Saturday, November 2, 2013

#73: Strike Gunner: S.T.G.

S.T.G. stands for STrike Gunner? Do you need the periods?
Strike Gunner is a pretty straightforward scrolling shooter. Get in a plane, shoot the things flying towards you, dodge the bullets that they're shooting at you. Reach a boss. Shoot parts of the boss so his weapons fall off. Win.
PEW PEW!
Strike Gunner does have some things going for it. It doesn't suffer from much hardware slowdown at all. It has a relatively straightforward weapon scaling system. It has 15 different super weapons to use with your super power meter. The controls are smooth.
Sonic boom!
Things aren't all perfect with this game. The music is mediocre, the plot is practically nonexistent (other than that it takes place is some sort of post apocalyptic future set in 2008), and it only uses two buttons. TWO BUTTONS! The SNES has 6 main buttons to use... I want more games to use them!

One interesting twist is with the super weapons. There are 15 to choose from but as soon as you beat a level with one of them you lose the ability to choose it. So for the 3rd stage I couldn't use the homing missiles or the plasma shield. This is the sort of thing I like and would have made this a good rental as a kid. You need to play a bunch to figure out the weapons and then you get to plot out the right order to use them based on the levels. I used homing missile on the first level and it was very straightforward so it was a waste. It would have been much more useful on the second or third level! I also suspect that if you play 2 player you can't share weapons which just adds more interesting decisions!

Rating: B

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