DoctorSpuds Reviews Things - Strategy X

[RSS Bot]

Well now.. here's an odd one, Strategy X... What to say about it? Well... it was one of the three games made for the 2600 by Konami. It was only after browsing on Amazon for a very long time did I find this game, and I admit that I was very intrigued. I know of Konami's arcade history and I know that they have made some of the greatest retro games of all time... But how does Strategy X stand up to this history? Well... It kinda falls flat on it's face and it falls hard. But first a little info, in this game you are a tank and you shoot shit and get shit shot at you... Good? onto the graphics

 

This game is ugly... this game is REALLY ugly. The levels consist of two usually ugly colors, the first level for example is grey and a really nasty shade of green. The enemies are also pretty awful to look at. In the first level you shoot at weird blue and pink flower lookin' things, which after flipping through the manual I found out that they are supposed to be enemy guns. The second level enemies are planes... that look like what a kindergartner would draw. The second level colors are grey and orange, and anyone who knows me knows I HATE the color range. At least your tank looks like a tank, they could do that at the very least.

Sounds are mediocre at best. Bleeps and bloops with a rather annoying krsshing going constantly in the background to mimic tanks treads and engines. The explosion sounds are fairly meaty but will get fairly annoying after a while. When you start each level a little 'suspenseful' jingle plays... I don't know why, but it does. When you complete a level another, different, jingle plays, both of these jingles sound ridiculously tinny and... well... ugly

This game is HARD, if I said that Wizard of Wor will break you over it's knee, this game will snap you in half with it's pinky finger, and it's mainly due to the fact that this game autoscrolls. You cannot stop moving forward, this game will push you into anything and everything, but only at it's own pace. You can travel up and down the screen to avoid the choppy enemy fire but the screen will not scroll any faster. You'd think that since this game is an autoscroller the scrolling should be fairly smooth... right? Wrong! the scrolling is choppy and jumpy, this choppiness also affects your tanks controls which leads you to feel like you're not really controlling it and leads to more deaths. Those enemies have it out for you too, when they shoot at you, due to the choppiness of the movement of the tank, level, and enemy bullets, it almost feels like the bullets are following you and no matter how far you run they will still hit you. Oh! I also forgot to mention that you have fuel and when run out *BOOP* there goes another life, oh and if you touch anything but the grey part of the level your fuel drains faster, and you can accidental shoot the fuel canisters just like in River Raid but unlike river raid where there are fairly plentiful fuel tankers, in Strategy X if you shoot the fuel you WILL lose a life because the canisters are perfectly spaced so that if you miss one or shoot one you will NEVER be able to reach the next one in time.

This is a game to get angry at. If you you play it for any period of time you will get annoyed, irritated, or infuriated. But despite all of that I will still recommend this game, because this is a game that challenges you to beat it, it will mock you from afar just goading you to get a little farther, beat your high score, or just get to level four. Play it for the challenge. This game is neither good nor bad it's just challenging.

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/729/entry-14766-strategy-x/