Together Retro: Shock Troopers

[noiseredux]

played a couple credits last night.

How well does it run on the Dreamcast?

Depends. My first attempt, I played the jungle and everything was fine. Second attempt I took the... uh... route with a lot of water? And I had some - not really 'slowdown,' but more like stuttering at various points. Not completely game-breaking, but certainly annoying. Jungle seemed fine though, so I don't know if it's a matter of route. Audio is not perfect, but that wouldn't bother me if the gameplay was 100%.

My thoughts on the game itself: I don't love it. But in fairness, I've never been a huge fan of 8-way shooters. A game like this has to be really perfect for me to get into it. Maybe it's that I'm not great at them. The whole thing where you have to not be shooting to change which way you're shooting sort of confuses me I guess. I tend to have trouble aiming fast enough, so I'm always just kind of moving around and shooting at nothing it seems.

The graphics are really great though. Excellent sprite-work, awesome color pallet, wonderful detail. I don't hate it, and I'll give it a fair shot, but I find it doubtful it'll hold me interest for an extended portion of the month.

[BoneSnapDeez]

This game is on Dreamcast?!

[noiseredux]

This game is on Dreamcast?!

guy, pay attention. Emulated on Dreamcast.

[pierrot]

The whole thing where you have to not be shooting to change which way you're shooting sort of confuses me I guess. I tend to have trouble aiming fast enough, so I'm always just kind of moving around and shooting at nothing it seems.

Tap shoot for great justice, bro.

[wip3outguy7]

I dug up a co-op video from a couple of years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWe7KuZ1kEY

Great showcase for the NeoGeo Station's fantastic net code.

This is probably my favorite top-down run n' gun. I've come very close to 1CCing it in the past. The roll can be abused and understanding its invincibility frames is essential in the later levels. Don't forget to melee people for health power ups. It's also your most powerful attack, second only to bomb attacks.

[noiseredux]

I too will be playing,

must feel good to have other people in the thread w/ you this month, huh?

[Betagam7]

Interested to see how many continues different ports allow - I think the Wii Virtual Console one has it limited by default to 3? I'll have to check.

The SNK disk collection has unlimited continues as well as adjustable difficulty, lives, etc.

The VC, if it's anything like the Magician Lord I downloaded before I knew any better will have limited continues that may make completing it difficult to say the least.

It's also worth noting for PAL gamers that the VC versions are rotten 50hz ports whereas the disc version runs in 60hz and also has the additional medals and unlockables unlike the botched ROM that Nintendo has on its overpriced store.

[ExedExes]

must feel good to have other people in the thread w/ you this month, huh?

Yeah seriously. I was contemplating one last playthough of M.U.L.E. last weekend, but seeing that I already played once on the Tournament level, I really didn't feel like doing another report if nobody was playing it alongside me. Now this thread in the next few days will have more posts than that one did. I see what happens when I lobby hard for a game

[alienjesus]

must feel good to have other people in the thread w/ you this month, huh?

Yeah seriously. I was contemplating one last playthough of M.U.L.E. last weekend, but seeing that I already played once on the Tournament level, I really didn't feel like doing another report if nobody was playing it alongside me. Now this thread in the next few days will have more posts than that one did. I see what happens when I lobby hard for a game

I'm really glad everyone voted to put MULE on the roster, and even more happy that all those who voted for it decided to play along

Next time we do a sim, maybe w should choose something a LITTLE less dated than MULE or Populous. I think the problem is the games we choose for the genre, not the genre itself.

[kelsoanim]

Oh man, I played this a bit on the MAME cab at work the other day. Fun stuff. I'm in to play along with this one.