Solar Striker

"Not bad. Just... not good."

Solar Striker is a shooter for the original Game Boy. It's pretty basic, and was one of the first shooters for the Game Boy. There's not much to explain here, actually. It's just a basic shooter, where you have to go through levels and rid the world of aliens. But you knew that already, didn't you?

This game, once again is just a basic space shooter. You move with the d-pad, and shoot with either the A button or the B button. This game is actually VERY short, there are only six levels in total. Through each of the levels, you can destroy the aliens for points (which are used to get a life every 50,000 points,) or simply avoid them. There are also power-ups, but later on they seem pointless because it only takes about five power-ups to get the best power-up. At the end of each level is a boss, and you must kill (or avoid) it to move on. The first couple of bosses are pathetically easy, but all of a sudden, things get extremely difficult. Also, you can't save, but I think that was kind of obvious to begin with.

The graphics are okay for the time the game was released, but you'd probably see better graphics on a later released Game Boy game. The alien designs are kind of weird, and you might have to take a couple of looks before you can make out what it is. The bosses are kind of cool looking, but they're still kind of meh. But overall, the graphics aren't the game's strongest point.

There's no storyline. But it should be kind of obvious as to what you have to do, but I won't go into detail (because you should know, considering this is a space shooter.)

The music in this game is okay... It gets a little repetitive after a while, and it's not something that you'll wanna pop into your MP3 player and listen to all day. The music gets better later on in the game, mostly because you don't have to hear the annoying theme of the first level anymore. The sound effects are nice, there's the classic shooting noise, of course, and a couple other different sound effects such as when you collect an upgrade. There's not too many sound effects though, which makes the sounds seem kind of repetitive.

Ugh, the re-playability... After beating this game, you probably won't want to even THINK about it again. It's just that boring and repetitive (I've used that word a lot now, haven't I?) Shoot, dodge, shoot, shoot, dodge, shoot... That's how it goes, throughout the WHOLE GAME. You might not even be able to beat the the first time through, because of the repetitiveness.

Pros:
- Easy controls
- Nice classic feel
- Okay graphics
- Simple gameplay

Cons:
- Music/sounds get kind of repetitive
- Not very re-playable
- No storyline
- Much too short
- Simple gameplay (this falls under both, as it can be TOO simple)

Overall, this is a below-average shooter that you should only take interest in if you're a big fan of shooters. But if you happen to see this game in some games bin at your local game store, and it's less than $3, you might wanna check it out. As the review title says: It's not bad, it's just not good.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/30/06, Updated 08/30/06