Translated by
Microsoft from Italian
Microsoft from Italian
Small Introductory Note: More than 20 years ago, in the midst of the era of Apogee games (which I had all rigorously in the shareware version) this game was one of the few to which I never managed to play, for a simple, bastard, sneaky reason: in the level Of the "forest", I crashed at the prompt and told me that it lacked available EMS memory. And as much as I fumbled at CONFIG. sys and AUTOEXEC. bat, I could NEVER get to the value it required (which was very high, basically wanted all the EMS for itself). Now, however, thanks to the "magic" DosBox, I can have all the memory I want, and then I took the opportunity to jump to finally recover this pearl of the years ' 90.
This platform is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best of its kind and, with great odds, one of the best ever of Apogee. In The game you will impersonate agent Snake Logan, the classic badboy who must, strictly alone, save the world from the classic evil genius who created a horde of murderous monsters and wants to destroy everything and everyone-a classic strayed-abused, you are certainly not You've been puzzled so much in creating the storyline. X-D What instead where you are really committed is everything else: the game is fluid and fast, the level design is beautiful, the challenge is fulfilling (oh God, to "Hard" also quite frustrating, especially in some situations, but moreover this is a common aspect of many Video games of the time).
Entering into detail, Snake is more like Duke Nukem than Super Mario: the enemies defeat them by shooting at him, and do not jump in the head. Our protagonist is equipped with a machine gun base with a low cadence of fire but, through special bonuses, you can get plasma ammunition, explosive or rapid fire. In The levels you can also find explosive grenades, incendiary and proximity mines, useful to overcome otherwise too difficult situations to deal with. It Is good to note that it is NOT possible to change between one type of firearm and another, as well as to change the type of bomb, which makes the game more immediate, but also less tactical to tackle-especially mines, which have a situational utility , you will be in some situations to "waste" to regain access to grenades.
The enemies against which you will have to pour all this firepower are one of the strengths of the game: they are variegated, bad and quite characteristic. You will often run expletives because they will hit you and kill you because you have been too hasty, you have analyzed a situation badly or, more simply, because the programmers will not have guaranteed an easy life, but being "under Voltage "is one of the features of the game. Every few levels you have to face a boss fight-which, I regret to say, are one of the weaknesses of the game. The bosses themselves are also beautiful, but more than the skill of the player require to find the point where the programmers have positioned power up and grenades to allow you to Nuclearizzarli quickly, maybe from a point of advantage positioned ad hoc.
As For the rest, the game features an impeccable level design: The levels are developed in width and height, and are absolutely full of places to explore, variegated situations to face, dangers to avoid, bonuses to be collected (most Hidden behind doors requiring a key to be opened) and secrets to be found (even bonus levels). Your goal in every level is, tend, always to find the exit and a prisoner to save-in order to achieve this purpose you often have to find special crystals that will allow you to have access to otherwise blocked sections of Levels (Find the key A to open the door To that will make you find the key B etc... etc... A classic among the classics).
Concluding... An absolute must have, a pearl of the past that, frankly, does not even disfigure in the present.