I've played most of the early sega releases and this, unfortunately, is probably the worst of the bunch. The concept is pretty neat, with you starting out as a rookie cop for the first two stages which play out kinda like Shadow Dancer (which is a much better game fully worth your time) before getting a cyber suit that makes you Not-Robocop.
You'd think that would be pretty sweet, right?
Wrong.
The suit has stiff, rigid controls and you become a massive target. There's a jetpack mechanic, but simply tapping a direction will send you flying as if you've just gotten ten speed ups in a shooter. Thankfully, you can hover in place without using any fuel by holding the jump button, and this comes in handy with some bosses.
On the subject of bosses, most of thenm boil down to finding a place to hover and spamming them with either the rocket launcher or PC shot (basically the mega buster and does the most damage).
On top of the clunky control, overly large character sprite after round 2 and (mostly) joke bosses Sega decided this should play like Turrican and provide you with no invincibility frames after getting hit. This means your life bar can melt within a mere seconds, and often times from something tiny that's tough to position yourself to kill.
Some have compared this to Shadow Dancer/Shinobi, and I promise you're far better off playing any of those three games on the Genesis over this. If you want a good action platformer with a jetpack mechanic, theres also rocket knight adventures.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm on a mission to complete as many Genesis games as I can, I would've dropped this one halfway through. At least it's short once you know what you're doing.
You'd think that would be pretty sweet, right?
Wrong.
The suit has stiff, rigid controls and you become a massive target. There's a jetpack mechanic, but simply tapping a direction will send you flying as if you've just gotten ten speed ups in a shooter. Thankfully, you can hover in place without using any fuel by holding the jump button, and this comes in handy with some bosses.
On the subject of bosses, most of thenm boil down to finding a place to hover and spamming them with either the rocket launcher or PC shot (basically the mega buster and does the most damage).
On top of the clunky control, overly large character sprite after round 2 and (mostly) joke bosses Sega decided this should play like Turrican and provide you with no invincibility frames after getting hit. This means your life bar can melt within a mere seconds, and often times from something tiny that's tough to position yourself to kill.
Some have compared this to Shadow Dancer/Shinobi, and I promise you're far better off playing any of those three games on the Genesis over this. If you want a good action platformer with a jetpack mechanic, theres also rocket knight adventures.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm on a mission to complete as many Genesis games as I can, I would've dropped this one halfway through. At least it's short once you know what you're doing.
City Under Siege is the textbook definition of aggressively mediocre. It's not a bad game, it's not a good game, it's just very... blah. It's an uninteresting sidescrolling shoot-'em-up where you play as the cyber-police officer Blandson McWhocares. I don't remember what his name is... or if he even is named. But I don't care about him so that evens the whole thing out, doesn't it? There's a reason this guy doesn't show up in the SEGA crossover games - because nobody cares about him and nobody cares about ESWAT.
It works and plays perfectly fine, and technically there's nothing egregiously bad about it or anything, but it just isn't interesting enough to hold my attention for any substantial amount of playtime. The mech suit's kind of cool, but that really is about it. The only reason I played this is because there was a trophy in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection tied to completing a task in it. Safe to say, as soon as I got that trophy, I turned in my badge.
It works and plays perfectly fine, and technically there's nothing egregiously bad about it or anything, but it just isn't interesting enough to hold my attention for any substantial amount of playtime. The mech suit's kind of cool, but that really is about it. The only reason I played this is because there was a trophy in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection tied to completing a task in it. Safe to say, as soon as I got that trophy, I turned in my badge.
(sega mega drive & genesis classics 23/58)
(shelved and revisited later on, maybe 48.5/58 then also?? fuck knows)
Decided to finish this actually, was still not very good. Main character is extremely lame and can't duck under a lot of things at all because he's so goddamn big. Camera and stage design are bad as well, and there's always an obscene amount of enemies all up on your shit and draining your health in seconds. Maybe you'll like it if you fuckin, really love cops or something. Which you shouldn't.
(shelved and revisited later on, maybe 48.5/58 then also?? fuck knows)
Decided to finish this actually, was still not very good. Main character is extremely lame and can't duck under a lot of things at all because he's so goddamn big. Camera and stage design are bad as well, and there's always an obscene amount of enemies all up on your shit and draining your health in seconds. Maybe you'll like it if you fuckin, really love cops or something. Which you shouldn't.
fun and difficult
after i realised the main character looked like Donald Trump it was impossible to grind hard enough to finish this one
retired on stage 5
retired on stage 5
paia
They call it ESWAT because if a cartridge of it was in front of me, I'd eswat it away
This is garbage, you can't even call it copaganda cause it's the first thing you should make some play to get them to not wanna be a police officer.
I took forever to finally get around to this because I hated the bits of the first two stages I played, but my drive to play EVERYTHING on Genesis made me crawl back for just a few further stages.
It's just a fucking mess of ideas, it can't decide if it wants to be a shinobi-style game with a decide-and-initiate flow to its combat, or an adventure-esque action platformer. The screen does a jack shit job of scrolling with you, something that matters a lot when combat is built around pixel perfect jumping over projectiles. Every stage is designed like ass. It gets momentarily better for stage 3 when you get the power suit and can start hovering and shooting charge shots, but then the game uses that as an excuse to throw even more bullshit at you. Not only that, but they fucking strip your ability to hover in THE NEXT STAGE (ironically enough, the first parts of that level are the only parts of the game I enjoyed).
This whole thing has zero faith in itself and is just a game-shaped homunculus, with 'things' in it. Literally the only thing going for it is that it has more visible budget than most other '90 Genesis titles.
I took forever to finally get around to this because I hated the bits of the first two stages I played, but my drive to play EVERYTHING on Genesis made me crawl back for just a few further stages.
It's just a fucking mess of ideas, it can't decide if it wants to be a shinobi-style game with a decide-and-initiate flow to its combat, or an adventure-esque action platformer. The screen does a jack shit job of scrolling with you, something that matters a lot when combat is built around pixel perfect jumping over projectiles. Every stage is designed like ass. It gets momentarily better for stage 3 when you get the power suit and can start hovering and shooting charge shots, but then the game uses that as an excuse to throw even more bullshit at you. Not only that, but they fucking strip your ability to hover in THE NEXT STAGE (ironically enough, the first parts of that level are the only parts of the game I enjoyed).
This whole thing has zero faith in itself and is just a game-shaped homunculus, with 'things' in it. Literally the only thing going for it is that it has more visible budget than most other '90 Genesis titles.
where I stopped: boss of the third stage. dodging around the big shield with the touchy controls... ugh. unforgiving hitboxes too
the boost-dash mechanic once you get the suit is pretty neat, and a step in the right direction in the effort to make run-and-gun protagonists control more fluidly. however, it's extremely sensitive and hard to charge, so you're stuck with much of the game trudging around slowly anyway. nothing feels good and no weapon feels heavy, even once you get the real damage dealers. I can see why sega left this series to rest instead of continuing it later on
the boost-dash mechanic once you get the suit is pretty neat, and a step in the right direction in the effort to make run-and-gun protagonists control more fluidly. however, it's extremely sensitive and hard to charge, so you're stuck with much of the game trudging around slowly anyway. nothing feels good and no weapon feels heavy, even once you get the real damage dealers. I can see why sega left this series to rest instead of continuing it later on