Chaos Heat - Survival Horror Themed Classic Arcade Shooter (Taito 1998)
3Chaos Heat is a survival horror themed third-person shooter, developed by Taito and launched to arcades in 1998. THe game ran on Taito's 32-Bit G-NET arcade hardware.
The game's story centers upon an elite force of military commandos who've been sent to destroy a remote lab that appears to be the center of a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. The lab itself is filled an assortment of demonic alien creatures, insects, rats, and even the lab workers have turned into man-eating zombies!
Players take on the role of 1 of 3 playable characters, each with their own unique weapon sets.
Each character has a unique charge attack, which really becomes useful when facing enemies from multiple sides and in larger numbers.
Each character also has an explosion attack, which can be upgraded by picking up various icons, such as flames, bombs,
and there's even toxic gas you can use to drain your enemies health.
Many objects in the game can be destroyed to reveal hidden power-ups, including extra lives, explosives, and point bonuses. Computer stations, crates/boxes, and other fixed position elements can often be destroyed.
The game seems to pay homage and have similarities to other classic survival horror series like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. Players use card keys to unlock doors, there's branching path narratives, and some scenes require players to fend off hordes of mutated life forms and zombies while an accomplice fights to unlock the doors trapping them in.
A sequel to the game called Chaos Break, was later launched for the Sony Playstation console in 2000, bearing a very similar play style and survival-horror theme.
While Chaos Heat didn't boast the greatest graphics, it appears developers at Taito put a lot of focus on finely detailing the enemy bosses depicted throughout the game; including a giant man-eating snake, and a translucent sea monster, among others.
On the downside, the game suffered from a sub-par control scheme that didn't feel very responsive at all. We found attempting change the direction you're aiming to be problematic while firing your weapons.
Likewise, the game would've been a lot better off had developers included some sort of a duck and roll maneuver.
Despite falling short on controls, the game's overall story line and theme are quite compelling, and the finely detailed depiction of bosses adds for a more immersive experience.
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