Saturday 13 March 2010

Mach Rider NES Review

It's the year 2112, the earth has been invaded and taken over by the evil forces known as the Quadrunners. You are Mach Rider, it is your job to travel from sector to sector on your motorcycle searching for survivors and destroying all that stands in your way.
Released as a launch title in America Mach Rider is one of Nintendo's forgotten hits. The game see's you playing as Mach Rider in one of three game modes, the Fighting course, the Endurance course and the Solo course.
Each game mode is different. The Fighting course is the main game, the goal is just to get from A to B, it doesn't matter how you do it just don't run out of lives. The Fighting course is the story mode, there are ten stages in total and each stage tells you part of the story. The Endurance mode is just that, under a time limit you have to travel is certain distance before the clock runs out, fail to do the distance in the time limit and it is game over. The solo course if that game as the Endurance course only with out enemies.
The game was different to other driving games at the time, it was a fairly complex thanks to the inclusion of gears and that fact that Mach Riders bike has a machine gun attached to it. Mach Rider is seen by some as a spiritual predecessor to F-Zero due to its futuristic setting, incredibly fast vehicles and violent driving. The only thing Mach Rider doesn't share with F-Zero is weapons.
Mach Rider is a fairly addictive game, the Fighting Course is good in both short busts and long plays (it really depends on how good you are). The endurance and solo course are strictly for long plays, these modes can go on for as long as you want all you need to do is beat the stages time limit.
Mach rider isn't the hardest game in the world but it still requires some skill to play, if you are good at it you can good for ages without ever crashing, if you suck you will die, and die, and die.
One nice little feature in Mach Rider is the option to create your own stages and ride them in the game modes, sadly though like Excite Bike this feature is let down by a problem, you can not save the stages that you have made, thankfully if you own the Virtual Console version then you can.
The graphics in Mach Rider are very colourful which may not please fans of dark post apocalyptic worlds, there are some cool graphical effects in the game, the road turns smoothly and it looks rather nice. The music consists of one track that goes on forever as you race, is this a bad thing? No, the music is great it gets you in the right mood for this type of game.
Mach Rider is a fun action game in all and if I was to compare it to something I would have to say that it is like Outrun but with guns.

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