STRIDER

 STRIDER, an amazing arcade game that videogame players will remember, was
converted to the Nintendo Entertainment System a few years ago. The conversion
was awful, and left many of us waiting for a decent adaption of the arcade
classic. Well, now Sega has taken Capcom's arcade hit and translated it to their
Sega Genesis 16-bit video game console. Sega has certainly matched the beautiful
quality of the original, if not surpassed it in some ways! (This review is based
on the Japanese Mega Drive version of the game. This should be very close to the
English Genesis version.)

 First, STRIDER has a great graphic quality to it, for those of you who haven't
heard. Fantastic backgrounds, colorful characters, and lots of special effects
are what beef this game up to an 8Mb cartridge. The game makes great use of the
translucent backgrounds that give Genesis games so much depth, except that
STRIDER has several different types of these on every level/area that you
explore. Also, the music and sound effects are quite well done; I don't think
we've seen a game with this kind of sound since REVENGE of SHINOBI.

 Having made it to the game's conclusion, using an "unlimited men" trick I
learned in The Gamer's Forum, I can give you a level by level breakdown of the
game. But STRIDER is not one of those Genesis carts you can beat five minutes
after plugging it in. I doubt I could have beat the game without this trick, for
those of you who are wondering how hard/easy the game is.

 STRIDER has essentially five major levels to pass through. The first level
isn't so tough -- you're invading a Soviet-style palace -- and you will probably
master it in a few plays. The end of the first level concludes with the members
of the Kremlin assembling into a giant mechanical caterpillar, wielding a
vicious hammer and sickle. There is some flicker in this caterpillar, but it
didn't bother me at all.

 The second level is a real rollercoaster ride: You start off on snow-covered
terrain, fight a mechanical version of King Kong, climb upwards to invade an
industrial complex, run back down the mountain, and leap across a death-defying
chasm. After that, you must climb a platform filled with robots in order to
hitch a ride aboard flying platforms. You jump on three of these to get to a
giant airborne complex, filled with Asian warrior women.

 The third level is one huge airborne facility. You must destroy it, but in
order to do so, you will have to locate the heart the complex, solve a few
puzzles, and avoid falling to your doom! The heart of this machine is really
unreal (very 3-D), and you have to fight it in zero gravity! Also on this level,
you will find gravity reversed on some levels: You will fall up, not down. Once
you destroy the machine, you will find it very difficult to make your escape
before it totally blows up.

 Just when you thought you'd seen the best graphics, level four takes place in
the jungle, filled with warrior women hunting you down! The backgrounds are
incredible, and the place is loaded with prehistoric dinosaurs, too. There are
these unreal green vines that almost seem alive, and that you swing upon to get
around the jungle. At the end, you fight a very tough mechanical dinosaur.

 The fifth and final level has you invading the heart of the Soviet city, and
many of the elements of the first four levels come at you here. You have to
fight all of the bosses you fought before (although the complex you invade is
new), but there are a lot of reverse-gravity surprises! If you can beat all of
the bosses, you will get to face off against the wizard who is responsible for
all of this.

 For the nit-pickers, there are small minor glitches in STRIDER. In some scenes,
there is the infamous "too many Sprites slow down the action" problem, but I
believe this only happens a couple of times during the game. Also, some of the
larger/longer monsters do flicker (in the same manner that the TG-16 version of
R-TYPE does). If you can ignore this (as I can), then you will be pleased by the
game; others might grumble.

 STRIDER is a wonderful, must-have game for the Genesis. It's also very
challenging, and I will be playing it frequently to see if I can beat it without
the unlimited men. I would rate it as a 10 in terms of graphics, music,
playability, and overall excellence: I like it even more than GHOULS 'N GHOSTS
and REVENGE OF SHINOBI.

 STRIDER is published and distributed by Sega.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253