Microcosm Review

Microcosm is a rail shooter video game by Psygnosis and was originally released on the FM Towns and ported to the Sega CD, Amiga CD32, 3DO and for the PC. In the game you are  an elite Cybertech agent piloting a micro-submersible inside the body of Cybertech's president Tiron Korsby. The story is similar to the movie Innerspace starring Martin Short, Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan.



In the game you pilot your submarine throughout the body of Korsby fighting the deadly brain manipulation droid and his minions. The game utilizes Silicon Graphic Full Motion Video backgrounds. Each level plays out the same and if you get stuck you can use the password system to keep trying until you can pass the level. This makes the game fun the first time you play through but there is little reason to replay the game.

The game consists of the FMV background moving your throughout the body while you have a target reticle to shoot the evil robots within the body as well as the different things within the body that attacks you. The enemies are always in the same place making it easy once you learn the pattern.

The Silicon Graphic backgrounds look pretty good, I'm sure they looked great for their time. Every other level features a boss fight until you make it to the final boss, the brain Manipulation droid. There were a lot of on the rails FMV background games at the time and I found this one pretty fun although it wasn't very hard and I beat it in a day or two.

My favorite part is the cut scenes that help to tell the story. Again like the FMV backgrounds, the cut scenes don't hold up too well today but they are better than other games of their time and I liked them quite a bit. It really help to set the mood of the game.

If you enjoy FMV games from this period I would recommend it as well as people who like rail shooters. The game is pretty cheap today and won't cost you much. If this kind of game sounds interesting to you I recommend that you pick it up and give it a try. I give this game a 6 out of 10.