Night Striker
Hyperzone's ugly cousinGenre: shooter - corridor
Publisher: Taito
Year: 1993
System: MD CD
Gameplay Score: 2
Gameplay Notes:
Looks and plays a lot like Hyperzone for the SNES, but without the benefit of Mode 7 for sprite scaling. Enemies appear as a mess of blocky pixels and are easily lost in the background so it's hard to find and shoot them. A is an auto-shot while B and C are single shots. In other words, you only need A. There are no powerups, othe weapons, or other mechanics. Controls are customizable in that you can choose to invert movement and can enable or disable a momentum-based auto-correct feature. Turn it off immediately. Health doesn't recover between stages so this is a tough game. And like all of these games it's hard to hit your target without being hit yourself. Also, a crazy amount of slowdown.
Level Design Score: 2
Level Design Notes:
Not much variety. The stages do snake around occassionally but it's a straight corridor for the most part. There are also some corridors with pipes covering portions of the screen, like the inside sections in Star Fox. There are branching paths with a tree reminiscent of OutRun.
Theme Score: 3
Theme Notes:
You're some sort of law enforcement in a post-apocalyptic world. Feels a bit like Blade Runner meets Space Harrier.
Art Style Score: 2
Art Style Notes:
Hideous artwork. Sprites are large and lack any detail. They look like amorphous MS Paint creations. The background looks quite good, but the building are as ugly as those in Super Thunder Blade. It reminds me of G.I. Joe the arcade game, but at a much lower resolution. There's a good sense of speed, but barf is it ugly in motion.
Audio Score: 3
Audio Notes:
I enjoyed the music quite a bit. Sound effects are fine - not too loud or obnoxious. Voice samples are too quiet, however
Overall Score: 43
Review ID: 12508
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