ESWAT: City Under Siege (Genesis/Mega Drive)

It's pronounced 'E-SWAT', according to the voice at the start.

Iron fist sound dolphin... what? They're just putting random words together to confuse me.

Neck pad: OK, weapons power: OK, slim ankles: OK. Right, I think we're good to go and fight crime.

Hey! What the hell happened to my suit? They spend all that time setting it up and I don't even get to wear it ingame?

Well at least they've given me a gun and 4 hit points worth of body armour. Shame I can't fire diagonally though.

I can fire upwards though! But I'll need to be careful not to get hit by any of these blue energy shots coming from that robot while I'm getting into position to shoot it. Most of these enemies seem to drop in one hit, but the robots seem to be a bit more resilient.

ESWAT: Cyber Police

There's an arcade game called ESWAT which found its way onto a lot of the home systems, but it seems like the Mega Drive game is its own thing. Aside from the basic gameplay the two games are very different.

Oh shit, what just happened? Did the robot get me with an energy ball?

I've got a couple of lives left, but I'm put right back at the start of the level when I respawn. This time though I'll be ready for... whatever it was that got me.

It was a sliding guy! Man I hate these enemies like this, especially when I'm over on the right of the screen and don't have much chance to react.

It's giving me flashbacks to the time they ruined my life in Batman on the Mega Drive. Thankfully they're much less common in this.

Awesome, there are health pickups in this. I won't have survive the entire level with just my starting set of hit points.

It seems I'm going to be using these convenient ledges to climb up the side of a skyscraper then. It's probably not the smartest thing to do, but there's crime up on this building and it needs to be shot.

Diagonal aiming would be really nice about now. I guess I have to time my jump to leap between his bullets. Then come back and kill him later.

Well this leads to nothing, except for someone shooting me off screen. I'd investigate but I can't stop jumping or else I'll get hit.

Enemies seem to respawn when I get enough distance from them, so I imagine this is someone I've already killed shooting from somewhere I've already been. Which doesn't help.

Crap! See what I mean about enemies respawning?

Who are these guys anyway? They don't look like street thugs, they look more military. Am I single-handedly fighting off an invasion here?

I tried heroically leaping to the ledge that guy was shooting down from a second ago... missed, and plummeted all the way back down the building. I'm just glad there's no falling damage.


ONE LONG CLIMB BACK UP A BUILDING LATER.

I can jump up to the ledges above me! Well now I know that, so with a bit of luck there'll be much less screwing around on my next run.

Oh.

Only 3 continues? Well I suppose it's better than none. I should go with 'New game' seeing as I haven't made any progress at all, but I used up a continue anyway. Just because I can.


HALF A LEVEL LATER.

Well I'm finally at the top of this damn building again, but I think I might have a problem here. Don't these people ever need to reload?

Okay fine I'll just jump back down and shoot the bastard.

And now I'm back on a ledge leading to nowhere. At least no one's shooting me from off screen this time, I reckon that's a good sign.

Awesome, now crime's brought a helicopter's to kill me and this rooftop seems to be in freefall. Though on the plus side, at least now I know I've been going the right way.

I tried shoving my head into the rotor blades to jam them, but no luck.

That is a nice looking little helicopter though, it's a real shame I have to fill it with holes. The graphics in general look pretty nice actually, and the music kind of reminds me of Streets of Rage. It's all very slick too.

Okay fine I'll restart and try the boss fight again.

It restarted me right at the beginning of the helicopter fight! For once in a game I didn't have to replay the whole damn level again from the start!

This time I pin the guy in the corner and hammer the fire button until he's down. Stage one... complete!

Whoa, for my hard work in saving Neo-America from an invasion, I have been promoted to chief! No more patrols for me, stage 2 is going to be set behind a desk, in my cosy new office.

So much for my desk job. Straight after my promotion I was sent to "infiltrate cyber prison", whatever the hell that means. I guess I'm meant to break in and slaughter all the prisoners, because I can't really do much else.

