Shock Troopers (Arcade)

This one's another game request, and apparently it's an overhead run and gun a bit like Mercs, which I played early last year on the Megadrive/Genesis and didn't much like.

Looking back though, it's hard to tell what exactly I didn't like about the game. Mostly because I barely wrote anything about it. Okay it was a mindless shoot 'em up so I probably didn't have much to work with, but I'm sure I could have come up with something a bit more insightful than "Sup guys, I'm in a truck now! Truck beats goons. Oh damn. Tank beats truck." Guess I'm adding that one to the list of games I'm going to have to replay some day.

But anyway, here's Shock Troopers. It's a mindless shoot 'em up!

This couldn't sound more like a 90s arcade game if it tried. The music is a siren song of guitars and orchestra hits, designed to lure people over to the cabinet so it can eat their coins.

Huh, they're still showing off the cast? How many characters are in this game? I think they've just overtaken The Chaos Engine, and they're still going.

Also, that outfit's starting to make me wonder if this came out in 1997 or 1987. I could see her showing up in an early Lethal Weapon movie as Riggs and Murtaugh's latest sidekick.

And of course the team wouldn't be complete without this guy. You know the one, the ridiculously well built soldier type, often found posing on 80s action movie covers with his assault rifle out, looking concerned. Likes to wear a bandana and hang around in jungles.

What, are they doing a photoshoot or something? I like how the guy with the yellow pants has apparently taped some C4 to his boomerang, to show how it's totally still a valid weapon in the era of assault rifles.

It'd be nice if this was actually eight player and you could have all of them on screen at once, but sadly it's two player only.

There's two modes: Lonely Lonly Wolf and Team Battle. I guess Team Battle lets you bring more than one character out somehow, but I'll stick with the one for now. And I'll go with the boring choice and play as generic action hero guy Jackal.
 

More decisions! It seems we're here to assault Superman's jungle stronghold, but I have a choice of routes to get there. I've seen arcade games with branching paths before, but this is the first I've seen that lets you basically choose from three entirely different sets of levels from the start.

Well I'm playing as a Rambo type, so I'll go fight through the jungle route.

Okay it's a single stick run and gun which scrolls along a pre-set path. The screen moves to follow me around rather forcing me to keep up with it and I can't backtrack. And the game ain't ugly.

If I hold down the fire button it locks my direction of fire, so I can strafe across the screen constantly firing upwards if I want. Plus there's a roll button to dodge bullets, and it is awesome.

So far this feels like an overhead view version of Metal Slug. It doesn't have the same art style, but the pixel-work and animation is really high quality.

Like in Metal Slug I can knife enemies when I get up close, though it's a lot more risky than putting a bullet in them from across the screem. But melee kills earn me rewards like gems and health pick-ups, and it's so tempting.

That's cool, they've given me a choice of weapons. Not exactly a revolutionary feature, but it's appreciated.

It's also nice that the enemy are too dumb to try taking the gun I leave behind, then shoot me in the back with rapid-fire. They haven't exactly been a challenge so far, as I usually manage to kill most of them just as they're walking on screen. Well, when I'm not busy trying to take an halfway interesting screenshot anyway.


BUT THEN.

Okay this got a lot harder all of a sudden. Two missile launcher tanks and a helicopter gunship on level one? I would have expected one or the other, but it seems a bit early for them to bring out this much overkill.

Actually I've only got one real complaint so far, and that's that the helicopter's bullets are kind of hard to see, especially when I'm firing back at it. Nothing else has had that problem, just this bloody helicopter.

Okay, now that's a tank.

I'm throwing every grenade I've got at the thing, but it resolutely refuses to explode. I'm down two credits here already, and I'm starting to worry I'm not going to make it past the first stage. Couldn't they have given the thing a life bar or something?


EVENTUALLY, AFTER BEATING THE TANK BOSS.

Whoa, the game has a plot? I thought we were just shooting things for a laugh.

Turns out that this bloke in the sinister black cape has kidnapped a scientist's granddaughter, to force him into creating a super soldier serum so they can create an invincible army and take over the world.

Okay, so over the last two years of playing games for the site I've learned that heroes generally have to save a captured princess alone, if a president is kidnapped they usually send two bad dudes, and if a scientist's daughter is kidnapped they send in up to eight shock troopers.

