*a thunk against the window*

gasp! more Valentines, delivered by everybody's favorite crow!!!

(Cornelius art by myself, all other sprites from Resident Lover, credit to the wonderful @dead-finches)

and the promised templates are available under the cut (there's a lot):

if by chance, could you show us how you make the sprites for oceanfalls :0?

Sure thing! 

By sprites I am assuming you mean these, since I can't think of anything else.

Nino was the very first sprite I made in this style, and I used his sprite as a base to draw the rest. It kinda ended up being incorporated into my process as a habit to always use his sprite instead of a proper “blank” base at this point. 

I don’t even have a blank sprite for creating new sprites, in fact! I just draw over preexisting sprites every time.

This ended up being a bit of a lengthy post with a couple images, so I’ve kept entire the process explanation contained under the cut.

First, if you’re asking what art program I use for making my sprites, honestly I think anything works for me as long as it can be used to make pixel art. I used MS Paint at some point, and currently I mainly do all of my spiriting work with Paint Dot Net. There’s some well known tools like Aserprite that have come in handy for me in the past, and many more. Look around a bit and you’ll find lots of alternative options I’m sure.

I happen to be in the middle of creating some more character sprites using Nino as a base right now, so I will use it as my example. Here is the character I’m spiriting next to Nino:

He’s got a more complicated and detailed design for sure, but I also kept his overall colors simple, so that his grander design will still be legible when it is condensed in a tinier sprite form. 

I generally try to keep a contrast between the main colors in my character designs, so that the details can pop out against each other, even on a small size. In particular, the gold bits in this character’s design serve to distinguish his arms from the rest of his body, and to separate the torso from the legs for the sprite form. Without the gold, he’d be very very blue, and that’s very very bad for the readability of his tiny sprite.

This character’s sprite was made by taking Nino’s base and simply drawing over it, altering the details to match the design more with each step. As I’ve said, the sprite style is limited in color, which is what caused the main Oceanfalls characters to have rather simple designs dominated by only a few main colors for each. This way, the characters can be easily differentiated at first glance. 

The sprites’ size also affects how detailed the facial expressions on them can be. Giving everyone the exact same default expression would be boring, so the main thing I’ve used to differentiate their faces is the shape of the eyes and mouth. The combination of the two is a good way to give each character a suitable “feel” for their personality from visuals alone, and set them apart from the rest.

I’ll look at some “eye” styles I use, combined with different “mouth” styles, mixed and matched to make a variety of expressions:

You can see in the examples how big of a difference these very little details make. Really, it’s a difference of 2-5 pixels each here and there, but it affects how the final sprite looks a lot in my opinion. 

For some characters like the winged, or Reed, the pupils are slightly altered to match their canon look in the comic.

Now that I’ve got my main sprite drawn and given it a suitable “face”, the sprite’s simple design, limited color, and small size makes it easy to edit it much as I need, for any purpose. 

For example, if I want to make a sprite sheet for walking animations, I’ll first use the “base” to make standing sprites in three extra positions: The character facing left, facing right, and facing the back, along with the main sprite used as it is for the character facing front.

There’s no drawing from scratch as long as the main front-facing base sprite exists, everything else is just an edit made using it. For example, the back-facing sprite is just the front-facing sprite edited slightly to show the back of the character instead. The left-facing sprite mirrors the right-facing sprite, with some minor adjustments for asymmetrical parts, such as Nino’s cross-body belt there.

Once these four standing positions are done, I’ll edit them to create my “walking” frames. I use a limited count of 4 frames total, containing overall only 3 unique sprites.

Here’s what the frames of Nino’s front-facing walking cycle look like:

The “standing” frames (1) and (3) are identical, while the “walking” ones (2) and (4) are both unique.

This is a total of 3 unique drawings with very slight variations between them, such as a change in height by one pixel for every step he’s going to take forward. I’ve also got bits of his hair swaying with every step from one side to the other, but as you can see it’s not at all a complicated cycle. 

I followed the same process to make the walking cycles facing the other directions for Nino, and for every other character as well.

When I’ve got those four basic standing sprites prepared for a character, it’s also easy to edit them into any pose or expression I want.

Combining two or more different characters’ sprites to interact together is also easy, as long as I have each one drawn separately facing the four basic directions beforehand.