I've figured out how to use that moving platform (on the bottom of the screen beneath me) to travel between floors, and I've found a way to jump into the cells, but I don't get where I'm meant to go next. Every cell I can jump into is blocked at the sides by walls or energy beams.

Oh, duh... the laser beams are in the foreground, I can walk right behind them them.

These cells are actually filled with enemies, but fortunately I can shoot them all before they even make it on screen. I should be able to make it through to the next section without a scratch.

It seems that I have to go across each floor at a time, starting at the top right, and make my way down. At the end of each row is a hole where I can drop down a level, then turn around and walk back to the other end of the cell block.

Here, I'll draw up a helpful ascii diagram!

=v=============<=x=        x = Gap in the bars I can enter from the moving platform.
='-'=>=============v=        < = Direction I'm going in.
=v=============<='-'=        '-' = Hole in ceiling I can drop down through.
='-'=>=============v=
= START ====x=====x=

Does that make any sense? Probably not... who even cares! I'll get back to shooting things.

Go down? Well duh, what do you think I've been doing to get here!

Oh shit. It didn't mean 'Go down' it meant 'Go right'! I was supposed to jump over the hole and go through the wall. Okay, in my defence there was no obvious sign that I could walk through that wall,.

Well, except for a flashing 'GO =>' sign.

It's not a huge problem. All I have to do is go find another moving platform, ride the rails all the way up to the top right of the level, jump into the cell, fight through 4 floors of respawned enemies, and remember to jump over the hole at the end. Shouldn't take long.



LATER.

What the hell, game? This is not a suitable place to put conveyor belts! Or spikes for that matter.

Is this the grinder they throw troublesome prisoners into or something? And what does 'M' do anyway?

It turns out that 'M' gives me 'Max health', which is handy because I just wandered into a boss fight.

I know this is the cyber prison, but wasn't there any way of confiscating the prisoners' gun arms? It seems that they were just asking for this to happen.

Fortunately for the prison staff, the chief of police has come to handle these two personally. And whatever I shoot explodes.

Crap, they've gone all Terminator on me. The explosions look cool, but all I've done is shoot off their outer shell. And I've only got one hit point left.

Well, fuck.


ONE REPLAY OF A BOSS FIGHT LATER.

Taking care of the prison situation earns me another promotion. My dreams of a comfy desk job are crushed, but at least I finally get my robot suit.

This thing is awesome! Two extra hit points and a few seconds of jetpack flight.

That new burner meter up on the top right of the screen is my fuel gauge, and it regenerates over time. I can hover on the spot at any time for as long as I want, but once that bar hits red rectangles I gain true flight and can zip around until the bar empties...

...or until I've gotten shot a few times before colliding with an enemy coming the other way.

Damn. I guess I should be more careful with the jetpack.

And that's it. My promising police career is cut tragically short by a single stupid jetpack accident.

Oh no, wait, I still have a continue left.

Whoa. I don't know what P.C. stands for, but it gets the job done. If I tap the button it just fires regular shots, but if I give it a second to (automatically) charge up it fires something much more impressive.

Now I've got my robot suit the game keeps throwing new weapons at me. These rockets seem to want to hug the ground, but they eventually find their way to their target. Well, unless the target is the two jetpack enemies I'm actually aiming at.

I don't like how the enemies get cooler looking jetpacks than I do. Plus they seem to have unlimited fuel!

A flame pick up huh? This must be my final weapon at last! Some kind of fireball shot maybe? Or a perhaps a grenade launcher.

Nope, it's a flamethrower! I'm liking this... but uh, how do I turn it off? Oh crap I just wasted a special single use screen clearing super weapon didn't I?

And then, due to technical difficulties ineptitude, this is where my screenshots run out. You're not missing much though. I got bored and decided to see if I could fly over all the enemies with the jetpack. I couldn't.


This isn't a bad game, but it doesn't seem like a very good one either. I mean it's slick and well made, but I can kill half the enemies just by firing the gun off screen as I walk, and the other half get me with shots I can't duck beneath, or fly at me before I can react. Sorry ESWAT, but I'm done with you. Next game.