ESWAT: City Under Siege SEGA Mega Drive Review

Game: ESWAT: City under Siege
Version: SEGA Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection Xbox 360
Year: 1990

The next game I am reviewing is a recommendation from Alasdair. This is the first recommendation that I have decided to review mainly because I had a copy to hand and I hadn’t played it before so I was eager to check it out. This is also the first title from the 1990’s so I was hoping for good things. The intro for this game is pretty dope, it’s got that RoboCop feel but that’s not a bad thing because RoboCop kicks ass and shoots lots of people! In fact if I was a super hero I’d probably go for RoboCop, although I don’t know if you can class him as a super hero…. Anyway that’s enough waffling….

Level 1 starts of nice and simple.

So ESWAT: City under Siege is a 2D side scrolling shoot em up, very similar to Contra or Shinobi. You begin level 1 as a SWAT officer. You are armed with a pistol. You can fire left and right, up, up and right and up and left. The up shooting is limited to 45 degrees and you cannot shoot whilst jumping which I really didn’t like. This level is quite simple and you basically spending it climbing on top of skyscrapers, killing baddies. When you get to the end of the level you fight the first boss which is a rather big helicopter. The boss level music is superb and definitely one of the highlights of the game!  

The second level is simply insane! You start in a futuristic prison where you manoeuvre around the level on a lift. You can then jump into prison cells; this is the first level that introduces the extra layer to gameplay. You can be either in the foreground or jump into the back ground. Pushing up whilst jumping makes you jump into the background and this is quite a nice feature and does give variation in game play features. It did take me about 10 minutes to realise that I could do this, until then I spent my time whizzing round the level on the lift, dying and not having much fun. Maybe I should learn to read the instructions…. Game play is much the same as the level before albeit slightly more interesting. The thing that annoyed me most about this level was the bosses. So once you complete the prison you encounter 2 weird clown robot things, which are ridiculously hard until you realise if you get over to the right hand side and shoot non-stop you will succeed without any trouble at all! Also just prior to facing these bosses there is a random conveyor belt which is placed purely to make you lose some life, not cool game designers, not cool!

Die purple ooze, DIE!

After completing level 2 there is a short cutscene where for no apparent reason you turn into RoboCop (or get given the ESWAT suit). This is where gameplay gets a bit more exciting and there are far more enemies you need to destroy. The ESWAT suit allows you to use more weapons including Super Shot, a plasma rifle, rockets, and a fire attack. You also have a jet pack which has limited fuel but replenishes over time. This level definitely feels different to the previous levels and has more emphasis on the shoot em up theme more than on platforming. You also have much more health to play with on this level, probably to offset the increase in enemies.  

HELL YEAH!

There are 8 levels in total but I’m not going to go into these in too much detail or my review will ending becoming more of an essay than a review! The later levels are pretty decent with some giving more emphasis on puzzles as opposed to straight out shooting. One level requires you to make swift manoeuvres with your jet pack, and another you have to fight off some weird purple ooze. Overall the levels are quite varied meaning game play doesn’t get stale. I did enjoy this game and I will probably check out the arcade version which released before this version.  I would recommend people who haven’t played this to give it a go, and even if you have played it when it first came out go back and revisit it.

One of the trickier platforming sections.

Gameplay 7/10 Pretty good but some of the controls were disappointing. Later levels are pretty good though and the control methods improve. Much prefer the platforming side to the shooting side.
Graphics – 7/10 Pretty decent overall but poor in places. I particularly like the cut scene stuff.
Sound – 8/10 The boss music is a BANGER! Love it….

Overall 7/10 A nice shoot ‘em up platformer with varied game play, worth a play.