Those base sprites are also the foundation of making more complicated animations than just a walking cycle.

I’ve deliberately chosen to keep the sprite size this small and consistent in size for every main character, and to keep the complexity of the animations low, all to save time - since I’m drawing everything by myself. 

I like to think that I’ve incorporated this simplicity as part of Oceanfalls’ design. Sure, these sprites could be a lot more complicated with more in-between frames for a smoother animation, but I’m not about that life... I’ve kept the complexity saved for unique animations like the above two for special occasions. 

Some day, I’ll show more of it in the comic ~

“Naruto: Passion of the Shinobi”: A Naruto fan-made fighting game #6 - Early roster overview part 3

Last edited: 2019-05-05

The Jonin of the Leaf, with some surprises

Itachi Uchiha

Most likely to be the favourite within the fandom, Itachi was actually no between my initial intentions, but instead was added after the insistence and the suggestions of a friend of mine.

Since this is the first part Itachi, most of his moveset will be based around genjutsu. Aside from the damaging tsukuyomi, Itachi is planned to use a series of a variety of genjutsus that will put different handicaps and annoyances onto the adversary. Examples of potential effects include:

Rearranging their buttons

Inverting their directions

Inverting the high-low blocking directions

Changing their special inputs

Forcing the damage of a combo onto the opponent

Since it’s the first part, Susano’o will not be a part of hist moveset, so his damaging specials will be limited to fire jutsu as well as Amaterasu.

From this, ramifications appear. In the first place, it is necessary to determine the way genjutsu will work in terms of range, fail state and block properties. Then, a mechanic for characters to release themselves from genjutsu could be necessary, as Itachi is not the only candidate character armed with genjutsu.

Kakashi Hatake

Kakashi is a really troublesome character in terms of design, canon and production. So much so that he may not make it in even though he is such an iconic character. So, what is the deal with him?

For the most part, Kakashi’s abilities overlap with Sasuke’s. The one thing that make him special is the ability to copy jutsu (which technically is also available to Sasuke, but clearly not as prominent). This ability creates multiple problems.

In the first place we have the design problem. How should the Sharingan come into effect? Options are the following:

At any time: Activating at any time makes it so you can’t choose what jutsu to copy, which would limit the jutsu you can copy to 1. Alternatively, multiple slots could grant multiple jutsu that are copied randomly or in a pre-set order.

After a jutsu: Almost like the previous one, but requiring a jutsu to be performed first. The jutsu copied is the last that has been performed by the opponent.

As a counter: This option seems like the most reasonable, but is a problem for jutsu that don’t hit, unless it is triggered by the execution instead of the hit.

The bigger problems come now. First, we have the problem of the canon. As fans will know, there are a series of techniques known as kekkei genkai that are tied to a specific clan’s genetics and are impossible to copy. Some characters, mainly the Hyuuga, are entirely composed of these techniques. So copying either remains canonical and becomes useless or goes against the canon.

Finally, we have the production. It is not viable to produce sprites for Kakashi executing every single jutsu in the game. An alternative to this could be reusing the opponent’s sprite with some effects applied, in which case a dilemma appears with hitboxes. Though it is the only viable way of implementing it as of the writing of this entry.

With this, Kakashi is a mix and match character that could potentially be a jack of all trades or a badly put together mess of a character at the choice of the user.

Mitarashi Anko

The first of the 2 surprise characters. Such an underrated character. For this one, as well as for the next one, I’ve decided to create a moveset for them since the canon has a dramatic lack of information. For Anko, the only established jutsu is shown during her clash with Orochimaru. Based on her personality, role, and known jutsu, I’ve decided to base her around animals. Snakes, of course; but also spiders, ants and a very special kind of shrimp.

Her playstyle is a hit and run style based around poison and a series of keep-away tools. She wants to poison the enemy in any way and keep the poison up as she keeps herself out of reach with her other tools. These new, non-canonical tools include:

Poison saliva: in order to complement her canonical snake jutsu in the role of inflicting poison, Anko will be able to lick her kunai to cover it in poison for a period of time.

Spider webs: Both that you can set (think of Testament’s traps in GGX2) and that you can throw in a similar fashion to that of the Deinopidae family of spiders or “Net-casting spiders”. These obstruct the path between your opponent and yourself as well as granting the chance to inflict more poison.

