Solar Striker
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1989 Nintendo
Nintendo Game Boy
Very early shoot'em up game for the original Game Boy. You ship travels along the bottom of the screen and blasts bad guy space ships that attack from the top. The enemies come in the usual patterns and such, nothing new here. Powerups are limited to increasing the amount and spread of regular shot you can dish out, at the max it's pretty effective. There are four levels each with it's own boss.
The game does have all the essential elements for a decent shump, however it's all extremely generic. Enemy types are insignificant little blobs or flying saucers, no personality at all. They nonchalantly fly around in every direction, oblivious to where you actually are, like they would be going about their daily routine if you weren't there. Enemies in shumps should make you burst with adrenaline induced flight-or-flight response. Not one of these things stuck any fear into me. Bosses are also pretty ordinary, and easy too.
In fact the whole game feels like there wasn't any imagination put into it. Bosses are generic, powerups are generic, backgrounds are generic (when you can see them at all,) seems like Nintendo's marketing department said they needed a shooter game for a release title and this was pumped out in response. I mean even if you're just gonna crap out a game in nothing flat at least spend more than five minutes in the planning stages.
Graphics: Weak and generic. At least the blur is tolerable.
Sound: Bings and zaps.
Gameplay: Move along folks, nothing to see here.