|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The latest chapter in the Strikers saga! Take control of five wildly modified modern U.S. fighter jets! This one is the F/A-18 Super Hornet. |
Fall, 1999 A.D.This is the latest game in the Strikers series. The setting of the game is 50 years later in the future. Even so, this game is called Strikers 1945 III outside of Japan. I guess it is to clearly indicate that this game is the third in the Strikers series, and the name Strikers 1999 might come across as an unrelated new game. But hey, we were able to figure out that Capcom's 1943: The Battle of Midway was a sequel to 1942. 1943: The Battle of Midway (which REALLY happened in 1942) had an enhanced version in Japan only called 1943 Kai and a sequel called 1941: Counterstrike. Following that game, there was 19XX: The War with Destiny and then finally 1944: The Loop Master, which is a joint collaborative effort by Psikyo and Capcom! Uh, okay. Now I'm confused...An extraterrestrial swarm of nanites (microscopic robots) have invaded Earth and infiltrated military bases in every country and began to multiply.
Military craft infested with these nanobots became fully automated and soon began indiscriminate attacks on every country in the world, resulting in mass devastation. Fear soon began to surface about the grim possibility of these extraterrestrial nanobots infiltrating the world's nuclear weapons, resulting in world nuclear war!
The small number of military craft that have not been infiltrated yet by the nanobots have been recovered. A small combat force has been assembled to fight against the entire world.
The odds are against you...out of contact with military headquarters...a squadron of six shines in the white sky...
The Strikers...attack the enemy mastermind...the battle starts here!
Half a century later, a new legend of the Special Force "STRIKERS" begins now!
In Strikers 1945 III, you get to choose from five wildly modified modern fighter craft plus a hidden secret fighter. All of the fighter jets here are American. What? No MiG-29 Fulcrum? No Tornado? No FS-X? Or Eurofighter? American fighter jets may be the most prolific in the world, but at least show props for fighter jets from other countries as well. Additionally, Psikyo should have selected fighter jets that actually entered service during the 1980's and 1990's. The F-4 Phantom II entered service in 1967! The first two Strikers 1945 games offered a selection of WWII warplanes from many different countries.
Game action is fast and furious in Strikers 1999. This is about the only high-profile manic shooter that I know of in the United States (American players might suffer a nervous breakdown if they ever tried out Dodonpachi, ESP Ra. De., Guwange, or any other Atlus/Cave shooter). Enemy attacks are fierce. They literally rain down hundreds of bullets at your face. The bosses are very tough (I hate hate HATE that damn Geo-Bite!!!). They may look overwhelming, but they all have attack patterns that can be learned and anticipated. There are eight action-packed, albeit disappointingly short, stages to play through. As in the first two Strikers 1945 games, the first four stages in this game are randomly shuffled. The difficulty of these four levels varies depending on where each level is.
|
The Strikers Team fights automated military aircraft in the Modern Age! Being a manic shooter, you'll see huge swarms of bullets like this! |
The Supershot feature returns from Strikers 1945 II. This special attack has been further refined in Strikers 1999. No longer does your Supershot meter fully deplete after you perform a Supershot. You can fire your Supershot in controlled bursts and your Supershot meter decreases accordingly. Also, as you perform your Supershot, your fighter can fire its main and subweapons in autofire mode! Each plane has its own unique bomb attack. For information about these planes, plus links to actual historical information on each plane, go to the Planes Page.
Bonuses you can collect are medals. These medals vary from 200 to 2,000 points. There are also special Technical Bonuses if you destroy bosses in a certain way.
Ever wonder how this latest installment of the Strikers series ties in with the previous two games? Frequent contributor Skyknight offers a very intuitive explanation, even mentioning the evil organizations from the previous games (C.A.N.Y. and F.G.R.)! Here's the full scoop by Skyknight:
When the Chaos Queen's nanites landed, it was not only the known militaries that were overridden. F.G.R., thought dispersed towards the end of 1945, had been working behind the scenes, looking for a time when they might be able to get rid of Strikers and no longer have a severe obstacle in the path to world domination. Recently, they had perfected six new shapeshifters that they figured would give them a very good edge against the Strikers--Spectre, Green Bender, Spike Arm, Thanatos, Warlord, and Ground Skater.Just their luck that the nanites would infect them, too. Except for Warlord, that is...
YEEEAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH!!!! HELP ME MOMMY!
NOT wanting Warlord to get infected too, several F.G.R. VIP's and pilots ran to Strikers Command with the modified X-36--circumstances do now require that these two enemies cooperate...
Of course, Strikers would really have preferred that F.G.R. had not built the infected machines--especially since one of them, namely Green Bender, is completely invisible to every known detection system. Fortunately, the other four aren't so visible. The Strikers are immediately ordered to take down the battle groups headed by the four shapeshifters. Since they'd like to have some kind of world to rule, F.G.R. volunteers Warlord as well.
After disposing of the four shapeshifters, Strikers and F.G.R. officials discover that all of the nanites are being controlled from a single source--a new satellite that, when contacted, only responds by giving its name, Cross Blade. So fixing this problem should be a snap, right? Wrong. Not only is Cross Blade heavily armed, its creators gave it a very powerful guard, Geo-Bite. Together, those two would surely turn all six fighters into scrap metal. So, it is decided that three fighters will take on Cross Blade, while the other three will focus entirely on keeping Geo-Bite out of the action (involving its destruction, of course). Unfortunately, the surviving nanites detect transmissions to the fighters, and send an intercept group after the Strikers on their stratospheric group--an intercept group headed by Green Bender itself!
Three dead mechs later...
Pheeeeeew. As predicted, when Cross Blade was destroyed, all of the nanite-controlled armies suddenly stopped working. Still, F.G.R. has determined that the creators of the nanites are a small coalition of alien races implacably, genocidally hostile to the crab-aliens who helped found C.A.N.Y. (THEY'RE going to rule the galaxy, not those "pathetic" refugees from a seafood restaurant). Worse, they also mark any race that has positive dealings with the crabs for genocide. And humanity qualifies in their eyes, even if it was only a very few humans who worked with the crabs. Translation: Another Cross Blade (and, therefore, another Geo-Bite, too) might be forthcoming. The good news is, there's a hyperspace system at the space station where Cross Blade and Geo-Bite's lesser forces were stationed. It'll lead straight to the Chaos Queen who heads the coalition! Time to take the fight home...