Poison explosion: Similarly to one of Samurai Shodown’s characters. This move leaves a clone on your position while leaving you a bit back. The clone will then explode leaving fluids with toxins that will poison your enemy further. This move is inspired by a very special series of ant species known as “explosive ants”, such as the Colobopsis saundersi

Implosive bubble: a direct damage super. A mix between Water Prison jutsu and the skills of the Alpheidae or “Pistol Shrimp”. In this move, Anko imprisons the opponent into a water prison and snaps her fingers for an imploding bubble that for a moment reaches up to approximately 5000ºC.

Yuuhi Kurenai

And as the final candidate we have Kurenai. Another left out character that seemed extremely interested but was never developed. The canon information we have is that she is a genjutsu prodigy and, as such, she is the second genjutsu user in the game.

Not much is established around her from my part either so far. But there are 2 main points I want to focus on:

Use of genjutsu exclusively, as opposed to Itachi’s mix of genjutsu and ninjutsu. This does not include her normal moves... or maybe yes.

The use of plants within her genjutsu. Her aesthetic points to the iconography of a rose, and the one time we see her using her jutsu it involves a tree. From that I decided to make all her genjutsu based on plants, and making them damaging genjutsu as opposed to obstructive moves.

Some of the early ideas for her include:

Field of roses: Sets a surface across which roses will flourish, dealing constant damage to the opponent when it is standing on it.

Negative edge attacks: In a similar fashion to Arakune’s insects in Blazblue, she could use plant based attacks based on negative edge.

Discrete distance projectiles into teleport attacks: based on her attempt at attacking Itachi, she could make trees raise at different distances as a mean to directly attack the opponent. Furthermore, once set, she could use them to teleport into them and attack from there. A bit like Rachel’s spears in Blazblue.

Corpse flower: based on the flower species by the same nickname (Amorphophallus titanum, Rafflesia family), this attack would set a blooming flower that would take a long time to actually bloom, but would do fast, over time damage all over the screen until the jutsu is broken or maybe if the plant is destroyed.

At the moment I’m still thinking of possibilities and looking up weird plants in search of more botanical goodness.

Artbook Data - Tsumugi Shirogane

Best girl doesn’t disappoint.

Seiyuu’s comment: Mikako Komatsu

She looks very much like a class representative, so I first expected her to be like a cool big sis, but when I got to play her it turned out she was much instable character, always getting overexcited about the things she like. I didn’t have much experience with this type of character, so I had a lot of fun with her. I’m really looking forward to play this game for myself.

Kodaka’s comment: The fanatic mind hidden in “plain” sight

She’s named “Shirogane” because it’s a name gives sort of a “honours student” vibe and “Tsumugi” because she is the one who weaves the story. This is a verbal representation of her mentality that allowed the killing games to continue. The keyword for her design was “honours student-like” and for her personality was “cringey otaku”. I personally wanted her to have vaguely likeable features without looking any special, but if I made her too lacking in personality it would get suspicious, so I tried to make her stand out from time to time while still keeping her plainness as her central gimmick and find this balance was extremely difficult.

The “Super High School Level Cosplayer” characterization was established starting from its final punchline: the alternating transformations. Reverse-engeneering from this established conclusion, we defined her as a cosplayer. And then we made her mixing this with the vaguely-defined “honours student” keyword we set from before. I had quite a tough time trying to decide how her “true personality” sprite, how it should be different from her regular sprites, what indications should I give to the seiyuu and stuff. I wanted her to be something more than just threatening... So we made her in a way she feels like an escalation of the outside world’s worldbuilding, a world hopelessly obsessed with DanganRonpa.

She has some “fun cosplay stories” in the first half of the story and her free time events. These were all stories I got by interviewing real cosplayers. I think that’s  the first time I actually interviewed someone to make a character. But it was very worth it, seeing how well-liked she is among the cosplayers.

By the way, about her cosplays of past characters, I really wanted to include the the characters from the DanganRonpa 3 anime. However, we didn’t have enough budget nor ready sprites, so my idea was almost immediately rejected. We’re limited to videogames, 1 and 2. Ultra Despair Girls was removed for being as spin-off and I cry every time I remember this fact. But even without them, the voice acting cost for the final parts already killed me... I’m sorry I had this idea.

