Midnight Raiders (Sega CD) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
A playthrough of Sega and Digital Picture's 1994 FMV shooter for the Sega CD, Midnight Raiders.
Played through on the default difficulty settings.
Midnight Raiders is a pretty impressively produced movie, I'll grant them that. The system's hardware, however, does a fairly poor show in the video quality. Though it's full-screen and is generally clear enough to make out the important details, many times huge chunks of the screen are in black-and-white. The framerate stays reasonable, though, so that doesn't cause too many problems.
The big issue I have with Midnight Raiders (and one that I have never once noticed in an American Laser Games game) is that it's virtually impossible to aim at things unless you know they're coming ahead of time. The reticule appears to be painted on the screen at the same framerate at the video itself is running at, so your crosshair gets somewhere around 10-15 frames a second as well. It's not smooth at all, as I'm sure you can imagine, and it makes lining up precision shots pretty difficult. There are also a few instances where enemies appear so quickly, one after another, that unless you've moved the reticule into place ahead of time, you won't be able to hit the guy. You really have to memorize nearly every enemy location.
The game also makes a habit of wildly swinging the camera as you're trying to line up a shot, compounding the issue. There are no gentle, predictable pans - there are constant sudden lurches like you'd see in an action movie. It looks good, but it utterly breaks the game. I wonder what they were thinking on that one - when every other game in the genre keeps the camera fairly steady when enemies appear (Mad Dog McCree, Lethal Enforcers, etc) so that you might be able to hit them, why would you then do the opposite? It's a bit less dynamic, sure, but at least people won't flat give up in sheer frustration. You can see a number of times in my playthrough where I had to lead the camera with my cursor to be able to hit a moving target. Good luck doing that reliably if you haven't memorized the scene. I do find it funny that hard mode removes the indicator boxes, though. If you had to play that way, I'd be using the disc for my own shooting practice instead. Or at least as a flashy drink coaster, data side up.
They got it right in Ground Zero Texas and Sewer Shark, so why, Digital Pictures? You wanted to set a record for how few days the game had been on retailers' shelves before disposing of it in the $5 clearance bin?
The story is goofy, the acting is corny, and it's a great lot of fun to watch all the campiness packed into this half-hour gun battle. It's unfortunate that it's such a chore to play.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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