This is Assault City on the SEGA Master System. You are a lone gunman soldier on a mission to save the human race from a robot uprising. It’s a basic rail shooter. Shoot or get shot gameplay. Back in 1990, this must have been innovative and unique for home consoles. Today, obviously not so much. Give fair credit to SEGA for trying to give their customers a fun experience when this came out.
This game should not be difficult. Shoot all the robots on screen. Shoot the bonus capsules to receive health and armor. Avoid shooting the bomb traps and civilians. You see the cues of the stage bosses’ weaknesses and shoot before they shoot you. However, what makes this game difficult is the controls. You control the reticle with your D-Pad and you control its speed with the 1 and 2 buttons. It is very cumbersome. I was honestly fighting the controller for accuracy more than I was fighting the enemies on screen. Good thing this game has unlimited continues.
There’s a story here. But the text rolls on by too fast for me to read it. I promise, I am not pushing anything. Can you imagine owning this in 1990 and not able to read the story on screen? In summary, shoot your way through each stage and defeat the bosses. Defeat the floating bosses again in the final stage and defeat the robot power source.
This isn’t a terrible game. I’ve played some bad games in my 22 years of life in this mortal realm. You can do a lot worst than Assault City. Yes, the controls are bad, but I was still able to complete the game under a hour. If you’re bored and want to spend a hour, I say give it a shot. It’s fine for an 8-bit rail shooter from 1990.