Look, I’m floating!

rated

I poured buckets of quarters into the original Strider in the late '80s. Simple, addictive action, a unique art style and creative level design made it one of the era's classics. A port to the Sega Genesis brought Strider Hiryu into the living room, but that was 10 long years ago. So when I heard that Capcom was bringing a sequel to the PlayStation, I was happy. When I heard that the sequel would come with a separate CD holding a complete conversion of the original arcade game, I started to cry.

Unfortunately, actually playing Strider 2 also drove me to tears, but not the joyous tears of teenage nostalgia, oh no: the bitter tears of disappointment. And boredom.

The original game was a 2D sidescroller with an emphasis on fast action and a limited amount of problem solving in the form of figuring out how to beat a certain boss or get from one place to the next. The sequel gives the game a rather ugly 3D conversion -- at least the backgrounds -- but sticks with the two-dimensional gameplay. Hiryu has been given a few new moves, like a double jump, a sprint and a powered attack, and there's a second playable character, Strider Hien, who you unlock by finishing the game.

What Have You Done to My Baby?
The action is basic and rather too easy to be much fun; hammering down the attack button and jumping from time to time pretty much takes care of everyone, even the strongest bosses. And unlimited continues that put you back in exactly the same spot after dying -- not even making you start over if you're in the middle of fighting a boss -- mean that there's absolutely no punishment for dying, which means no urgency to stay alive, which means … not really any reason to play.

One thing that gave Strider its flavor was the unmistakable Cold War cast of its environments and bosses -- who can forget the Politburo transforming into that hammer-and-sickle-carrying dragon thing? But where Strider's levels were creatively designed and nice to look at, the sequel is dull, featuring the usual blocky scifi cityscapes and medieval castles, with one admittedly cool traffic-jumping sequence. Unfortunately, you already played it in Apocalypse.

There are a few uninspired nods to the original, like a much more boring Hong Kong-style dragon thing and a handful of recurring characters, but Strider 2 has nothing of its predecessor's style. Explosions and effects look nice, far better than the original game's, but the character design is less creative and the environments are bland and murky. While the original was so well-designed that there was never a question of where you were supposed to go, Strider 2 has to provide glaring red directional arrows throughout, further detracting from any graphical sense of style.

No Robots? Are You Kidding Me?
Most disappointing is that the sequel doesn't involve the robot sidekicks that added so much to Strider's gameplay. In the original game, airborne enemies dropped metallic boxes that contained the usual powerups, along with some which gave Hiryu a little robot help. Three different kinds of robot were available: a standard droid, a bird and a tiger, and besides adding to the strategy of the game, they were just … fun. But even though the item boxes show up in Strider 2, for some inexplicable reason the designers opted to sack the robots. Booo, Capcom.

And while the classic game gives you the standard two-player arcade mode -- you go, then I go, then you go -- the sequel has no multiplayer game at all, even though it follows the arcade convention of keeping track of points. Another bizarre decision.

All of this aside, the single thing that makes Strider 2 my vote for coaster of the year is that the very first time I sat down to play it, I finished the game's five missions in less than 50 minutes. I honestly thought that I had done something wrong, that there must be another 15 missions hiding somewhere on the disk. Nope. Beating the game once gives you the option to play as Strider Hien, who has a powerful long-range attack and makes the game even easier; unfortunately, you just run through the same old missions. All five. That only took 30 minutes, and there are people out there a lot faster than I am.

At Least There's One Good Thing. Exactly One.
Absolutely the best thing about Strider 2 is the separate disc containing the original game. It should be embarrassing to Capcom, but Strider looks far, far better than its sequel. It's a 2D game, but the designers and artists knew the hardware's limitations and pushed them to the limit -- and besides, they had a little style. Finishing the first game unlocks an additional level in Strider 2 (woo-hoo). A word to the wise here. Opening up the packaging can be a little confusing, because it appears that there are some printing errors, at least on my copy. The disc that says it's Strider is actually Strider 2, and vice versa; be careful, you don't want to throw away the wrong one.

Oh, the Humanity
Even as a PlayStation launch title, Strider 2's abysmal length and lack of gameplay would still have made it a huge disappointment. But in an era when developers have figured out how to squeeze Soul Reaver-quality graphics out of the aging gray box, it's an embarrassment. The only thing that saves the game from an even worse rating is the inclusion of Strider, which is truly a classic, and well worth playing even after all these years. But be forewarned; the sequel is the Caddyshack 2 of videogames.

Game Quick Look overall score: 3  GamePlay  Graphics  Sound  Replayability  Interface