Design Notes:

Plain Glasses: A must-have item for the plain folk. We’ll never figure out whether wearing glasses make you plain or if being plain attracts glasses but we still not for sure this is the plain character’s trademark.

Plain Face Out of Costume: Normally, she gets called a plain face a lot. But if Shirogane words “When I take my glasses off, I transform” are real, she could probably look like a different person with the power of her make-up.

Company Badge: 

A misterious company’s badge. She keeps it hidden in her person instead of wearing it so it won’t disturb her plain visual. Is it a cosplay office or is it perhaps something else...?

Plain Conversations: Shirogane’s speech pattern has the distinticve otaku quality: she’s only talkative about her hobbies and normally just reacts to what other people are saying and nothing else. She shows up for breakfast every morning, so the reason why people forget she exists so much is indeed because she is plain!?

Plain Body: When it comes to cosplaying a wide range of characters, having curves too wide can sometimes be counterproductive and you can hear many ingenious tricks to purposely make your chest look smaller, bigger, etc. Good thing she’s was born with a plain, moderate body, perfect for cosplaying.

Plain Uniform: A high-waist skirt with a form-fitting jacket. But even an uniform so cleverly design to emphasize her femininity so strongly becomes plain when Shirogane wears it.

Underwear: A pair made for the ultimate final battle. But they are not for show, so she firmly refuse to take low angle photos.

Favorite presents:

Cosplay Carrying Bag: A carrying case highly demanded by cosplayer for being easy to carry. Very useful for things like travels and of course, conventions. Something Shirogane would probably consider a trusted partner.

Photostore: An image editing software used mainly to retouch photographs. Perfect to erase flaws in your make-up or visible freckles. Indispensable for any cosplayer nowadays.

Sewing Set: A portal kit all the basic tools necessary for sewing. In the context of cosplay, she can use it to immediately fix a damaged piece. Indispensable for Shirogane’s daily life.

Steels Glasses Case: It’s sturdy enough to protect your glasses from any kind of shock, even being stepped on by an Exisal. After all, glasses are as super important as underwear! 

Hated present:

Death Flag: An item with an unexplainable effect of increasing it’s owner chances of dying. A rare case of an item hated by Shirogane, who is otherwise very proud of her open-mindedness.

Key phrases:

Cosplay is an Equivalent Exchange: The cosplays that defined Shirogane as the Super High School Level Cosplayer are famous and popular enough to earn her sponsors and their selling point is faithfulness to the original’s character design. That said, she prefers devoting herself to making the costumes rather than wearing them and acting the character. For that reason, she has a lot of complaints about the current community of idol-like cosplayers and vocally expresses them in order protect the quality and the soul of cosplaying. By the way, the condition for her cosplay is an “Equivalent Exchange”. She claims that if she imitates real people, she breaks out in a horrible allergic reaction and is limited to only playing fictional characters... Leaving aside the question that this can’t be described as Equivalent Exchange at all, this is a terrifying allergy that colors her whole body pink. You can tells it’s harsh just by looking at it.

Glasses are underwear!?: For Shirogane, a fervent defender of plainness, glasses are an indispensable prop, an item to be always worn, no different from underwear. The glasses are the trademark of the plain. By just wearing a pair, you are turned into a plain person and disappears from the plains of existence... That quicly leads to you having innumerable plain anecdotes, like passing unnoticed by the cashier, being left behind by your friends, entering the movie theater with a ticket, becoming an expert in covert investigations, etc. Leaving aside the question of how many of those are true, the point here is that appearence is important.

God has Black Hair and Red Eyes: Angie’s God prioritizes convenience above all else, changing it’s appearence according to the believer. So, if you’re wondering what would he be like for the fiction-loving Shirogane, the answer is the expected one: she sees a God loaded with fantasy tropes like “black hair and red eyes”. She, who values those characteristic hard to find in real life and makes fervorous speeches about “Red-eyed black-haired characters are all perfect”, has already completely turned to an Angie devout. I... just hope  someone who would wholeheartedly listen to all her hyperfixations descends from heaven to her soon!?

