78 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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STRIDER
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STRIDER, an amazing arcade game that videogame players will remember, was
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converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System a few years ago. The conversion
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was awful, and left many of us waiting for a decent adaption of the arcade
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classic. Well, now Sega has taken Capcom's arcade hit and translated it to their
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Sega Genesis 16-bit video game console. Sega has certainly matched the beautiful
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quality of the original, if not surpassed it in some ways! (This review is based
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on the Japanese Mega Drive version of the game. This should be very close to the
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English Genesis version.)
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First, STRIDER has a great graphic quality to it, for those of you who haven't
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heard. Fantastic backgrounds, colorful characters, and lots of special effects
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are what beef this game up to an 8Mb cartridge. The game makes great use of the
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translucent backgrounds that give Genesis games so much depth, except that
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STRIDER has several different types of these on every level/area that you
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explore. Also, the music and sound effects are quite well done; I don't think
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we've seen a game with this kind of sound since REVENGE of SHINOBI.
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Having made it to the game's conclusion, using an "unlimited men" trick I
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learned in The Gamer's Forum, I can give you a level by level breakdown of the
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game. But STRIDER is not one of those Genesis carts you can beat five minutes
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after plugging it in. I doubt I could have beat the game without this trick, for
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those of you who are wondering how hard/easy the game is.
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STRIDER has essentially five major levels to pass through. The first level
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isn't so tough -- you're invading a Soviet-style palace -- and you will probably
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master it in a few plays. The end of the first level concludes with the members
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of the Kremlin assembling into a giant mechanical caterpillar, wielding a
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vicious hammer and sickle. There is some flicker in this caterpillar, but it
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didn't bother me at all.
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The second level is a real rollercoaster ride: You start off on snow-covered
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terrain, fight a mechanical version of King Kong, climb upwards to invade an
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industrial complex, run back down the mountain, and leap across a death-defying
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chasm. After that, you must climb a platform filled with robots in order to
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hitch a ride aboard flying platforms. You jump on three of these to get to a
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giant airborne complex, filled with Asian warrior women.
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The third level is one huge airborne facility. You must destroy it, but in
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order to do so, you will have to locate the heart the complex, solve a few
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puzzles, and avoid falling to your doom! The heart of this machine is really
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unreal (very 3-D), and you have to fight it in zero gravity! Also on this level,
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you will find gravity reversed on some levels: You will fall up, not down. Once
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you destroy the machine, you will find it very difficult to make your escape
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before it totally blows up.
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Just when you thought you'd seen the best graphics, level four takes place in
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the jungle, filled with warrior women hunting you down! The backgrounds are
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incredible, and the place is loaded with prehistoric dinosaurs, too. There are
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these unreal green vines that almost seem alive, and that you swing upon to get
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around the jungle. At the end, you fight a very tough mechanical dinosaur.
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The fifth and final level has you invading the heart of the Soviet city, and
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many of the elements of the first four levels come at you here. You have to
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fight all of the bosses you fought before (although the complex you invade is
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new), but there are a lot of reverse-gravity surprises! If you can beat all of
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the bosses, you will get to face off against the wizard who is responsible for
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all of this.
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For the nit-pickers, there are small minor glitches in STRIDER. In some scenes,
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there is the infamous "too many Sprites slow down the action" problem, but I
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believe this only happens a couple of times during the game. Also, some of the
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larger/longer monsters do flicker (in the same manner that the TG-16 version of
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R-TYPE does). If you can ignore this (as I can), then you will be pleased by the
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game; others might grumble.
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STRIDER is a wonderful, must-have game for the Genesis. It's also very
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challenging, and I will be playing it frequently to see if I can beat it without
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the unlimited men. I would rate it as a 10 in terms of graphics, music,
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playability, and overall excellence: I like it even more than GHOULS 'N GHOSTS
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and REVENGE OF SHINOBI.
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STRIDER is published and distributed by Sega.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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