Presented by Fastbilly & Racketboy
New To Together Retro? Check out the introduction to the club
Its multidirectional shooter time again. This time around we are going with one of the lesser known titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike. It is a difficult game where you fly a modified AH-64 Apache Helicopter on a variety of missions. Though serious, the game does have its sections of tongue and cheek humor and guest appearances by the King of Rock and Roll. So ready your yoke, it’s time for some action.
Disclaimer
Urban Strike was created in 1994 and takes place in 2001. The fourth or fifth stage features a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. When our Together Retro calendar was created back in February or March, this was unknown to us since no one making the calendar had played this game. We mean no disrespect in our choice of titles for the month.
History
Released in 1994 for the Genesis/Megadrive, SNES, GameGear, and Gameboy, Urban Strike was programmed by the same three fellas that programmed the first two titles: Mike Posehn, John Patrick Manley and Tony Barnes. It was released to moderate sales and decent reviews.
Of course, the series as a whole was inspired by Sega’s classic helicopter title, Choplifer, but the team at EA wanted to do something different and a bit more modern for the time. Even though the series did have some commerical success, it was eventually doomed to relative obscurity by the mainstream gaming community. Despite this the games have developed a cult following within the classic gaming crowd.
Gameplay
Like the other titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike sends you on a variety of missions, this time all over North America. The missions may be search and destroy, rescue, or even sneak inside of a building. It is the first title to include on foot objectives and inside environments. And like all titles in the Strike series, Urban Strike is fairly difficult. It is no cake walk, even for fans of multidirectional shooters. That’s not to say that the game cheats, it is just difficult – Well I think some of the latter stages have unfair number of bullets, but that’s just me.
Using a very similar control scheme to the previous two titles, Urban Strike provides a solid gameplay experience that is just the perfect combination of most aspects of a shooter. It is trying, rewarding, and above all else, fun. Flying through AA fire to rescue that last guy before the helicopter runs out of gas is something that never gets old to me. The plot is kinda weak – I mean a terrorist attack from space? That’s so Red Alert. But this si the kind of game where the gameplay is far more important. Just use your imagination to fill in the blanks.
Legacy
Urban Strike is the middle title in a unique line of titles. Starting in 91 and going to 97, the Strike series is a fairly solid set of Multidirectional shooters. Sadly the series has shown no signs of a comeback and what was going to be the last title in the series (Future Strike) was made into Future Cop: LAPD which was not highly received.
- Desert Strike – 1991
- Jungle Strike – 1993
- Urban Strike – 1994
- Soviet Strike – 1996
- Nuclear Strike – 1997
- Future Cop LAPD – 1998 (PSN Rerelease 2009)
Controls – SNES version
- Dpad – Move
- A – Fire Machine guns
- B – Jink/Crane
- X – Fire Hydras
- Y – Fire Hellfires
Controls change based on the vehicle you are currently in, but overall they are the same. Movement is a rotate and forward/reverse system. Similar to tank controls in a Survival Horror title.
Ports
- Genesis/Megadrive
- SNES
- Game Gear
- Gameboy
Emulation Help
Together Retro Discussion
Instead of posting in the comments section of the blog, we will be using the forum for all of our discussion in order to keep things more organized. So play Urban Strike and talk to us about your thoughts and play experiences in the forums. We want to know your favorite parts, your successes and your failures.
Discuss The Game In The Forum