Main Quotes:

“Huhuhu... Don’t you know? Those who see my true form pay a terrible price, you see?“: The foul-mouthed Iruma told Shirogane “If you take off your glasses, you’ll fade away“. In other words, if she loses the glasses that mark her as a plain character, her character would lose it’s meaning of existance and disappear. However, Shirogane said she’s off, if she takes her glasses off, she will transform. “She was actually hot all along without her glasses!” is a plot we see a lot in shoujo manga, but in Shirogane’s case we’re very curious to see what her real face will look like!? 

“Sorry... I’m in a bit of a financial trouble. Oh, if only someone could support me, that would be so great“: Now, Shirogane ascended to the top of the cosplayer world with overwhelming fame and reach. But before, she was a measly cosplayer that lived barely scraping by and had to earn her money through part-time jobs. A simple and easy option if you wanted to earn money fast, is to work in a place that sells alcohol to rich men, smile sweetly and conquer sponsorers. It’s admirable how far her passion towards her hobbies go!

“But, as I thought... maybe you should be The White Kanata“: After teaching the Cosplaying 101, Shirogane finally starts luring Saihara into the unescapable path of cosplay (popularly known as “cosplay hell“) and starts endlessly brainstorming garments that would suit him! After considering fantasy knights, failproof school uniforms and even crossdressing, the answer she arrived at was the protagonist of an old superhero anime Saihara also knows, “The White Kanata“. It was the first character Shirogane ever cosplayed and visibly a character she has strong feelings about. Knowing about their unexpected common point, Shirogane became unstoppable, filled with the will to put her soul into Saihara’s outfit.

Final comment: She clinging on to her otaku hyperfixations, fully trusting the belief they do no harm nor good. Shirogane’s presence runs full speed on the path to plainness, but it turns out she wants to make it shine on the cosplay stage!?

Steel Strider - Review - Vol 21

Format: Windows PC Publisher: Nyu Media Developer: Astro Port Release year: 2015 Genre: Run & Gun Shooter / Platformer

Randomised Gaming reviewed the Steam digital download version of Steel Strider on a Windows 7 PC.

To some the words budget title, can conjure the images of some horrible looking cheap and broken game with a cover art that closely resembles a well-known franchise from a more famous company. In other cases it might mean a re-release of a classic game from yesteryear covered in a new unpleasant sliver packaging, designed to taunt the owner that they didn't buy the game when it first came out.

These days, thanks to services like Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and the rise and return of small interdependent developers. The price of the game doesn't in the slightest reflect the quality and that budget game you just bought, for £1.99 can be every bit as good as that £49.99, big budget title, if not better.

Which is a good thing, as for us at Randomised Gaming the price of the title means nothing it's what's under the hood that counts. The only factor that really comes into play on cost is the length of a game, as you don't expect a hundred hours epic story adventure if you are paying £4.79 for a title.

The second world has a very sci-fi feel and the look is a real throwback to the days of the Amiga home computer

Steel Strider is a run and gun shooter crossed with a platformer, much like Konami's Contra series, but nowhere as hard. Developed by Astro Port, a studio who has made a name for themselves on producing retro themed arcade games with a modern look and feel. The game itself is a sequel to Astro Port's previous title Gigantic Army with Steel Strider taking place a number of years after Gigantic Army finished. Other nods include the SALADIN mech from the first game appearing as the boss at the end of the first world and the second mission sees you returning to the planet Ramulon from Gigantic Army to stop another outbreak of war. The plot from the third mission is directly linked to another space shooter from Astro Port called SATAZIUS.

As the name would suggest the game is packed full of giant robots, mechs or mechas pending which name you prefer. It's also packed with lots of guns too, as you will be blasting just about everything in sight. Added to that you have a nice Gundam / Star Wars inspired beam saber just in case anything gets to close for comfort.

That description may well conquer up images of Masaya's Assault Suit/s series (Target Earth / Cybernator for us in the west) in your head and you would be spot on. As Steel Strider clearly homages these games. This is a perfect example of a modern shooter and when you're not gunning down the rank and file infantry. Which come in all shapes and sizes, from small bomb carrying droids to large walker with mount rockets and laser cannons. You can expect to see plenty of full screen world destroying boss units.

Huge boss battles really are one of Steel Strider's highlights

Steel Strider is fast and frantic, for skilled run and gun player's like myself I was able to finish the game on normal in around two and a half hours. Steel Strider offers four difficulties and if you want to see everything the game has to offer, then you will have to at least finish the game on hard or insane, to see the true final boss. The higher difficulties also change up some of the enemies seen in each level.

