RE-GEN: The Strike series – 16-bit smart shooter, next-gen firepower (DS)

We’ve played that game before, right?
Re-imagining the classics for the new generation. This is RE-GEN.

With power comes evolution: shooters have gone from scrolling to full 3-D environments, from turkey galleries to smart, reactive enemies. Yet even the classics, with their scrolling and their shooting galleries, have virtues all to their own.

The Strike series from Electronic Arts is one of the most notable examples of the genre. A multi-directional, military-themed shooter, it became a hallmark franchise, particularly on the Sega Genesis. Even in that age of solid-state cartridges, Strike was known for its surprisingly challenging gameplay, and became known as the 16-bit “smart shooter.”

After three successful 16-bit titles, and two CD follow-ons in the PSOne (as well as the Saturn and PC), Strike vanished; no more was heard. Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, having stuck too close to its core formula. Or perhaps EA lost interest (happened before, happened since). Pity: the series had quite the potential, even after five games. And especially today.

RE-GEN is all about second chances for the classic titles we loved. Can the power and capabilities offered by today’s platforms, from the high-end PS3 and Xbox 360, to the innovative Wii, to the handheld wonders of the PSP and NDS, offer something new to resurrect the Strike series? This is the question we set out to answer today. Some things, after all, don’t deserve to gather dust in the back of a shelf, when it has more to offer.

Cooking Mama? Shooting Madman Kilbaba! Learn about the Strike series, and speculate how the DS can transform a smart shooter classic after the jump. No, Apache choppers do not shoot styluses as their primary antitank weapon. They use the more powerful Wiimote instead. Or discover what the PS3/Xbox 360, the Wii, or the PSP has to offer a Strike title.

We’ve played that game before, right?
Re-imagining the classics for the new generation. This is RE-GEN.

With power comes evolution: shooters have gone from scrolling to full 3-D environments, from turkey galleries to smart, reactive enemies. Yet even the classics, with their scrolling and their shooting galleries, have virtues all to their own.

The Strike series from Electronic Arts is one of the most notable examples of the genre. A multi-directional, military-themed shooter, it became a hallmark franchise, particularly on the Sega Genesis. Even in that age of solid-state cartridges, Strike was known for its surprisingly challenging gameplay, and became known as the 16-bit “smart shooter.”

After three successful 16-bit titles, and two CD follow-ons in the PSOne (as well as the Saturn and PC), Strike vanished; no more was heard. Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, having stuck too close to its core formula. Or perhaps EA lost interest (happened before, happened since). Pity: the series had quite the potential, even after five games. And especially today.

RE-GEN is all about second chances for the classic titles we loved. Can the power and capabilities offered by today’s platforms, from the high-end PS3 and Xbox 360, to the innovative Wii, to the handheld wonders of the PSP and NDS, offer something new to resurrect the Strike series? This is the question we set out to answer today. Some things, after all, don’t deserve to gather dust in the back of a shelf, when it has more to offer.

Strike: when smart shooters existed within 16 bits

Popular especially with the military and Tom Clancy-types, Strike had a distinctive flavor that helped marked it as the “thinking man’s shooter” of its day. These elements helped create that Strike legacy:

• You controlled a special forces attack chopper (and other vehicles) in a multi-directional shooter (MDS) perspective, against the whole army of a madman dictator or a rogue high-tech terrorist with an appetite for nukes;
• The game involved “smart resource management” because of limited ammo loads, requiring you to resupply on the field through fuel and ammo dumps (and armor repairs); and
• The game was always accompanied by a tactical database showing you mission objectives, friendly and enemy assets, their threat level to you, and even tips on how to dispatch enemy units. All these combined to give Strike its gameplay depth and “smart shooter” label.

From 1992’s Desert Strike, each game progressed the series both plot-wise and with few changes per installment. The Jungle Strike sequel (1993) introduced the option to change your mount in-game. The series moved to the PSOne with Soviet Strike in 1996, and introduced better graphics, improved controls, and stylistic live-action cutscenes, as well as allies who would help you (little) in the field. (Interestingly, the 1994 Urban Strike featured a terrorist attack on the New York World Trade Center… in 2001. Eerie.)

There was supposed to be a Future Strike – Nuclear‘s ending strongly hinted at a sequel – but it never came to pass. However, EA would later release Future Cop LAPD, which would feature Strike gameplay elements. EA never got around to confirming if Future Cop was supposed to be Future Strike or not, so that mystery remains for fans of the series.

