#161 - Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum

There are no good asylums, but Alien Asylum is surely the worst.

**Once upon a time, this was fun… *or was it*?**

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Data East

DEVELOPER: Beam Software

GENRE: Action/Adventure

RELEASE DATE: February 1990

Was this supposed to be a good game, Data East? I mean, I know it’s not a game you want to be taken seriously, seeing as you named it Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum, but was there any thought put into this? For starters, who is your target audience? Are the elderly – remembering the good ol’ days of Flash Gordon and Johnny Quest and Brock Steele – supposed to be brought in by the name “Dash Galaxy”? Certainly the game feels made for the elderly. Dash – besides looking like a pilot from World War I with his pants hiked up above his nipples – moves like he’s running through sap (“slow down, you young degenerate!” cries your septuagenarian grandmother) as he tries to collect stars, bombs, and other assorted science-fiction-y stuff. Aside from the occasional bomb Dash picks up, he has no attacks other than to jump reeeeaaaallllyyyy slooooowwwwllllyyy over the few enemies that litter each stage/screen. Speaking of stages, there really aren’t any in the traditional side-scroller sense (which, I suppose, is how you could classify this). Each world has four stages entered via a room that looks like the above screenshot.

When you enter a stage, the door locks behind you immediately, and only after you’ve gathered all the items can you leave. Once you collect all the items in each world, you move on to the next. No boss, no attacking, no doing much of anything other than picking up items that don’t do much of anything. It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game this horrible, but I can’t say I’m surprised… Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum is the name of the game.