(PS4 60fps) SAR: Search and Rescue play-through - SNK 40th ~ The Shoot Up #56
6Play-through of "SAR: Search and Rescue" in SNK 40th Anniversary Collection on PS4. It's a "loop lever" controlled game like the Ikari Warriors games--in the arcade, you used a single joystick that could rotate, so the character could aim and shoot in one direction of eight directions while moving in another; on the PS4, this is simulated through use of the dual analog sticks.
This 1990 game is obviously inspired by the 1986 movie "Aliens"; it also has some of the red and green palette of SNK's earlier game Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road, although much less saturated and eye-straining. And compared to the earlier Ikari games, SAR runs at a nice clip, with bigger effects; it does have bright hit-flash effects when shooting some of the bigger enemies and destructible barriers, but such targets are somewhat infrequent (armored power suits, mobile gun turrets, and the big bosses, mostly).
The path you take through the game seems made to feel intentionally maze-like; like, it always feels like you could be taking other routes farther either to the left and right as you proceed through doorways and hallways up the screen, but I have a hunch this is mostly just an effect to make it feel kind of free-roaming, and you actually go pretty much to the same spots anyway--although I haven't played through the game repeatedly so I could be wrong! But in any case, SAR *does* feel somewhat open ended, and there's definitely a sense of exploring a large, nearly endless alien infested base.
The Collection's background art is cropped to 4:3 in this recording because my laptop can't quite capture lossless 1080p:60 at full 16:9 resolution. : p
Recording: PS4, Elgato HD60