Parteibuch Aggregator Feed - Items from date 2010-09-01

Together Retro Game Club: Urban Strike

Together Retro Game Club — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:49:31 +0000

Presented by Fastbilly & Racketboy
New To Together Retro? Check out the introduction to the club

Its multidirectional shooter time again. This time around we are going with one of the lesser known titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike. It is a difficult game where you fly a modified AH-64 Apache Helicopter on a variety of missions. Though serious, the game does have its sections of tongue and cheek humor and guest appearances by the King of Rock and Roll. So ready your yoke, it’s time for some action.

Disclaimer

Urban Strike was created in 1994 and takes place in 2001. The fourth or fifth stage features a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. When our Together Retro calendar was created back in February or March, this was unknown to us since no one making the calendar had played this game. We mean no disrespect in our choice of titles for the month.

History

Released in 1994 for the Genesis/Megadrive, SNES, GameGear, and Gameboy, Urban Strike was programmed by the same three fellas that programmed the first two titles: Mike Posehn, John Patrick Manley and Tony Barnes. It was released to moderate sales and decent reviews.

Of course, the series as a whole was inspired by Sega’s classic helicopter title, Choplifer, but the team at EA wanted to do something different and a bit more modern for the time. Even though the series did have some commerical success, it was eventually doomed to relative obscurity by the mainstream gaming community. Despite this the games have developed a cult following within the classic gaming crowd.

Gameplay

Like the other titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike sends you on a variety of missions, this time all over North America. The missions may be search and destroy, rescue, or even sneak inside of a building. It is the first title to include on foot objectives and inside environments. And like all titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike is fairly difficult. It is no cake walk, even for fans of multidirectional shooters. That’s not to say that the game cheats, it is just difficult – Well I think some of the latter stages have unfair number of bullets, but that’s just me.

Using a very similar control scheme to the previous two titles, Urban Strike provides a solid gameplay experience that is just the perfect combination of most aspects of a shooter. It is trying, rewarding, and above all else, fun. Flying through AA fire to rescue that last guy before the helicopter runs out of gas is something that never gets old to me. The plot is kinda weak – I mean a terrorist attack from space? That’s so Red Alert. But this si the kind of game where the gameplay is far more important. Just use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

Legacy

Urban Strike is the middle title in a unique line of titles. Starting in 91 and going to 97, the Strike series is a fairly solid set of Multidirectional shooters. Sadly the series has shown no signs of a comeback and what was going to be the last title in the series Future Strike was made into Future Cop: LAPD which was not highly received.

Desert Strike – 1991
Jungle Strike – 1993
Urban Strike – 1994
Soviet Strike – 1996
Nuclear Strike – 1997
Future Cop LAPD – 1998 PSN Rerelease 2009

Controls – SNES version

Dpad – Move
A – Fire Machine guns
B – Jink/Crane
X – Fire Hydras
Y – Fire Hellfires

Controls change based on the vehicle you are currently in, but overall they are the same. Movement is a rotate and forward/reverse system. Similar to tank controls in a Survival Horror title.

Ports

Genesis/Megadrive
SNES
Game Gear
Gameboy

Emulation Help

Racketboy Emulation Forum

Together Retro Discussion

Instead of posting in the comments section of the blog, we will be using the forum for all of our discussion in order to keep things more organized. So play Urban Strike and talk to us about your thoughts and play experiences in the forums. We want to know your favorite parts, your successes and your failures.
Discuss The Game In The Forum

DtoidAustin NARP: game on at Game Over

DtoidAustin NARP — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:30:00 +0000

The Lone Star state can be a big lonely place without good people, good food, and good games to get you by. Thankfully, all of those things came together in August as Dtoiders from San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin made a Scott Pilgrim-age to the state's capital for a weekend of drinking, Rock Band-ing, movie viewing, retro-game tourneying, and of course -- PANCAKES.

We were fortunate enough to get some sponsorship for a great event. The owner of independent retro store Game Over Videogames, David Kaelin, generously hooked us up with his store space for an evening, multiple TVs and N64s for a Destructoid members only Mario Kart 64/Goldeneye tournament, and nearly $200 in prizes to reward the players who came out on top. It was a blast, and it does my heart good to see independent gaming entities support one another. So, go check out the website, as there is an online store for retro goodness even if you're not an Austinite.

Blehman, itemforty, DVDDesign, portastad, Xzyliac, seltzermx, djnealb, silvain, Ryan Barrett and more made the trek to debauch, chill, and compete for big prizes!

The weekend started off Friday night with some good old fashioned partying and gaming. Mr. Destructoid was kind enough to help point out the way to the right apartment - he's a gentleman and a scholar.

Scott Pilgrim was the order of the evening early on - djnealb and Xzyliac fall victim to my plot to get other people to grind trophies for me!

Xzyliac was a Rock Band machine all weekend. I don't think he moved from the living room for hours. Others joined in the jams as the night passed.

Gaming is hard work. Frequent refueling is necessary for proper mental functioning.

Blehman responds to our offer to get him an exorcism.

The next day saw the crew getting together to watch Scott Pilgrim at the coolest cinema ever -- the Alamo Drafthouse. You can get food or drink served to you during the movie, and they always play a reel of awesome quirky old movies or clips relating to the movie, subject matter, or actors in the film before the main event.

After the film and some napping , we all moved on to Game Over to check out the retro wonderland and get our tourney on. David Kaelin was there to help us the whole time, and we had a blast looking around the store, checking out the video game museum in the back, and launching blue shell after blue shell!

I have no defense for this. Wifey made me do it. I think she has a Ms. Pac-Man fetish, and I'm okay with that.

On the way out, we noticed that Game Over is located near a historic educational institution. A place where culinary theory, study, and hard work result in the finest establishment ever spawned in food service.

The next morning saw us preparing for tearful goodbyes and nursing raucous hangovers, so it was off to the the delicious Kerbey Lane Cafe for mimosas, coffee, and most importantly -- PANCAKES! Also, I have no idea how itemforty managed to be so chipper.

It was an amazing time, and I can't wait to do it again. If you're in the Texas-ish area and want to take part in the next big shindig, hoedown, hog-washing, or ballyhoo, you can PM me to get added to the google group for the most up to date information on what's going down for Dtoid in TX. Or, keep your eyes on the cblogs/forums for more info! Much love to all who came!

Mike Fahey: What's Inside An Atari 2600? [Teardown]

Mike Fahey — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:50:00 +0000

div style="background-color: #B3B3B3; width: 160px; padding: 1px;">#teardown

To celebrate the launch of video game repair guides, do-it-yourself repair website iFixit is tearing down old video game consoles all week long. Today they give us a peek at what's inside the classic Atari 2600. More »