Strider review - Sega Master System

The Grand Master is a pretty evil chap. Well, what could be more evil than coming to Earth with a massive contingent of space fighters and proceeding to take over the world? Strider Hiyru and his merry band of roaming martial artists watched the carnage in their island hideaway on an island in the South Sea.

Strider decides to use the deadly martial artist skills endowed on him to bring about an end to the evil tide of death and destruction devastating the world. This generally involves negotiating five levels of four-way scrolling action, dealing with an evil guardian at the end of each.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

To say I'm disappointed with this is the greatest understatement of the year. Strider may have smooth scrolling and okay sprites (although the Strider sprite seems to change size at times and sometimes hovers over platforms!), but the playability is sadly lacking. Strider can't duck under bullets, is sadly unresponsive and loses energy rather quickly. A hideous death is unavoidable, since there doesn't appear to be any extra energy icons to pick up. I can't recommend this unpolished effort at all.

This certainly looks good, with great sprites and smooth-scrolling backgrounds. However, when you start playing, the poor controls and frustratingly unforgiving gameplay brings you down with a bump. The responsiveness is very sluggish, and there are some very annoying points like the fact that Strider moves very slowly and can't duck under bullets. The programmers, Tiertex, whose previous Master System games were excellent, have really slipped up here - hopefully next time their quality control and playtesting will be far more rigorous. As it stands, even the biggest fans of the coin-op will be very disappointed.

Have your say about this review

Richy Girth - 04 Dec 2008, 13:00 GMT

Arse garbage from the devil's anus.
A Tiertex/US Gold murdering of a great game.

These were the fiends who did to home computer versions of Strider what those Hillbilly folk did to Ned Beatty in Deliverance.

That which they did again with their non-capcom 'game' that they released with a big "doooooooucheee" upon the water-submerged porcelain that be store shelfs: Strider 2.

Awful.

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