Midnight Resistance
Label: Hit Squad
Memory: 48/128K
Price: Tape £3.99
This is what we want! Guns, death and mayhem are the name of the game in this leaping, scolling and shooting all-action blaster. Converted from the Data East coin-op, this is spot-on to the original, bar the necessary colour and sound alterations.
You'd be hard pushed to find a more frantic shoot 'em up this at a budget price
Wow! All I can say is Wow! What a STORMING game! Guns you wouldn't believe, graphics to make you fall over and more action than a Schwarzenegger movie, Midnight Resistance has got it all.
Special FX are the boys behind Ocean's latest, and they've done a peachy job. If you saw last year's Cabal, you'll know what to expect from the graphics; colourful and detailed, clarified by visible outlines. See for yourself.
Now, frankly, we've seen quite a few Lone Soldier combat games, so what makes M.R. any different? For a start, the gameplay is superb. You can run, duck or jump at any moment, and you can loose your weapon (ooer) during any movement.
Rather than simply facing the appropriate way and firing, you actually turn around gradually. This makes for an entirely pleasing effect.
When the weapons are in use, the screen fairly fills with flying bullets, flames and lasers. Each time a bad guy bites the dust, he'll drop a key. These come in darned handy later on.
Now, you're not actually all alone. You're given a helping hand at the start of the game by a fellow resistance fighter in a jeep. While you're getting to grips with the controls and working out how to machine gun an arc above your head, she rumbles along, driving through all the baddies. If you're swift enough, you can leap onto her jeep and ride in (relative) safety through the first screens.
Once you get into the bulk of the game, life becomes altogether more exciting. Bad guys literally come at you from all angles. There are snipers hiding behind pillars, machine-gun toting loonies leaping out from every corner.
No matter how much is going on at any one point, the game never slows down, but the point I'm most pleased about is the fact that you can actually see every bullet as it comes towards you.
Having defeated the footsoldiers, you've got to take on a massive tank. This is a real test of nerve, because if you don't stand and fight, it'll simply run you over!
Once you've battled through the first stage, and blasted your way through a massive iron door, you'll be presented with every hero's dream; a room full of weapons. Using the keys you collected on the way, you can open up gun cabinets and select the weapon which best suits your needs.
From here on in, life gets really tough. The big tanks which were saved as a special end-of-level treat on the previous stage are trundling around all over the place. You've got to adjust to life getting very tricky pretty quick if you're going to survive.
And so it goes on; level after level of colourful, fast moving destruction.
Midnight Resistance is probably the ultimate military combat game. It stands head and shoulders above the competition.
Label: Ocean
Price: £9.99
Reviewer: Jim Douglas
It's a laugh a minute being part of the elite Midnight Resistance squad. Not satisfied with just having extremely well polished boots and lugging around humongous, death-spitting assault rifles, they have now decided to fight against the evil invader King Crimson.
There's only one snag - all the team have been wiped out apart from you! They've also kidnapped your entire family - should you waste the kidnappers or give them a medal? Hey, don't forget that they've got your mum too!
Save your mum by fighting through nine levels of murder and mayhem. Enemies leap in from all directions and you can wipe them out with your chosen weapon (oo-er!), that can be moved into eight different firing positions for maximum devastation.
The graphics throughout are great. Detailed and colourful backdrops and lots of meaty explosions complement the animated sprites as they run around the jerky, but fast-scrolling play area, brandishing a variety of kick ass weaponry. Gameplay though can be annoying due to the difficult control method. But don't despair. This is a great shoot 'em up, which at the new price should definitely be in your collection.
Label: Hit Squad
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Matthew Denton
GARTH: A must for all the fans of the amazing arcade machine, as it's a very accurate conversion of what must have everyone's favourite arcade a few years ago.
The trouble with having top scientists as relatives is that are bound to be kidnapped at some stage in their careers - and yours is no exception. The old grandad has gone missing, taking loads of vital military secrets with him and, as a crack commando with fearsome weapons training, you're the best man for the job of getting him back into safe hands. So get out there and start rescuing, in this conversion of the Data East coin-op.
It's shoot 'em up action all the way, with all the usual things you'd expect to find in this sort of game - plenty of baddies to toast, lots of extra items and weaponry to pick up, and big bosses to avoid and destroy if you're to get further than the first level.
When Midnight Resistance first cropped up on the Spectrum, we though it was absolutely incredible, dutifully awarding it a Classic. These days, it's still looking practically as good as it always has done. Sprites are excellent - chunky and smoothly animated, like their coin-op cousins, while the action is fast, furious and highly addictive from start to finish.
In short, Midnight Resistance is a right good game - and that's official.
Label: Hit Squad
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Paul Rand
ALAN: Ah yes, those lazy hazy days of summer. As the evenings got longer all the young people used to get out and about on idyllic countryside hikes or adjourn to the local park for football matches. Me? I sat in and played Midnight Resistance... and had much more fun.
All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB