Strider II

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You've just finished off the "Reds" from the first Strider game and now looking forward to a well earned rest! But your services are once more urgently requested by the planet Magenta. Your mission is to rescue the Princess of Planet Magenta from a terrorist group that is keeping her captive. You are equipped with a Gyro laser and sent to fight all the enemy forces and save the woman. Your main weapon though (much like on the first title) is your sword and your quest demands to kill and cause mayhem through five different. The best feature here (as on the first game) is your ability to roll on the air, avoiding with ease hazards and enemies. The aliens vary from humanoid creatures to deadly alien robots! More on that, there is a variety of other dangers along your way such as exploding flowers, machine gun and homing missile bankers, force fields and more! As usual, there is always an end-level boss too, like the fully armed Cyborg helicopter on the first level! Your energy bar can drop easily, but fortunately there are enough energy pods to collect. Also, weapon upgrades can be found during your quest; by collecting certain bonuses you can transform into a wheeled robot when confronting the boss at the end of each level. As a robot, Strider can shoot lasers but cannot jump nor crouch. The robot energy is limited and, when lost, you turn human again and continue the fight! The gameplay is fast and frantic all the way. The character cannot slide or climb ceilings as in the original game. However, he is still able to climb walls and ropes, though you need to master the controls otherwise it might get a bit frustrating at times.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Amstrad CPC port run only on the 128k machines, and it runs in Mode 0 with a nice choice of colors (up to 16 on screen) and detailed enough backdrops. It is obvious that a great deal of care and attention has been taken over them so that to resemble as much as possible the original title. The sprites are well designed and move fast on screen too, but as expected, jerky background scrolling is present here. A little more frames per second and the CPC version of Strider II would be an ace in terms of visuals. On the other hand, the game's sound is its weak point here, and only offers sound effects of the standard boom type explosive noises.