YEAR: 1989

HARDWARE: varied

DEVELOPER: Tiertex Design Studios

PUBLISHER: US Gold

I have a few complaints with this game. The fact that you can only see about a quarter of what you could in the arcades is way up on that list. However, this system couldn't handle the huge resolutions of an arcade machine, so that isn't really a fair gripe.

I also despise the fact that parts of the levels have been redesigned. I understand that this is not an arcade machine, but come on.

There's a lot of animation missing. Ouroboros' transformation, Hiryu's cartwheel jump, and Lago's fire-snakes are barely animated, if at all. Also, sometimes you'll get railed by a bullet shot at you from off-screen. Just because you can't see the enemy doesn't mean they can't see you. That is a legitimate gripe...the programmers should have limited the danger to what you can actually see at any given time.

But the biggest problem that I have with this game is the fact that it was licensed out to US Gold/Tiertex. They developed it as a third party, because Capcom didn't want to bother with these outdated systems. Unfortunately, their involvement in the conversion left US Gold/Tiertex in partial possession of the Strider trademark, as well as some of the graphics from the original game. Later on, this situation would lead to the embarrassing game known as Strider Returns.

Unless you're a completist, you really have no use for this game. There are other, better conversions out there.