| | The gangly sprites and the game's odd name (this was back when Iran-Contra was big news) always kept me away from playing this game in the NES/arcade days. But 2d (gameplay) shooters being so rare these days, I caved in for this one. Difficult and controls well with an arcade stick.
It just feels like it needs to break out a bit. Let its hair down. Go wild. I've only played 1.5 of the 5 initial missions but they go something like this: fight peons for 30 seconds, boss fight for 3 minutes (boss attack 1, boss maneuver 1, boss attack 2, boss maneuver 2, boss attack 3, boss attack 4, repeat), peons for 30 seconds, boss fight for 2 minutes (see previous), peons 30 seconds, boss fight for 3 minutes (see previous), stage clear. Are we seeing a pattern here? The extremely punishing boss patterns are almost guaranteed to kill you the first time you meet them, then it's just a matter of memorizing where to move at what time and you're through no problem. In fact, the boss fights quickly become predictable and start to feel slow and boring--before I beat the most recent boss I was nearly begging the game just to finish up so I could save and do something else.
The "rockin'" sound track gives you an adrenaline burst at first but once this wears off... snuh. Maybe it'd help if there was a time limit or something--I can't believe I just said that. Not a bad game but a surprisingly staid adventure, probably more fun with an added unpredictable human element in multiplayer. |
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