Forgotten Old Games – ESWAT

Hi everyone it´s me again Danilo and today looks like a good day to kick some cyber criminals asses, after all today I´m gonna review ESWAT for Sega Genesis.

ESWAT was originally released for arcade in 1989 and them in 1990 released for Sega Genesis. As an adaptation from the arcade ESWAT on Sega Genesis did a pretty good job and became very popular.

The plot is the traditional 80’s cliche with a criminal organization called E.V.E. is trying to take over the city. You play as Duke Oda (WTF!?), a rookie officer who is designated to stop these thugs, and as you progress, Duke receive a power armor called “Ice Combat Suit” that allows him to fire plasma riffle and even use a jetpack.

So, in the first levels you play without armor. As a common police officer you can jump, shoot and duck. ESWAT´s gameplay at least for me resembles a lot of Shinobi, the only difference, of course, is that you´re not a ninja… But you´re a guy in a power armor so we´re still winning don´t you think?! Ok, now, when you get the power armor, in the third level, you can use all your basic actions as a normal cop and switch between weapons and abilities.

They are:

Normal Shot/ Super Shot: You can fire your standard shot and if you get Super shot you´ll unlock a rapidly fire with more power.

R.L. (Rocket Launcher): These rockets moves in a very weird way but are very useful.

P.C. (Pulse Cannon): It works in a similar way as the megaman power buster, except that it charges when you hold your fire, so if you rapidly tap your attack button it will fire a small shot very similar to you normal shot but if you stop firing and wait the full charge you can perform a super plasma shot.

Fire: This attack resembles a power bomb os something like that, it burns every enemy on-screen. It´s the most powerful attack the only downside is that doesn´t work on bosses and burn all your fuel (Burner).

Jetpack: When you jump just press jump again to fly around the screen, you can also hover and the jetpack also burns fuel.

During the stages, you can also collect some items that can replenish your health, items and your jetpack fuel.

ESWAT features 8 stages and lots of bosses, is a tough game for tough guys with tough power armors, so stay prepared for some hard time trying to beat this game. Also, I consider ESWAT as a great game when you´re already played all Sega Genesis Shinobi games and needs more.

Graphics are pretty good, even though they´re not good as the arcade version, I prefer Genesis’ version since has more darker visuals and a more deep cyberpunk feel. Sound effects and music are good too. One of the most memorable themes to me is the boss fights theme, just awesome.

If you like Shinobi and like robots, you´ll problably like ESWAT, a pretty good action platform game for Sega Genesis!