WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL – Android Assault: The Revenge of Bari-Arm
Back in the mid-90s, the shooter (or “shmup.” God, I hate that word) was king. In the home gaming market, the Genesis in particular seemed to play home to most of the great shooters on the market. The Sega CD? Not so much. But there were a few of them on there. And they were pretty cool, if only for the CD perks they featured — big, sprite-animation cut scenes; redbook audio; and…well, that was usually it.
Android Assault falls pretty much squarely into the “coulda been on the Genesis” category of Sega CD games, as did most shooters on the system. And it’s not really an amazing shooter, to boot. But it’s not all that bad, either.
The story is, well, unimportant. Some sort of evil is threatening the galaxy, you’re the only hope for peace, and you go blow said evil shit up for a few levels. The key difference in Android Assault is that you’re piloting something more than your standard starfighter — your pretty ship can turn into an awesome giant robot!
It actually sounds a bit cooler than it ends up being. For, when you turn into this robot, it just sort of flies around the screen, frozen in a single pose. It’s really nothing more than an on-screen indicator that your current weapon has been upgraded to the highest level, actually. But to 90s Greg, it was still pretty neat.
Android Assault is relatively short and easy as shooters go. It does fire out a few pretty unique levels, though. The long descent to a planet surface, followed by a lengthy battle beneath that planet’s ocean is definitely not something you saw every day back then. And the bosses tend to be rather large, as well, with a few of them even filling the screen.
Android Assault was published in North America by Big Fun Games. I can’t for the life of me find out anything about this company — not even if they published anything else here.
The developer, however, is one I’m sure a few folks have heard of. Human Entertainment is likely better known in most circles as the house behind the FirePro Wrestling series, along with the Clock Tower games that enjoyed a bit of success on the PlayStation. It also spat out a few Formula 1 games over the years. They folded in 1999, and this was their only Sega CD title.
There is a more contemporary connection, though. Human Entertainment was the first development house to employ Goichi Suda — aka Suda51, of No More Heroes and Killer7 fame.
See? The Sega CD is the system that just keeps on giving and giving.
Next Up: The Animals!
Big Fun Games, Human Entertainment, Killer7, No More Heroes, Sega CD, Suda51, Video Games
I have Android Assault and I’ve recently played my copy too, actually. You gave a pretty fair assessment – it’s not great, but a fun game if you find a used copy in a thrift store or something. I think I found it as part of the same lot when I got the JVC X’Eye and about 10 games for $20 back in Houston when I briefly lived there a couple years ago.
The music in the first stage is more befitting a forklift training video than a futuristic shooter, but who’s to say what they listen to in the future.
So you’re saying it belonged on the Shenmue soundtrack instead?
Only if Ryo’s forklift turned into an inarticulate flying robot.
These are interesting as a fellow Sega CD owner. Though I think the only games I have for it that aren’t Genesis ports are Sol Feace (sp?) and Prize Fighter, I think it’s called. Crappy black and white FMV boxing game that is only memorable for it’s unintentionally hilarious acting.
And actually, Sol Feace was released on cartridge, just renamed Sol Deace and sans any big animation sequences
The reason I remember Prize Fighter is because it was supposed to have been directed by the same dude that did the boxing sequences for Raging Bull and Rocky.
I once bought a Case Logic-style bible with about 30 Sega CD games from a thrift store that had Prize Fighter, among many others. I got on the Sega CD train MUCH later than most (about 2005). But I genuinely love the system, such as it was.
That’s the thing about this system – folks like to dismiss it now because it ended up being the first in the long series of missteps that took Sega out of the console business. But anyone who bothered to look found out that there are a decent amount of truly good or interesting games on the platform.
Yeah, it was more than just “Snatcher.” And any system whose games all have instantly playable soundtracks on the disc is awesome.