SHMUPS!

Grindstormer - Tengen

Fire it up and get Bumping, Grinding
and, er, Storming!

Reviewed by Roger Post

Grindstormer from Tengen for the Sega Megadrive is two, two, two games in one. The regular game plays like a typical shmup. Beat up the baddies, collecting bomb icons, along with different weapons systems, such as the search, which latches your pod onto the closest enemy, or the missle which launches a barrage of speedy missiles. Other icons inclue speedup, powerup, and the best of all, 1up. Switch the game mode to V-Five, and Grindstormer playes like Nemesis, with the guage at the right side of the screen increasing one every powerup, and the player choosing which option to select.

Grindstormer is your typical blast the baddies shooter. The music department falls short, the normal levels are boring, but the bosses are somewhat neat. About the only feature that I really like of this game is the setting of the pods. Moving the ship up or down rotates the pods around the main ship, and holding the fire button down locks them into position. Full front pods increase the power of the shot, and full side pods increase weapon range. Other than this, the pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

I think I need my eyes checked, I'm seeing double. These twin tanks aren't much of a threat, esp. if you use the search weapon.

Level two has these annoying floating mountains. Watch out for the pair that come out behind you (they always get me).

Um.. here's just an annoying spider enemy. I bet he misses his spider family at home, yet continues to fight in a war that he just can't find purpose in.

Level two also has big annoying guns that spit out a stream of flashing plasma.

The second boss is nasty. The side lasers cut in at you in right angles, while the center guns fire also. If there ever was a time for bombs, now is it.

As a reward, level three has bonuses that rotate from 500 to 10,000 points. Try to grab them when they say 10,000.....wait a second, who cares about points? This isn't Frogger, we want to beat the last guy! In fact, don't ever bother picking them up, just stay alive.

Right before the boss, something falls apart ahead of you and rains debris all over (and you have to clean it up).

The level three boss goes absolutely ballistic on you (also known as getting midevil). Lazers, snake-trail bombs, and that raining stuff.....many good pilots died getting these snapshots, I hope you appreciate it.

This is sort of what your bomb looks like. This is the aftershock.

Level 4 and beyond...

Facing down an armada on level four. Funny how all ships are at the same altitude, on the same plane in most shumps, innit?

Stay to one side at this part, those blue ships fire huge fireballs at you.

A few well placed bullets will move those pesky nose-goblins.

The level four boss has many attacks, but isn't very difficult. Hope you didn't pickup too many speedups, as this is just as dangerous as not have enough.

This powerup is special. If you continue, it comes out, and it gives you two extra pods, for a total of 15....no wait, four, I'm not good at doing math in my head.

A bonus part of four with, uggggg..... Points!

This ugly thing is the level five midboss. Stuff a few bombs down its throat and carry on.

The level five boss has two satellites-don't use search here because when you hit the boss, he connects to the satellites-search is a hassle.

Level 6. These grey contraptions rotate and fire on angles. Neat and deadly.

The midlevel boss, a destroyer that folds open and shoots lazers.

Finally the last boss! A heaping mass of flames, this guys not easy. Shoot the fireballs before they explode, and after that he does an attack you just can't dodge (unfair!). Use a bomb to make yourself invincible, and keep shooting and hopefully he will die before you run out of bombs.

A pathetic excuse for an ending. What is showtime? The game just starts over again. What a waste. As a matter of fact, this game now gets a 3/10 because of the lack of ending. Humph.

Reviewed by Roger Post

Indeed Rog, and you'd be really angry if you ever played this in the arcade and found out that the Megadrive version is a really messy untidy conversion. We all know the old machine can do much better!! - Malc

Thanks for that Roger! Actually, if you've ever played Grindstormer (or better, the superbly weaponed V-V) in the arcade, you'll know it as a truly great Toaplan shooter, not quite a classic, but still damn good. This pastel-hued Tengen conversion is slightly iffy, to say the least. Maybe the Dead Serious Bunch will come up with it, as they are quite keen on Toaplan stuff? Then again maybe not. Then again? ... :)

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