Strider (Arcade)
Graphics-8 Sound-5 Control-6 Challenge-7.5 Story-6
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+
Cool set pieces
Excellent variation
Large sprites (bosses especially)
Decent art direction
Over the top voices
Gun drones, generous with checkpoints (never sends you back to the beginning of a stage), hidden power ups, some innovative gameplay (anti-grav boss, upside down part, grabbing onto choppers segment), upgrade your life to 4 bars, climb walls and ceilings
-
Extreme trial & error (sometimes hard to tell what will hurt you or what you can grab onto (chopper blade in stage 2), Strider is too slow to simply react to some attacks so you need to learn them, enemies appearing at the other end of a pit when you're jumping over it, leaps of faith)
Can't look up/down
Huge knockback (and the game is full of pits)
Can't slide if running down a steep enough slope
Can't begin to slide during a slope (strider will instead try to break as if pressing the opposite direction), poor jump control (can't adjust jump height, can't steer in mid-air, can't steer if falling down (after anti-grav boss for example), cheap hits and deaths (fire rain after first boss, final boss laser (too fast to avoid), turret shooting bouncing lasers, mini-gunner enemy, climbing up in last stage kills you, etc.), pretty short (4 stages), uneven difficulty (some safe spots on bosses, most bosses go down too fast), uneven animation quality (tribes people just sort of disappear when hit), lots of things are missing sound effects, sword slash sound is annoying
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+
Cool set pieces
Excellent variation
Large sprites (bosses especially)
Decent art direction
Over the top voices
Gun drones, generous with checkpoints (never sends you back to the beginning of a stage), hidden power ups, some innovative gameplay (anti-grav boss, upside down part, grabbing onto choppers segment), upgrade your life to 4 bars, climb walls and ceilings
-
Extreme trial & error (sometimes hard to tell what will hurt you or what you can grab onto (chopper blade in stage 2), Strider is too slow to simply react to some attacks so you need to learn them, enemies appearing at the other end of a pit when you're jumping over it, leaps of faith)
Can't look up/down
Huge knockback (and the game is full of pits)
Can't slide if running down a steep enough slope
Can't begin to slide during a slope (strider will instead try to break as if pressing the opposite direction), poor jump control (can't adjust jump height, can't steer in mid-air, can't steer if falling down (after anti-grav boss for example), cheap hits and deaths (fire rain after first boss, final boss laser (too fast to avoid), turret shooting bouncing lasers, mini-gunner enemy, climbing up in last stage kills you, etc.), pretty short (4 stages), uneven difficulty (some safe spots on bosses, most bosses go down too fast), uneven animation quality (tribes people just sort of disappear when hit), lots of things are missing sound effects, sword slash sound is annoying
