82 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
82 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
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WHIP RUSH
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I didn't want to buy WHIP RUSH. For one thing, I was thinking, Why do I want
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another shoot-'em-up type of game for my Sega Genesis? And for some reason, I
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just assumed this game would be a cheap knockoff of THUNDERFORCE II. But after
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seeing a demo at a videogame store, the graphics just floored me, and I had to
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give WHIP RUSH a try. Now, I'm very glad I did!
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WHIP RUSH manages to take the spaceship shoot-everything-in-sight game and keep
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the genre fresh in a number of ways, most obviously by making great use of the
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Sega Genesis hardware. It takes fantastic advantage of the Genesis machine's
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background scrolling capabilities. In level one, your ship (Whip Rush) is flying
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forward against a background of clouds and glaciers, with about three scrolling
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planes on the top, and three on the bottom. It's not so much the number of
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planes, but how they are arranged on the screen that presents such a great
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effect. Another impressive use of backgrounds is in level three, where you pilot
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the Whip Rush inside a cavernous complex. Multiple planes make up the
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background, but they glow softly with blue color, fading to black, then to blue,
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back and forth again.
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The designers of WHIP RUSH must have put in a good amount of time to come up
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with something new on these screens. It's not just like the lava lake scene in
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MYSTIC DEFENDER, where you get the feeling they said, "Look, Ma! I can do nine
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separate scrolling planes!" Here, they actually arranged the scrolling planes
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for a certain effect.
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Another innovation of WHIP RUSH: Most shoot-'em-ups tend to scroll either
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upwards or to the left. WHIP RUSH throws away that restriction. You may be going
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from left to right, right to left, south to north, or north to south in this
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game!
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For example, in the first level, you go through the clouds from left to right
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for a bit; then you start to descend through the clouds, past large hovering
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objects, fighting off ships; then you enter the city and begin going left to
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right again. In level two, you repeat this pattern, except here you descend into
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the ocean/river and fight underwater ships. In level three, you navigate the
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cavern going left to right, then north, up through some tiny passages, then in
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reverse (right to left), with enemies on either side of you!
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There are some neat "bad-guy" characters for you to fight in the game, as well.
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A tricky one to watch out for is the "Boomerang Yaro," who fires a missile that
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returns to him -- and the only time he's vulnerable is when he doesn't have the
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missile! On level three, you'll encounter many "Walkers," mechanical spiders
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that shoot missiles and glitter with orange and white light. So far, I haven't
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encountered any flickering in the enemies or large sprites.
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As usual in these types of games, there are four different power-up weapons for
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your ship: Laser, Missiles, Fireball, and Power Claw. The Power Claw is the one
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that stays by the side of your ship and is very advantageous to use. You can
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manuever it to point north, south, east, or west of the Whip Rush by pressing
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button C. This is very important when you are travelling upwards and need to
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shoot an enemy to the north, or when you are unprotected from behind. You can
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actually get two Power Claws and shoot both -- either backwards and forwards at
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the same time, or north and south at the same time.
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The designers of WHIP RUSH also put a good deal of effort into the music for
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the game. There is fine use of stereo effects, and an exciting "sci-fi" (ugh! I
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can't find any other term that would be appropriate) beat to it. The music
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rather overpowers the sound effects, which are pretty standard.
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How challenging is the game? I can't say conclusively, because I can't get
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through level three yet! While the manual says that there are only four levels
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to WHIP RUSH, the ads claim that there are seven, and a Gamers' Forum member
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confirms the number seven. The first level was pretty easy to conquer, the
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second less so, and the third even less, so I believe it does become
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progressively harder. But a super-duper whiz-kid arcader might get through it in
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no time at all. If there is a downside to this game, it'd be in the lack of
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gameplay value once you've actually finished the game: It doesn't include enough
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subtle nuances to make you want to play it forever (at least from what I've seen
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at this point).
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I certainly rate this game overall as very good -- a little better than a 7 on
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a scale of 1 to 10. If you like THUNDERFORCE II for the Genesis, and you'd like
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to play something else in the genre with exciting graphics and a twist in
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gameplay, then by all means take a look at WHIP RUSH! It's one of the better
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quality games for the Sega Genesis.
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WHIP RUSH is published and distributed by Renovation Products.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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