Capcom Classics Collection 2-3

Last Duel hit the arcades in 1988. It's a vertical shooter with a twist. I mean, it did have all the vertical shooter standards of waves of enemies to kill and lots of enemy fire to dodge. It had the standard power-ups dropped from defeated enemies. It had boss battles at the end of the stages. It had pretty good graphics and sound that wasn't even too annoying. You know it already without having played. So what was the twist? They alternated the vehicle type between stages. So in the odd stages you'd be driving a car and in the even stages you'd be piloting a plane. With both vehicles the joystick controls movement. For the car one button fires and another jumps the car. For the plane one button fires and another rolls the plane. With the car you'll obviously need to be jumping gaps and enemies and spots of ice and all of that. With the plane the roll feature allows you to dodge enemy fire. You won't die when hit by rolling. You obviously have a meter with a limited amount of the roll ability so you can't just roll your way to victory. The stages are timed which comes into play in the driving stages as you're actually able to stop the scrolling of the screen in said stages. So you'll have to hurry along beyond a more comfortable pacing. The game's gimmick is decent enough fun. I'd just wish someone could explain to me the naked chick reward at the end of the game...

Strider hit the arcades in 1989. Strider is an unrelenting bastard of a game. It's mean and it will laugh at you, literally. But you'll play it because the concept of a futuristic ninja is too cool. And because back in 1989 the game was a sound and graphical powerhouse. The game is an action platform game. You have the joystick for control and one button to jump and another to attack. The standard power-ups are in play of course. Collect bonus points, stronger and longer sword attacks, extra life bar segments, and the like. You can also collect robotic partners. You have walking robots, a robotic falcon, and a robotic panther. They all attack enemies automatically. Strider is also very well known for its boss battles. They're cool and memorable, as well as tough. Strider is also a clear influence on what would become standard gameplay tricks employed by the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Stuff like antigravity gameplay and airship final levels. Strider isa rather short game at just five levels but it's one of the hardest games you'll ever play. It's old school memorization of enemy placement if you ever want to complete the game on one quarter so to speak. It would have cost you a small fortune to do that back in the day and I never saw anyone do it. The art direction of the game is especially cool. Punish yourself with Strider, and enjoy it the whole way.