Captain Quazar

Genre: Shoot 'em up, Third Person Shooter

Release Year: 1997

Developer: Cyclone Studios

Publisher: 3DO

Age Rating: 12+

Playability Status: Fully playable (minor issues only)

Tested On: Windows 7 x64, Windows 8 x64

Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable

Captain Quazar is a long-forgotten isometric run and gun game that originally launched on the ill-fated 3DO games console. Excellent presentation and humorous cut-scenes are sadly not enough to save this relic from the realms of obscurity, due to overly repetitive gameplay.

Installation

Unusually for a PC game, Captain Quazar runs from the CD and doesn’t require installation to a hard drive. In order to get the game to run, you will need to use compatibility mode settings. Insert the games CD into your PCs optical drive then browse to it using Windows Explorer or File Explorer. Locate the file “TEASER.EXE”. This is the games main executable file, we’re not sure why it’s called “TEASER”. Set the compatibility mode options to run this file in compatibility mode for Windows 95. No other compatibility mode settings are required. As always, if you need a tutorial on how to use compatibility mode, click here.

Configuring the game

With the compatibility mode options applied, double click the “TEASER.EXE” file to start the game. You will need to enter your administrator password and/or click “Yes” when Windows User Account Control prompts you. The first time you run the game it will offer to install DirectX, you must select Yes to install DirectX, though the installation will fail immediately. The installer will then give you several warnings that your machine does not meet the correct specification, but you can safely proceed anyway.

A simple windows with “Play”, Settings” and “Cancel” should now appear. Before you start the game you are going to want to click on “Settings”.

Under settings, you can tweak various options for the game. In the Sounds Settings tab, choose the highest quality options possible (44100 Khz, 16 Bit, Stereo and High Quality music).

On the Video Settings tab the choices are not so clear. Captain Quazar was originally designed to run at 320×240 resolution. This resolution is lower than most modern video cards can output, so you should make sure to choose either “640×480” or “Window Scaled to Full Screen”.

If you prefer, you can try the Full Screen settings. On most PCs you must choose “320×240 view on 640×480 screen” and “16 Bit Colour”. When running the game like this, it will run as a 320×240 square in the middle of your monitor, with black space surrounding it. Performance in full-screen mode in Windows 8 is very poor and is not recommended.

The games graphics do not generally scale well to the higher resolution displays we are used to in this modern age. In testing we found that setting the desktop to the lowest possible resolution and choosing “Window Scaled to Full Screen” gave the best results. When playing Captain Quazar in windowed mode or full screen, be sure to disable any additional monitors you may be using.

Configuring Controllers

Use of a game controller while playing this game is highly recommended. By choosing “Player 1 Settings” or “Player 2 Settings” you can map game controls appropriately. The games own support for controllers no longer works in Windows 7 or 8, so you will need to rely on Xpadder to utilise your controller.

Remember when playing the game that you need to press the “Fire A” key (by default this is mapped to the Insert key) and not the enter key, to select a menu option.

Running the game

You’re now all set to join the captain on his adventure. Click on the “Play” button and the game should start. Cut-scenes can be skipped by pressing the “Fire A” key or button. To exit the game, right click on its icon on the taskbar and choose “Close window”. If you are playing in full-screen mode you will need to use the Alt and Tab keyboard shortcut to return to the desktop and do this.