Steel Strider is about 80% shooting mixed with about 20% platforming. Most of the shooting action is very much point, click and fire. There isn't a huge amount of tactics involved as most of the standard units can be blasted anywhere. They also normally attack in huge numbers, so it's best just to clear the enemies as quickly as you can. There's the odd shielded enemy and some of the bosses have to be damaged via a weak point, but most of them can be damaged anywhere.

Much of the gameplay involves picking your favourite gun and blast anything in slight while dodging their fire, nice and simple. You have full 360 degree fire control so you can shoot enemies from any angle you choose. Speaking of guns there's eight different weapons to find over the course of the game. While the default handgun is designed as a last resort weapon, owning to having unlimited ammo, its damage is very weak.

A shotgun down a narrow corridor, is a sure way to clear robot mobs

You will be quickly looking to use alternative weapons like the assault rifle or shotgun, later weapons include rockets and the all powerful railgun. Each weapon performs differently and learning in which situation to use each weapon is a vital skill. The shotgun is great for hitting rapidly moving enemies, while the rocket launcher is perfect for dealing high damage to bosses.

Limited ammo for these weapons, however, means they should be used sparingly as you don't want to walk into a boss fight with just the beam sword and handgun, unless you're testing your gaming skills. Later stages include upgrades to the various weapons, but these upgrades don't change the balance much and as you are given them wholesale as the game progresses, they don't really feel like a reward for good performance or exploring a level.

The game supports both mouse & keyboard and joypad options, the controls themselves are very straightforward and easy to learn. While normally I would prefer to use a joypad for this type of game, I found the joypad controls on Steel Strider rather twitchy and a bit unresponsive, when using an official Xbox 360 pad. In the end I found the game easier to control with the mouse & keyboard. As this set up controlled faster and was more responsive, even if this wasn't my preferred choice of controls.

The opening section of stage 3 sees you taking to the skies

Steel Strider included four unique worlds, each made up of a number of stages. Each world has its own setting the first is on a mountain planet, second a yellow mining world, you have a green gas world for the third and an urban city for the final one. The art direction of Steel Strider is one of the weaker areas of the game as the interior stages all look the same and largely the colour scheme uses far too many grey textures. Making the game very bland looking and it subtracts from the great design work done for some of the mech units in game. On the whole the mech sprite are far more colourful and very contrasting with the background, perhaps this was intended so you could easily see the incoming enemy fire clearly. It ends up making the game feel rather drab as you explore each world.  

The level design in part managed to make up for this, as each stage has its own theme. World two adds in a few stealth sections and includes an impressive chase along a train. While world three sees you boosting through the clouds to board a stolen cruiser. These add a nice touch to each of the worlds. However, these extra sections are often over a bit too quickly and then it's back to shooting robots down a long corridor. Still nothing in this game lasts that long and you quickly move from stage to stage. While the level design isn't quite to the quality of Cybernator / Assault Suits Valken, Steel Strider's design is well paced with enough new twists along the way to keep you playing until the end.

Even this train doesn’t stand a chance against this giant circular saw robot, don’t stop moving

When you're not shooting, there's a fair amount of jumping nothing too taxing, in part due to the huge jetpack mounted on your back, which allows you to hover and glide over platforms. There are few bottomless pits to watch out for that kill you instantly, but with checkpoint at every section, you rarely have to replay more than a minute or two. The main use of the jetpack is to primarily time your jumps to avoid the onslaught of enemy fire directed your way. The odd saying “anything you can do, I can do better” springs to mind, as for every weapon you have, the enemies have, a fast, longer and bigger version. So expect to jump, duck and dive, out of the way of rockets, bombs, missiles, lasers and much much more. Just remember hazard pay isn't included.

Story wise there's not a huge amount apart from the mission briefings you encounter before and during each level. Asides from a few very short in-game cutscenes. It mainly boils down to the fact you are a special force unit, guided by an operator, running shadow operations to prevent wars. There's a slightly interesting moral twist at the end of the game, but that's for you the reader to discover. However, the quality of the English script and text, leaves a lot to be desired. It's functional, but doesn't flow at all well.

