Predator 2

The Good
Mirrorsoft opted here to take the Operation Wolf target shooter route with this license based on the character’s and scenarios of the film of the same name. You view our protagonist, lieutenant detective Harrington, from a behind-view from his waste up in pseudo 3D, and only his body is outlined in white, and the rest of him is transparent, so as not to impede your view. When you aim left and right, the figure will change direction accordingly, and this visualisation is akin to another similar arcade shooter, Dynamite Duke.

You take control of the cross-hair either by electing to use the joystick or mouse, and I went straight for the latter, and the movement is quite responsive, if perhaps a little too sensitive, but you quickly become accustomed to it.

The screen scrolls from left to right, as you lay waste to droves of gangsters and drug dealers, and as for the aforementioned titles, you shoot at ammunition magazines and other things like new weapons, e.g. rapid-fire machine guns, shotgun, and even a rocket launcher, which incidentally acts as a type of smart-bomb, and only lasts for a short burst of time.

While all of this mayhem is going on, you also have to be cautious of those pesky civilians which just happen to be sneaking around during huge fire fights, and in the first level for example, they are represented by rather chunky women in red dresses, whom scuttle across the screen waving their arms in abandon. Accidentally shooting them is a big no-no, because if you kill one, it results in an instant death penalty, represented here by a police badge which breaks apart, and when it’s game over you are given a bad rap. This morality slant is an interesting touch.

Oh, and you may be wondering where the Predator himself fits into the scheme of things here, well now and again, you will occasionally see his aiming reticles appear on the screen, and actually shoot one of the thugs. Other times, you will see him, more or less, move across the scene, in his chameleon state, which is rather a neat effect, and if some of your stray bullets happen to hit him, he won’t be too pleased, and will attack you with something from his arsenal, such as his deadly disc weapon, shoulder cannon or net gun.

Like other like minded target shooters, you can also shoot at various objects, like trash cans, windows etc., and there will be some real-time damage, and also sometimes will pay off with more ammo clips, etc.

Your energy is expressed on the lower part of the display, in the form of armour units, which is a string of grey marks horizontally arranged across the screen, and when you’re harmed by the various gun shots and grenades that are dealt to you in kind, those marks tend to evaporate rather rapidly.

Of course, periodically, an armour flak jacket will appear on the screen at predefined moments, that you can again shoot at to collect, and it will completely replenish your armour, so that you may soldier on, for as long as you can hold out until the next top-up.

As you may have already guessed, when all of your armour reserves are depleted, its good night, Charlie. Though all is not lost, as you are given two more chances, in the form of an arcade style continue timer count down, but after that, its back to square one for another bout of punishment, should you desire.

The graphics here are actually quite good, with a lot of detail in the gritty urban environment and the various thugs, and their vehicle, like vans, trucks, and so forth. Details like cops that have been slain by the drug lords lay dead in abandon in the street, while their motor bikes rest on the concrete not far from their bodies. Other objects and decals that you see about the place on varying planes create a nice parallax effect at times. The screens are often incredibly busy, and there are sometimes some noticeable slowdowns in frame-rate, but this doesn’t impede the game-play.

The rest of the presentation is also decent, with a nice title screen, which is the picture from the cover of the movie, with the Predator holding aloft the skull with spine dangling off. Other incidental artwork is also smartly rendered, and has a professional level of polish.

The Bad
As far as sound is concerned, you can opt for sound effect of music before you begin the game, and I went for the former. The gun fire sound effects are just weak, and do little to draw you into the action, other effects, such as explosions, and the distinctive growls from the predator, are better, but only lift this side of things marginally. There isn’t a great deal to get your teeth into here.

The Bottom Line
Predator 2 is a quite decent arcade style Op Wolf shooter, with enough thematic touches to evoke some unique identity to the title. The game-play is violently fast and furious, and proves a solid challenge. As you come to expect from a licensed game, the game style may be unoriginal, but it still dishes out some fun reflex twitching action formula that still works well enough, and should please fans of the genre.

The Good
Predator 2 is a 2D shooter that is similar along the lines of T2: The Arcade Game. You play Lt. Mike Harrington as he shoots bad guys that appear on screen, and collects any ammunition and weapons that he comes across. Your life bar depletes every time you get wounded. If this bar is empty, you are forced to kill one of your credits if you decide that you want to continue. Weapons include machine guns and rocket launchers. The rocket launchers are very useful for destroying everything on screen at once. The game teaches you not to be trigger-happy, as innocent civilians appear on screen. If you shoot at them, your police badge gets destroyed..

The screen only scrolls right, so that you can get a good look at how good the buildings look. You start the game battling the streets of LA. Banks and other businesses that line the street look good. A group of enemies look difference, to indicate how dangerous they are. The civilians don't look the same, and they differ on each level of the game. Even your character's silhouette is well drawn.

The game can be violent at times. One example is in the last level, you can see the Predator ripping apart an FBI agent with his bare hands if the agent walks near him. This means that the game is aimed at mature audiences, and therefore not suitable for kids. On this last level, I was glad that I dealt with the Predator, perhaps not in the same way that you have to deal with him in the last game.

The Amiga version of this game lets you control with the mouse, this I like very much. It gives you a good chance of quickly disposing your enemies. If I were to control the game with keyboard, then things would be slow, and there is the likely chance that you will lose heaps of life.

One thing that I like is the pumping soundtrack that you can hear while you play. Unlike the C64 version, the music changes after every level. One of the best bits is the music in the last stage.

The Bad
Unfortunately, being a superior port that the Amiga version is, you can only choose to have music or sound effects, and not both. This is rather poor, considering how the C64 version uses both music and sound effects. I felt that the game would be greatly enhanced if the Amiga version used both.

The Bottom Line
Predator 2 is a 2D shooter in which you have to kill bad guys that appear on screen and shoot at you, but you have to avoid shooting innocent people as well. There are four levels of this. The first level is longer than the rest. The game has violent scenes in it involving the Predator himself. For this reason, the game is most suitable for mature audiences.