Bike level! It's nice to have a bit of variety in a game, when it's done right. I mean I wouldn't want it to suddenly have a dolphin jumping mini-game or something, but this mixes things up a little while still having the same appeal as the regular gameplay.

Oh come on, not the tank again! I've killed this thing once already. And it took long enough the first time.

Uh-oh, it seems that the scientist is going to break any time now. I dunno how long it takes to mass produce a drug, test it, then distribute it to an entire army, but I fear that I may only have weeks left!

I love that artwork. Oh, that fruit reminds me, sometimes I'll open a crate and find a banana or steak health item inside instead of a gun. If I eat the bananas, a little monkey comes out and starts looking for his missing food. The game's full of awesome little touches like that.

Sadly the bananas weren't enough to save me from this boss. I almost got him though, look he's glowing red.

Oh damn, that's my final credit? Well that sucks, I was actually making some progress here.

And then the game over screen laughs at me.

Well that's Shock Troopers then. A flashy, well made, beautifully animated, shallow, run and gun shooter. Put bullets into the bad men while dodging the ones they fire at you, repeat as required.


Oh fuck it, I'm going to play it again.

This time I went with team battle mode, which let me bring out three characters. I can switch between them at any time, and each has their own personal special weapon. Like a boomerang with C4 stuck to it for example.

Also I chose the valley route this time, and I really am on an entirely different level, with unique artwork. I don't know why they decided to basically make three games here, but I'm definitely not complaining. I'd generally prefer to play a short game with multiple paths than a long game that drags on forever.

Uh, weren't we supposed to be heading inland? I guess we must be heading up a river. Either that or my team has gotten tired of all this senseless killing, and has decided to run off to live the simple lives of a fishing boat crew.

I'm going to have to stick around and kill these assholes though, or they'll never leave me alone.

Hey, didn't I kill these guys already? The game actually has a bit of enemy variety, but most of the time I'm fighting the cannon fodder. But that's okay, I like cannon fodder. They give me a chance to pretend I'm actually any good at the game, diving under bullets and slicing throats, before the next tank boss shows up to crush me beneath its cold merciless tracks.

Oh fuck, it's this guy again? Well I'm sure I'll do much better against him now that I'm armed with... wait, is this a crossbow. Maybe I should switch characters.

All the characters in my team have separate ammo counts, so I start off with 30 attacks instead of the 20 I'd have in Lonly mode. Sadly they still share the same health bar though. It'd be nice if I could switch over, and let a wounded character regenerate health in the background, but it's not really in the interest of an arcade game to give the player a break.

Oh don't mind me, you guys just carry on doing what you're doing up there. Whatever the fuck that is.

It seems that some of my characters move slower, but have more firepower. And yeah it did take me this long to figure that out. But it's starting to make sense to me now why there's so many to choose from.

That's cool, now I've gotten this far the game's given me the option to switch routes. I don't see any reason not to continue down the path I'm on though right now. It's all gonna be new to me either way.

A minecart level!

Actually no, it's just an interlude. They did all this artwork, and it wasn't even for an actual stage.

Ugh, this bastard tank just won't leave me alone! So much level art, so few bosses.

I love these graphics. I'm not so keen on people shooting at me though, especially now I've got limited room to dodge them. Still, I'm impressed she can even roll at all while climbing up a ladder. It's not something I'd ever want to try.

Aw fuck. Look who it is. A couple of mistimed dodges here and it was all over for me. Presumably the forces of evil then went on to conquer the world, leading to a dark future where fascists unite all of humanity in shared misery, tanks patrol every street, and capes come back into fashion. But I guess I'll never know.


It's funny how the game feels easy and challenging both at the same time. I think it's because the controls are so responsive, so it can throw a lot at you at once, and let you look good while taking them down. In a game like Mercs you can only shoot in the direction you're moving, so I found myself continually walking right into enemy bullets, but Shock Troopers lets you fire and move in separate directions, and even throws in a dodge roll move to sweeten the deal. This extra mobility makes it way more entertaining to play, plus it doesn't hurt that the game looks plain awesome.

I only gave it a few hours, but honestly I think this might be the best game of this genre I've played so far. Definitely worth a look at least. It was ported across to the PS2, PSP and Wii as part of the SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 compilation, but apparently the Wii version's the one to go for if that's an option, due to it having less slowdown.

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