anything means it's really just a blasse experience.

Granted, every cart I've seen has been $2 or less, so if you have a zapper and a TV that supports it, you might as well get one. For the explosions. And shooting. I guess.

Two out of five stars, because I'd still rather play it than Loopz again.

To The Earth: "What? Graphics? Overrated!"