I've
been a shmups fan ever since I saw R-Type 2 on the Amiga, playing
on the TV. At that time, I had my Commodore 128, and all I wanted
was something like R-Type 2 for it. So I got R-Type. I was astonished.
It was such a great game! And the music kicked ass. I think is has
the best music of all the R-Type versions!
Then, in the beginning of 1993, I got my Amiga when I went to Germany.
Guess what, when I saw R-Type 2 at a bargain price, I didn't hesitate
to get it! So finally I had it in my hands! Great! But at that time,
there was around another shooter I never heard about. The name was
'X'. 'Project X'. It seemed to kick ass, and one year later, I could
see it was damn true! 50fps, super sexy graphics, mega speech and
sfx, a great power up system, and a damn hard difficulty, it was
shooter heaven on the Amiga. Many more tried to overcome (or rip-off)
Project X, but none could. Until Disposable Hero came in. Kick ass
sexy cool gfx and sound. An original power-up system, with lots
of weapons, and some fabulous details here and there, that could
beat Project X.
So, Disposable Hero is one of the best shooters I know for the Amiga.
Good balance between quality, gameplay and difficulty. At the beginning,
you have one ship, but from level 3 you can have access the Prototype
2 ship. Actually, I don't like much the Proto 2. It's kinda ugly.
So I don't use it much. I stick with the Proto 1 most of the time.
The weapon system is kinda innovative, well, at least, I don't know
other game that has one like this.
As I mentioned, the graphics are really good, there are so many
colours. Level 4 is really great. The sprites are neatly animated,
and the whole game is so smooth. The backgrounds are sexy as hell,
the general look is really great! It doesn't look like an Amiga
at all. I think they use only 32 colours, but I can't notice, they
look like more!
In the music department, D-Hero is good. It has good tunes, that
fit well each level. Sfx wise, it's boom-pzzat KABOOM! etc.. :)
As every shooter. It only has speech at the beginning of each life
('All systems activated'), and at Game Over ('inactivated':), and
the usual weird-alien scream.
Finally, the gameplay. It's one of those games, were you say 'God
damn it! Why did I have to die like that! let's try again!', but
maybe you don't come back as often as you would like. It can be
a little frustrating at times, because you die with no apparent
reason, maybe some alien stuck a bullet in your ass from the back,
as the bastards come from everywhere! Various mid-bosses add a good
touch. Well, if I have to give it some score, it would be like this:
Graphics: 95 - Kick ass Gfx, very
cool effects, and all round silky smoothness abounds.
Sound: 69 - The music is good,
but the sfx are run-of-the-mill, except some of them.
Gameplay: 84 - You will come back
at it often (But not as much as I come back to Soldier Blade :)
It can be a little frustrating in some sections, though.
OVERALL 89
I took a lot of snapshots, so the review is split by levels. And
because (maybe) of emulation, I couldn't do anything about level
5. It just hanged up 5 secs after startup :( But the rest is here...
First, there you have all the weapons. There are quite a lot, so
wait for the pictures to download. Then proceed to the levels...
Akira
Disposable
Hero - Gremlin
