Midnight Resistance review - Sega Megadrive
Earth of the future isn't exactly a pretty place by any stretch of the imagination. The evil King Crimson (I thought they were an old pop group - Jaz) has arrived with a few alien planet-conquering battlecruisers in tow. All of the planet's major capitals are systematically destroyed and Crimson rules, putting down rebellion with the aid of his possessed robotic army and crazed followers. Only one pocket of resistance remains: the elite Midnight Resistance team, dedicated to freedom and justice for all (hurrah!). What the Mean Machines staff thought
 |
|
I didn't think much of the coin-op, but strangely enough, I really like this Megadrive conversion. I think it must have something to do with the instantly accessible and addictive gameplay and the varied power-up weaponry on offer. It's just great fun to play, with plenty of goons to blast into next week and some huge enemy hardware to blow up - my kind of fun! The control method takes a while to get the best out of, but a few minutes practice reaps plenty of rewards and our commando hero proves to be just as athletic and mobile as his coin-op counterpart. I must mention the music - it's great! Superb, hummable tunes accompany the blasting action and you'll wish the explosive effects are quieter so you can hear the music more clearly! I strongly recommend this to anyone after a good blast.
|
 |
Retrospective comments
 |
I recall one of my schoolfriends had the Amiga version of this and he was always going on about how great it was - his face dropped when he witnessed it running on a proper games machine like the Megadrive! |
Have your say about this review
asad - 05 Feb 2008, 17:10 GMT
Having played this on the Spectrum, Amiga and in the arcades, I have to say this is the best conversion of the lot, (well it beats loading up cassettes and disks). It really is one of those instantly playable type of games, combining a shooter and platforming to provide a 'have one more go' gaming experience.
The control method is quite interesting, with the d-pad acting as movement of the character and the direction in which you shoot with a hold button to keep you firing in one direction while you move.
It sounds weird, but it works well and doesn't take long to get used to.
The graphics are arcade perfect, but not earth shatteringly good,the music, however, is brilliant. You will have the tunes playing in your head long after you've put the joypad down.
Despite only being available on import, if you can track down a copy of this, its definately one for a rainy weekend.
Godpikachu - 18 Feb 2009, 01:55 GMT
This game is basically Contra for the mega drive, and up until they finally got round to releasing Probotector (a european version of Contra: Hard corps) for the MD in 1994, this was probably, and regretfully, the closest MD owners could come to playing a good "run and gun" style shoot em up.
Midnight resistance was a mediocre coin op to start with, and the MD version follows in its footsteps in earnest.
The visuals are terrible with a capital "T", youd almost think you were playing something on the MS, hardly "arcade perfect". Your guy looks just awful, they could have spent a little more time on the design for him.
The level layouts are crap too, especially the vertical sections, where you have to wait for the next bit to load when you reach it....WTF?, load times in a cartridge based game??.
ok, so the load times are only a few seconds at most, but when you are into a game, an unwelcome interruption like that can put you out of "the zone", so to speak.
During the levels you collect keys, (or are they lollipops?, i cant tell too well) which you exchange for weapons, grenades and ammo in between levels, this is ok, but your guy drops them all whenever he gets hit, as well as whatever weapon he is carrying at the time.
You can pick up your weapon,but some of your keys vanish if you get hit.
Speaking of getting hit, your guy (like contra) dies after one hit, while some of your enemies take multiple hits to kill off, plus, you get some of the buggers respawning from behind you quite quickly while youre busy shooting something else, resulting in your guy collapsing to the ground and throwing lollipops everywhere.
Although that said, gameplay wise, once you get into it, you can ignore the crappy visuals and casio keyboard background tunes,it is a decentish playable shooter, although while im playing this game i keep hearing this little voice in my head saying "why dont you switch this crap off and play probotector instead??..you know you want to...you also want to set fire to next doors shed...go on, give in, give in.....", and to be honest, quite often i give in and do it, play probotector i mean, not burn down next doors shed.
Overall, a decidedly average game, but its quite rare, so if you are an MD game collector, its worth picking up. If youre just after a shooter, get probotector first (if you can find it, cos this uns also a bit of a rare one)
