ESWAT™: City Under Siege Reviews

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ESWAT is a somewhat-Shinobi-inspired action game made by Sega of Japan in 1990, filled with 4 Megabit ROM of shootity shoot shoot. You might think that it's a port of their ESWAT game on Arcades that they made in 1989 but in reality it's a newly game. Look, "City under Siege" subtitle. You can even view it as sorta sequel if you want. The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. Well, of western version of a game which means that you get 3 continues. Japanese one had none. Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here: The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library. It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody. However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time! Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves. As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "ESWAT_U.68K". I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "ESWAT_PC_MG_EFIGS_US.pdf". Plot of this game is that you policeman who sucks and has to beat the first two missions before being accepted into ESWAT and finally gets his own awesome ICE suit with jetpack. And then you get six more missions where you try to stop the E.Y.E. terrorist group. It does have more of feel that you are in future against organisation, instead of random cop days of arcade versions. The best part however is the short objectives that you recieve before each mission. It clearly was written by japanese arcade company, alright, asking you to "infiltrate" while you in-game you just walk in and kill everybody. My favourite one is "Penetrate Secret Sewer!!". In options you got usual sound test, controls and you can choose how many lives you want to have and difficulty of a game, which changes how much maximum health you have on each level once you are past the policeman levels. The gameplay itself is fairly standart action game. It's not exactly shoot-em-up one, you don't just rush in and shoot everything while jumping in 8-direction. It's more limited, like you can shoot only forward or up, and thus has a bit of that Shinobi-like thing going on where your position or weapon selection are more important than action itself. But only a bit. Plus, it does have a bit of nasty things going on, where you sometimes might get a cheap hit. But that one isn't common thing either. And yep, hold up or down when jumping to get to higher or lower places. I also can't help but to think that the first two missions are a bit lacking. Ok, alright, actually the first one is good, with verticallity and variety and such. I actually like this one a lot. It's the second one that annoyes me in no end. First you get to slide around on a lift getting shot by things that come faster than you can react. Or not be able to avoid those turret shots. And then once you get out you spend time just walking into single direction, spam bullets left and right, with no verticallity or anything to break it up. Wish level select cheat didn't require beating game first, which is dumb requirement with game with no saving, by the way. But hey, at least you get the suit, being the REAL EEE-SWAT, having more health, getting cool jetpack and now being able to have more than just simple "shot" weapon, the game opens up more. Into being a fun one. Jetpack level challenges, traps, bosses to abuse, getting through the labs that is full of living purple goo out to kill you. And yep, jetpack. It moves fast, but wastes energy fast. It recharges slowly when standing. And when it's very low on energy you can only hover. It's a bit too fast though. Here is protip: tap the button to move down and not waste as much energy. It's all a pretty good arcade fun, with bosses. All yay getting through the levels, hovering in air with jetpack and shooting down rockets that hover over surfrace to get the enemies below you. AND THAT BOSS MUSIC IS AWESOME. Just saying. Also, it has two voice samples in a ROM so you can spam "EEE-SWAT" all you want. Jolly. Though, once I beat the game, I got a sense that the game was underdeveloped. It's just that while the game throws various challenges at you, it feels like game never goes more in-depth. It feels more like a series of small challenges, they never repeat and never get more complex. Just something is lacking there. Heck, even rushed somewhat. So as much as I like this little neat game I wish that Sega took more time in it. Or, rather, remixed it up. Something that they would do with Shinobi 3 later on. There are also other things that make it feel unpolished. You lose the selected weapon when you lose life and it feels like often times the game is designed thinking that you have at least something more than a mere "shot" weapon. Some parts will be very hard with it. Especially Level 4, lab, which doesn't have it's own weapons pickups and you better be having controller with turbo/rapid function if you lose em all. And even then it will be quite hard. I didn't even beat few bosses in proper way, only cheap one. Where I hover with jetpack in one high place and shoot rockets down. Or like how you have to wait long time for jetpack to recharge with nothing to do. Overall, a nice arcadeish action game. But I wish that they polished and worked on it more. Because I sure like the premise. They also totally should make a ESWATxSWAT4 crossover where you jetpack with squad and throw flashbangs around while jamming to THAT BOSS MUSIC. Just saying.