ESWAT: City under Siege
| E-SWAT: City Under Siege | |
|---|---|
 North America cover art (Sega Genesis version) | |
| Developer(s) | Sega Corporation |
| Publisher(s) | Sega Corporation |
| Designer(s) |
Nandemo Macco Chan Seishi Atsumiya Mikarin |
| Composer(s) |
Takayuki Nakamura You Takada |
| Platform(s) | Sega Mega Drive, Virtual Console, Cloud (OnLive) |
| Release date(s) |
June 1, 1990 |
| Genre(s) | Action |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
ESWAT: City under Siege, released in Japan as Cyber Police ESWAT (サイバーポリス イースワット),[1][2] is a 1990 side scrolling platform video game for the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis video game consoles.
City under Siege was based on the arcade game Cyber Police ESWAT released a year earlier in 1989. The console game maintains the main characters, plot and some of its enemies from the arcade game, but features some different levels, weapons, and bonuses.
Backbone Entertainment pitched a new ESWAT game to Sega, but the project was eventually never greenlit. Artwork and screenshot of the game were later leaked.[3]
Description
The game is a sidescrolling platformer similar to Shinobi. The game is set in the near future, where the player controls a blonde police officer named Duke Oda (デューク・オダ) who, over a series of levels, turns into the cyborg E.S.W.A.T. At first, as a rookie member of the Cyber Police force in the city of Liberty, the player has to clean the streets of an overwhelming crime wave and terminate the most wanted criminals. In the first and second levels of the game, the completely human Duke Oda can only utilize a single shot weapon and can only survive one hit. A second hit will kill him.
A mysterious and high-tech organization, named "E.Y.E.", quickly threatens to take over the entire city and, after being promoted at the end of the second level, Duke Oda is given power armor called the "ICE Combat Suit". With this suit the player can use new and more lethal weapons; "Super Shot", a plasma rifle, rockets, and a devastating fire attack if he finds them. The player also has access to a jet pack with limited fuel that replenishes over time. Finally, this armor will allow the player to take more damage before being defeated. Unfortunately, because the suit makes him larger, it is harder for him to dodge enemy attacks. The final boss of the game, the leader of E.Y.E., is revealed to be a robot with artificial intelligence that is attempting to replicate its own ICE Combat Suits to take over Liberty.
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In 1992 Mega placed the game at #32 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time.[5]
Ports
A Virtual Console version for the Wii was released in August 2007 in Japan and in the PAL regions on September 7, 2007.
The game also appeared in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, also known as the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection in Europe and Australia, for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
References
- ↑ Whoever was responsible for the VC version didn't notice how the JP box was structured, so they added the "ESWAT" at the beginning which should not be there. The correct name of this port is the same as the original game: "Cyber Police ESWAT".
- ↑ ianwilson1978 (22 August 2009). "*Cyber Police ESWAT* Mini Review- Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) Japanese Import". Retrieved 9 November 2012.
- ↑ http://www.siliconera.com/2013/05/06/new-streets-of-rage-and-eswat-games-were-being-pitched-to-sega/
- ↑ MegaTech rating, EMAP, issue 5, page 78, May 1992
- ↑ Mega magazine issue 1, page 76, Future Publishing, Oct 1992
External links
- Official Virtual Console website (Japanese)
- ESWAT Megadrive/Genesis review from Mean Machines Archive
- E-SWAT at World of Spectrum