Tyrian
Tyrian is the most amazing game I have ever played from it's genre and it still is. It was released on the PC in 1995 by Epic Megagames and became an instant classic. Or maybe not because less people know about this game then they should so I'm here to spread the word about an old skool game that was the top of it's league in it's day. The game breifly is a ship shooting game like 1942 where your ship is at the bottom of the screen and you shoot enemies that come zooming down at you from the top. Oh it's a PC game.
THE DAYS WHEN GAMEPLAY MATTERED
I could go on about the actual fun factor for this game for hours because just when you think you have already seen the greatness this perfect game has to offer you find out that there is most to the game then you could have posibly imagined. The funny thing about when I was playing this game was that I played the demo only for a long time, it wasn't until 3 or so years later that I played the fullgame, which is now freeware by the way. They made the demo too good, because even it was clocking up more hours of my time then most other games or maybe all games. Forgive me my memory of 12 years ago is a little rusty. Anyway the lenth of this game is enough to keep you going for up to a good 50 hours of gameplay and then it is very fun to replay. There are several different game modes, these are Story Mode, Arcade Mode and Two Player Arcarde Mode. Story Mode is really what makes the game incredible. In it you fly through the huge collection of levels and at the end of each level you dock your ship at a dock and you get to buy weapons in preparation for the next level. The shop for each level has different weapons on offer as well as different ships and upgrades you can buy, the weapons for the game are incredible but I will cover them later. Then after you've spent your money, you fly off into the next level. I'm going to explain the levels in their own chapter also. Another great thing about this game is when you reach the end of the game you get a kind of cheat code. But it isn't a cheat it's a password you type in at the title screen to unlock even more extra features in the game for example when you clock the game on easy you get a code that says "Technoace" or something, i'm sure I got it wrong but good because you can earn it yourself. You type this in at the title screen and you open up a feature called a super arcade, which is just like the normal arcade except your ship is very different and you can find a collection of weapons that suit a theme. The first technoace super arcade features all kinds of weapons to do with explosions technology and gadgetry. In each Super Arcade you also get a unique weapon unique to only that arcade and not avialible anywhere else in the game. The Arcade mode by the way is just like what you see on those 1942 and such arcade machines. Not just do these codes open up at least 10 Super Arcades that I can think of. But there is also an unlockable Scorched Earth like game, (If you havn't played Scorhed Earth, sigh, get with the old skool man) which is brilliant in it's own right and you can unlock new difficulty levels and also an ultimate super arcade eventually that is automatically set a a difficulty level even higher then the second secret unlockable difficulty level.
BOMBS, BANANAS and BLASTERS
The weapons really are the game's greatest quality. They are all incredibly creative and do alot more interesting things then just fire two little pulse toward your enemies. Okay one gun does, the pulse cannon. But this gun that you start of with along with every other gun can be upgraded 11 times with each upgrade costing nearly twice as much as the last and yes each upgrade makes the weapon double it's destructive power. Let's start with one of the game's simpler guns the proton cannon. This starts of shooting a couple of spinning blue balls toward your enemy in a straight line. Upgrade and it shoots 2, again and it shoots 3 except now start spreading out to cover more area, again and the little blue balls start getting bigger and more damaging. Until eventually you end up with blue balls flying in 9 directions at once with some of them looking bigger then your ship. Each and every weapon can be upgrading this way and if you thing that is devasting wait until I tell you that you can equip 2 of these at once. That's right your ship is able to have a rear and front weapon installed at the same time. The rear guns are even better then the front gun because not just are they upgradable 11 times but they also have 2 firing options. Take the Sonic Wave for example. In normal firing mode it helps to kill enemies that try to sneak up behind your ship or too it's side as it shoots more in those directions. But you can also simply press enter and it will immediately shoot just like you would expect a front gun to, with all of it's focus toward the front of your ship which can result in a really spectacular display colored bullets covering everywhere on the top half of the screen. It dosn't end there you can also get 2 more weapons mounted. These are called sidekicks and are often weapons with limited ammo that can make a devastating addition to what you are already continuously firing. For example the mini-missiles fire a whole lot of explosive missile toward your enemy at a rate of about 4 per second. But you can have a second one of these attached allowing you to shoot an additional 4 missiles a second making 8 missiles a second totally pwning and oblitterating your enemy. But as I said these are limited which is why you save them for tough bits. You also have the option of buying very expensive unlimited sidekicks that simply add a bit more to your confetti of sonic waves and blue balls. For example the dual shot option. This adds if you equip 2 an additonal 4 basic shots per second. The sidekicks cannot be upgraded but are normally so good and expensive as they are that they hardly ever get outdated by your upgrading weapons. Some weapons in the game are extreamly funny like the orange juicer and banana blaster. There is a super arcade where strange weapons to do with food is it's theme. Even your ship is a carrot. I could go on for ever about each individual weapon and it's a shame I can't because each and everyone is incredibly creative and fun to use.
FLYING FOREVER
There are a huge amount of levels in the game. I would not be overestimating if I said there is 100, in fact I could be falling very short. There are 4 Acts each with about 20 levels plus at least another 10-15 hidden bonus levels. These are found by destroying a particular terrain feature. But sometimes you might want to miss it and try the other secret level that can be found later in the level, once you pick up a secret level you can't pick up another. This is why I think I may be underestimating becuase there could very well be 2 secret levels in every level and heck I even know that there are sometimes secret level inside secret levels. In fact there may be even more secret levels then there are normal levels. These secret levels often contain the rarer weapons in their shops and also contain enemies and pick ups that a worth a lot more money then in normal levels. A lot of levels, mainly the normal ones have bosses at the end and these can often be quite challenging especially on the higher difficulty levels. Another very interesting feature about story mode is that there is a story. Better yet it is optional and collectable. Just like many other pickups in each level there are also 4 datacubes to find, even in the secret levels and these are basically mail transmissions from characters in the game who tell you what is going on and give meaning to why you are flying around all these place. You have the option not to read the information on these cube and just dive back into the action. Sometimes these cubes contain clues to secrets levels and sometimes just historical information about these fictional planets you are visiting and this helps you get immersed into the game world. The storyline is good by the way and well worth reading. The levels themselves as well as everything else is nicely detailed with graphics you'd expect from high end Snes games.
A GAME THAT CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS
Yeah so last year I decided to play this game in december and guess what happened the whole game had changed, instead of shooting lazers I was shooting candy canes and the enemies looked like reindeers. Seriously the game keeps on surprising me with the easter eggs I keep finding. I wonder what will happen if I play it on Halloween, hmm.
THE VERDICT
Graphics: 10/10, great for it's time, better then a lot of Snes games.
Sound: 6/10, Don't remember much about the sound, probably shows they were fairly ordinary I guess.
Story: 9/10, Collectable storyline, what an idea, and it's interesting.
Lastability: 10/10, I often play this every year because I get reminded about how awesome it was.
Difficulty: 10/10, As difficult as you want it to be and even more so.
Overall: 10/10, Wow posibly the first 10 I've ever given out.
10/10
If you have specific question post them and I'll answer as soon as posible.
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Originally Posted by Dyluck
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