Monday, July 22, 2024

Urban Strike for SNES


Image: MobyGames

Urban Strike

Strike 3. You're out


Genre: shooter - isometric

Publisher: Elec Arts

Year: 1995

System: SNES


Gameplay Score: 1

Gameplay Notes:

What the heck happened here? Seriously. Desert Strike was awesome. Jungle Strike wasn't far behind. But this game is an absolute dumpster fire in comparison. I got nervous when Black Pearl's logo popped up in the loading screen and my fears were all confirmed. This he is awful. Not bad. It's certifiable awful. As is tradition for this series the controls are different and worse than the previous game. Turning your core is painfully slow and they removed strafing altogether. Huh? Why would you remove the only thing that makes the game playable? Beyond nerfing the controls the other gameplay not worth mentioning is the insane amount of slowdown. Any amount of action onscreen causes the framerate to dip into single digits. Even turning is enough to cause this ridiculous drop in performance.


Level Design Score: 2

Level Design Notes:

Ok props for keeping the same basic formula of the previous games. I guess. No improvements, refinements, or any changes to speak of, so I'm taking points away for laziness.


Theme Score: 2

Theme Notes:

Even more edgy than the previous game. This time you're in 2001 trying to prevent an evil genius from using a secret weapon that is powerful enough to take down a skyscraper. Umm, did THQ predict 9-11?


Art Style Score: 2

Art Style Notes:

It's hard to look past the shoddy performance to see otherwise decent sprites. It's also hard to care about the sprites when everything else is a pixelated and poorly drawn mess. The mission briefs on the pause screen are particularly awful to look at. Oh and the explosion animations are so horrible that they suck any fun that you might otherwise have in just blowing stuff up.


Audio Score: 1

Audio Notes:

Poor sound design all around. The title screen and briefing room music is an assault on the ears. The in game sounds are hilariously disconnected from the actions and often don't play for some reason. The incessant engine noise is annoying and none of the sounds are any good anyway. Explosions don't even make a sound most of the time. Just awful


Overall Score: 28

Review ID: 666



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