PixlBit

There are certain combo cartridges games that leave me wondering why they were ever sold as standalone releases in the first place. I found myself asking that question after playing the Hang-On/Astro Warrior cart on the Master System. I mean, don’t get me wrong- it’s nice to have both games on a cartridge. But neither one held much weight when all was said and done. Even so, I was still able to come away with some goodwill toward Hang-On. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Astro Warrior, but I’ll touch on that shortly. So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

First up is Sega’s original racing classic, Hang-On. Initially released in arcades in 1985, it was the first in their motorcycle racing series. It was built on the Super Scaler arcade system board, which allowed for 3D effects using 16-bit sprites- a technical marvel in its day. When Hang-On was ported to the Sega Master System, it was vastly scaled back, resembling Namco’s Pole Position in 8-bit form.

Your goal is to race from checkpoint to checkpoint while beating the timer. The challenge is avoiding the many other bikers on the road. Any contact with other racers or road hazards will cause your bike to explode rather spectacularly, no matter how slow the speed upon contact. Each change in scenery represents a different checkpoint- there being four in total. And this is where the game turned shallow for me.

Anyone expecting a sense of accomplishment and closure to the race is in for a disappointment. There’s no definitive end to the game; it just loops back to the starting area after reaching the final checkpoint. All you get is a quick message saying, “congratulations…challenge the next course”. That next course, however, is no different than the one you just raced on. After playing through the same course four times in a row, I gave up hope of officially getting a confirmation that I did indeed finish the race for real this time.

The good news is that you can add a little variety into the mix by adjusting the difficulty level between one to three. The highest setting places more riders on the road, and they move around a lot, forcing you to be extra careful when negotiating curves. This at least makes the game a bit more engaging. I admit to doing a short-lived happy dance upon reaching the “final” checkpoint. So even with its lacking content, the simplicity of Hang-On still holds a special place in my heart.

The visual presentation isn’t nearly as detailed or fast as the arcade version. Gone are the advertisement signs and highly detailed scenery. Understandably, character sprites had to be reduced for the game to run smoothly. Even so, there’s still enough here to like. The view around you features bright hues and a decent sense of speed. The dark colors and city buildings surrounding the night driving segments are the game’s best feature.

The audio in Hang-On keeps to a minimum with no music tracks playing as you’re flying down the road. However, what sounds are in the game are decent enough. I found it surprisingly relaxing to play a racing game where all you hear is the smooth engine of your bike and soft hums of rival bikers vying for a spot on the road.

 

 

Astro Warrior is an unremarkable shoot-em-up. In retrospect, it's hard to imagine people paying full MSRP for this as a single game before Sega decided to package it with other games. Are there power-ups for speed and firepower? Yes. Can I pick up a maximum of two helper drones that fire the same weapons as I do? Sure. Does the game feature bosses with multiple weak points? Check. Well, you get the picture. But the lack of originality is the least of this game’s problems.

The game is a ridiculously short affair with only three levels to play through. Like Hang-On, the game loops back to the first level after you destroy the final boss ship. I have read that the game ends after the third loop, but good luck making it that far. Despite Astro Warrior’s brevity, it still has a formidable challenge factor. Your success heavily depends on staying fully powered up. Once you die, you go back to your slow, single pellet-firing ship, and it’s pretty hard to make progress if you’re anywhere past the first level.

The game tends to be unbalanced, with the hordes of enemies attacking much faster than your ship at average speed. Often, I found that if I managed to make it to the boss ship at the end of the second level, my journey would soon end there. Those laser attacks are often too quick to dodge. On the other hand, the danger of collecting too many speed-up items is also present- heightening your chances of slamming into an enemy ship or stray bullet.

It doesn’t help when the starry background goes pitch black while fighting the boss armada ships. When it happened, I couldn’t accurately judge how far to the side my ship could go. While that may sound like a minor nitpick, it matters a lot when you have to keep your eye on the boss character on the upper portion of the screen to anticipate when it’s going to start shooting at you. To my dismay, Astro Warrior comes off as a cheap shooter with a rate of difficulty too steep to be fun for most players.

The game does have a few tunes to accompany your journey to the stars. I can’t say that the music is particularly outstanding, but given the bare bones makeup of the game, I suppose I should be happy that it has a soundtrack at all. The same goes for the sound effects of lasers firing, enemies exploding, so on and so forth. It’s all average stuff for a below-average game.

With the plethora of other more robust racing and shoot-em-ups out there, Hang-On and Astro Warrior are two games that I would never buy separately. While Hang-On gets points for at least being an enjoyable game in brief sessions, it lacks the longevity you would expect from a racing game of that era since you’ve seen all there is to see after five minutes or so.

Astro Warrior gets even less credit because it gives the player nothing more than the bare necessities when most of the other competing sci-fi shooter games out there were giving us significantly more fleshed-out content. Looping back to the beginning after the third level and just upping the difficulty doesn’t cut it. If I were trying to prove to a friend that the Master System was the superior gaming console back in its heyday, I wouldn’t want to use this game as an example.

In the end, it was a far better idea to get these games as a combo cart instead of purchasing them separately. At least that way, if you hated Astro Warrior as much as I did, you’ll still have a 50/50 chance of enjoying a ride down the never-ending road of mediocrity.