These bland mission briefings are pretty much it for the story

The music fits the steel theme of the game nice, with a nice section of techno music perhaps a nod to the music from the 16bit era. Nice to listen too as you play, but very forgettable stuff and nor is it going to rouse emotions like the superb soundtrack for Front Mission on Super Nintendo. A decent soundtrack, but not a great one.

Audio wise the sound effects are what you expect in this type of game with mechanical noises and explosions going off everywhere. Which more than suffices, as you don't really need to listen to detailed affects, when you're constantly blowing up everything in sight.

There is a scoring system included and Steel Strider also keeps a record of your playthrough time, if you decide you want to improve on your personal best time. The scoring system did seem fairly basic and the highest score awards seemed to be for just finishing a stage without take a hit.

The final forth mission gets very hectic in places

That just about covers everything there is to say, performance on out test unit was perfect and the game has fairly low minimum specs for modern PC titles. Option are very limited and the game only has 640x480 and 1024x768 resolution support. There is a wide screen aspect option, but this didn't work for me and just put the game into a tiny window. The lack of options was somewhat of a let down as most gamers would expect at least 1440x1080 support in-game and ideally 1920x1080p.

Unstoppable robot soldier or twisted and broken scrape metal?

Taken as a whole the gameplay of Steel Strider is fairly standard for the genre, it's a run and gun and these games always tend to get pretty repetitive at times. While Steel Strider is far from the best example of the genre it does a good job of capturing the spirit of more well-known games, if not quite putting it altogether correctly. The bland nature of some of the levels is ultimately what stops Steel Strider from reaching greater heights.

Even in some of the boss battles, you have to watch your footing to avoid falling off!

As a veteran of the genre, it kept me playing all the way to the end, even if it did only take two hours to finish. While it might not offer a huge amount of replay value you can't complain at the budget price it was launched at and there's at least enough to keep you coming back for a second playthrough on hard to see the true final boss. Even the great classic that is Cybernator / Assault Suits Valken wasn't exactly a long game to finish either.

Is Steel Strider as good as the big classics like Contra, Metal Slug, Metal Warriors, Front Mission Gun Hazard, Assault Suits Valken & Leynos 1 and 2. Short answer is no, is it worth your money, however, well yes! Both Steel Strider and its prequel Gigantic Army can be found in a bundle with most of Astro Port's other games on Steam, at a very reasonable price, well worth the cost of admission.

While picking up original copies of games like Cybernator aren't that cheap, digital options are available. (time of writing Virtual Console is still up on Wii & Wii U, just) Where as Metal Warriors on SNES is very hard to find these days and very expensive. The Metal Slug series on the other hand is available on just about every post mid 90s console going.

The Trafalgar from SATAZIUS helping out the player, in a cameo role

It's fair to say, you should aim to purchase and plays the mentioned titles first, before looking at Astro Port's offerings. If you have played all the latter games and want something new to try out, then these budget games by Astro Port should be right up your street. You can certainly pay a lot more for far worse, Contra: Legacy of War or Scud: The Disposable Assassin, anyone?

Minimum Spec on Steam: OS: Windows 2000, XP, 7, or 8 Processor: Pentium 4 1.4GHz or better Memory: 512 MB RAM Graphics: NDIVIA Geforce series, AMD(ATI) Radeon series Storage: 100 MB available space Sound Card: DirectSound-compatible Sound Card

Astro Port Official website: http://www.interq.or.jp/saturn/takuhama/dhc.html Nyu Media website: http://nyu-media.com/category/astro-port/

Review by Random Gamer Riven.

Twitter: RDGamerRiven

Email: [email protected]

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Steel Gear 2 Strong Snake.

Steel Gear Survive, due on PlayStation 4, Windows COMPUTER and Xbox One, occurs in an alternate timeline established after Steel Equipment Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, the innovator to Metal Gear Strong 5: The Phantom Pain. The Oculus Cinema and also apps are available through Oculus Store, which is ONLY available after you attach your mobile phone to the Equipment VR. Once the Gear VR is linked, the phone will then download and install the Shop and you'll be able to search/install these. Rogers thinks that releasing Course of Exile on Xbox One will open a brand-new target market for Grinding Gear Gamings, something that is amazing. Aside from that, the Gear VR is independent device, it does not rely on other hardware to run. When Sony released their initial handheld video game system, the Playstation Portable, Konami made sure they had a brand new Steel Equipment game to reinforce the device's launch.

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