Arena: Maze of Death - Game Gear (1996)
1I've had a lot of negativity today on my uploads, so I'm going to lean positive on this one just to break the cycle. It's really not bad so I'm not making it up, either. It's got a Doom formula going on but with a different perspective. Pick up guns, get key cards, find the exit...rinse, repeat. It's not the tightest game in the world and it's filled with flaws and missed opportunities, but the core game idea is perfectly fine and it works.
So what'd they miss? Well, first of all, I don't feel like I need to attack all that much. It seems perfectly fine, at least early on, to just run past everything. It's safer that way, after all. Then there are the actual shooting mechanics, which are a bit too directional considering that there is no strafing. You have to line up, which also lines up the enemy, before you can accurately shoot.
This is the missed opportunity. The game could have played more like a cross between Smash TV and Doom just by having a strafe button. Punching things is the last thing you want to do in this game anyway since it barely works, so why bother having a punch button at all?