Laser Squad is a turn-based war game, which was the predecessor to the hugely popular game X-COM, UFO:Enemy Unknown. The game consists of several unrelated missions where player must lead soldiers to achieve specific objectives such as rescuing or even eliminating all enemies.

	As with a lot of games from the time, the MSX version is a ZX Spectrum port. But unlike the original Spectrum version, the MSX one comes with 6 missions instead of 5. But the only version available was an Italian conversion. In italian. And that would only load on MSX2 with mapper – specially because of a MSX2-only loading screen they added into the game, which was only some text on screen. As with many conversions, this one is also full of bugs, and wouldn’t work on the majority of MSX models. This was a shame, since the game is really good.
As mentioned before, the game starts showing you all the levels available to play. This MSX version comes with 6 levels instead of the original 5 on the Spectrum, which is a nice feature. The Spectrum version had other levels which were sold separately and they could be loaded into the game… maybe those levels can also be loaded on MSX version? I didn’t try it yet, but would be a nice thing to extend the game life if it is possible.
	After selecting the level, you can choose a 1 player or 2 player game. If 2 players option is selected, you’ll play against your friend. In the 1 player option, against the computer. The game continues as you equip your team of soldiers with armour, guns and ammo. There are several options to choose from, and you should choose carefully since your money (credits in the game) is limited. Guns varies from a simple knife to a rifle and even a rocket launcher – all have their uses in the game, depending on the mission you select to play.
Once you’ve selected your weaponry, the game starts. The first thing you should do is to place your soldier units on any “[D]” square (D for Deployment area). Usually each level has more than once (on the screenshot you can see the deployment area on the left of the level 1 – there is another one to the right), so you can even start your attack from multiple sides! After positioning all the soldiers, the game will start. Don’t forget to equip them with their weapons (they’re just carrying it on their backpack or something), otherwise they’ll go into combat empty-handed!
	Now you move your soldiers in turns, each at a time. Every soldier has “action points” (AP in the game screen) which are used for every action performed such as movement, turning (!), equipping weapons and shooting. Right below it, you can see the “AMM” indicator, which shows you the quantity of ammunition you still have. In the screenshot you can see I just spotted an enemy robot! If he sees me first, then he gets to shoot first too! Once you move all your soldiers, you ‘END’ your turn and wait for the enemy to play theirs.
If you like turn based combat games, you won’t be disappointed – this is as good as it gets. The game has a lot of depth and possibilities in it – you can even ‘peek’ on windows to try to take out enemies from outside without risking too much! Even if you not fan of the genre, you still can enjoy this game; it is that good. Just make sure you don’t try to shoot the rocket launcher into narrow passageways — the results are not very nice as you can see in the screenshot on the right 🙂

So What was done in this version? The initial goal was to just translate the game from Italian, but many more got done:

• All texts translated into English
• MSX2 loading screen removed
• Original Spectrum loading screen converted to MSX to replace MSX2 one
• Controls changed from Q/A/O/P (usual Spectrum control keys) to MSX cursor keys
• Changed RAM detection routine and slot changing routine to increase compatibility. Now game works on turbo-R and many other machines… but not all. Unfortunately, to achieve this, the game needs a very big rewrite.
• One word on the game info screen “FORZA” had its original position altered, so it would align correctly on the Italian version. The word was translated to “STRENGTH” (as in the original) and placed in the correct position
• Correct mapper initialization on MSX1

So… after all this, the game now loads on some MSX1 models, but still needs mapper due to a lot of memory being used. It won’t work on MSX models with RAM on slot 0/1. The game also has a bug in the info screen, where one of the progress bars “bleeds” into the left side of the screen when full.

Other than that, the game works like a charm, and it’s very fun to play! Just click on the link below to download it and start playing! Also there is a nice manual on World of Spectrum about this game, if you’re lost and need some help to play it!

Get the game here: Laser Squad English (version 0.12)