EGM’s Quartermann hints that EA might be planning a next-gen revival. Rumors being rumors, we’ve so far heard nothing on this since. Still doesn’t stop us from speculating how an update would kick the game to next-level.

A Touch of War (no, not the homebrew)

The scrolling shooter’s a perfect fit for the handheld – and Strike fits like a glove. It is pick-up-and-playable, and historically, a gaming session usually can be completed in 30 minutes by average players. Plus the Strike series is one of the best in its day – and the capabilities of today’s handhelds offer a lot of room for the classic game to evolve and rejuvenate.

You wouldn’t even need the touchscreen, given how the PSOne Strikes could play with only one set of shoulder buttons and no analog sticks. You could even use the extra screen to show the battlefield map and intel traditionally reserved in Strike for the Pause menu. Sad to see the stylus underutilized, though.

A potential combo would be to combine touchscreen and MDS gameplay, using the D-pad to direct the player-vehicle around and tapping the stylus on-screen to direct fire, a similar approach used in mouse-based shooters. This limits the player to firing one type of ammunition, however, whereas assigning the different weapons to the buttons allowed for simultaneous high explosive spamming runs characteristic of Strike.

Other than that suggestion, having an extra screen and a stylus does open up a variety of in-game mini-games to complement the main shooter fare (for example: guiding long-range missiles in-flight, adding other stylus-based challenges critical to completing the mission like disarming bombs… depends on imagination and the plot, really).

Finesse over power, or if you can’t beat them, dance fight!

Improved AI would help deepen the challenge of a Strike remake, but the NDS does have limits to its silicon power. To its credit, developers could take advantage of the fast loading from the flashcart. At the very least, there may be more power in the DS than what was previously available for the Genesis or SNES. Surprises like sudden reinforcements from an unexpected direction can be introduced by the game engine to shake the player up a bit.

Same goes for allied AI. Within those processor limits, friendly units would be lucky to possess a high school degree, so to speak. The touchscreen could allow for fine control of allied units in real-time, and they could be directed to strategic locations to help the player maintain control of the flowing battle. This expands the resource management mindset that is central to Strike, and keeps the game’s “smart shooter” trophy firmly in its grasp.

We’re all one big trigger-happy DS community

With the hope that after all that innovation, there’s still room for this, multiplayer can open up new avenues for both Strike and the NDS. Given how multi-directional shooters work, the prospect of players chasing each other like dogs in a yard might sound as mundane as making Mama do all the cooking, but Strike need not be limited by that. In fact, the answer may be found in that maybe-spinoff, Future Cop LAPD.

Future Cop‘s two-player and skirmish mode is base assault, Herzog Zwei-style. Victory is measured not by the frags you rack, but by shepherding one of your lemming units (in this case, a hovertank) into the enemy’s base, and keeping his lemmings from breaching yours. The battle is won by control of the battlefield and lines of attack, by attacking enemy hovertanks yourself, capturing outpost bases and neutral turrets to boost your forces, and sniping at the enemy player on occasion.

This kind of gameplay offered quite the enjoyable challenge (if you didn’t mind the split-screen), and could be adapted for a similar wireless multiplayer for an NDS Strike. Granted, Future Cop was a PSOne game – but Herzog Zwei, which is the original game to have this gameplay design, is one of the earliest Genesis titles. With both as bookends, we can imagine a DS Strike multiplayer to fall in between these two limits, in graphics, gameplay, and AI terms.

Get ready to STRIKE

I’m not saying this just as a fan of the series. Because it had a surprisingly wide appeal in the past, and because it has so much room to grow (particularly in multiplayer), Strike stands a good chance of succeeding as a remake/update to current standards.

Sure, the Nintendo handheld does have the most limited power among all the platforms covered by QJ. But like in any one-man army, victory comes not from power but from finesse to survive the threats, and seizing the advantages as they come. Combining stylus with button control could introduce a new way of playing Strike. The touchscreen and dual-screen setup can innovate the way the battlefield is presented (and how the player interacts with the field as well).

Resurrecting Strike may be just a long-shot dream, even given the rumors. But hey, that’s why those who loved Strike, loved Strike. Because it was fun to dream we were saving the world, one madman at a time, dispatched with extreme prejudice and an extra load of Hellfires.

Also see RE-GEN: The Strike series on PS3/Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP