Major Stryker is a vertical scrolling space shooter type game made back in the early 90s by Apogee, a very good game company then. They made a lot of games then, most of them very popular. I remember playing this game as a child and it was a hell of a lot of fun. Kept me occupied for hours. This game, along with Raptor, a game very similar to it, probably ruined my early education.
The premise of the game is to basically shoot down as many enemy ships as you can, stay alive, and complete the level.
As you progress through the levels you can collect power ups that change the amount of fire power you have, along with shields and other goodies. Your spaceship starts with a pretty crappy single shot put you can eventually build it up to being able to shoot from all sides, along with an insane amount up front.
The graphics are cartoonish, not in a bad way, just don't expect 3d. It is sort of sprite based, EGA I think, but some the terrains and ships look very cool. As you progress farther you eventually move out of space to different locations such as water levels, a forest, and a very cool volcanic type planet. The enemies are very diverse, new ships appear
on a consistent basis, along with new ground targets. Forgot this but you start out by selecting a planet to which you want to try and save from the Kretons, the attacking forces. They invaded earth, WWIII has broken out, and it’s your job to stop them. But the volcanic planet is by far the best in my opinion, although the jungle levels are very good too, and challenging as well.
Major himself looks pretty cool, and is said to be related to Duke Nukem in the game. He kind of looks like him, only with space googles. While the graphics have aged pretty well, not great but okay, the sound is terrible. Remember the PC speaker option in Wolfenstein 3d? If you don’t or have never heard it, it is basically just beeps. There was a soundblaster option, but they seemed to just be different versions of the same beeps. The music on the other hand, is fairly good. I think it’s in MIDI and some of the tunes are fairly catchy. While the game itself has been done many times, it is still fun and pretty long.
Definitely worth playing at least once.
