Life Force on NES

For most of us, the NES began the advent of shooters because prior to this the technology that existed, while adequate for the time, just kind of sucked in the grand scheme of things. Titles like Defender and Star Wars on the Atari were just dumb.

On the NES we had a whole mess of shooters, most of which were side scrolling. Life Force took it to another level in that some levels were side-scrolling, others were top-down view vertical and each of these style introduced a different type of strategy and play style.

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Konami was making a real name for themselves in the 80's and this shooter, although it did have a lot in common with other similar games, was a real winner not just because you could switch through which type of weapon that you wanted to use, but also because of the very creative level design.

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There were certain "environmental hazards" that if you were unaware of where they were gonna "pop," there really wasn't much you could do in order to avoid them. This resulted in it being necessary for you to memorize the patters of each level and at least at first this was frustrating. Once you figured it out it would be really impressive to your friends.

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Then of course there were the vertical portions which in one player mode could quickly become a "bullet hell" type situation because you simply didn't have enough time to clear the stuff on both sides.

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The music was varied and excellent for an 8-bit system, and the bosses had some sort of thematic connection to the levels that they were in. At the end of one of the earlier, and seriously cool biological levels where the walls seem to be alive, you face a giant floating brain at the end. It also made a grand entrance as if your presence were "waking it up."

This boss and most of the others after it has some sort of rotating weaponry that once you figured out the patterns, was actually pretty easy. Just like any shooter, it was all about how familiar you were with the individual levels.

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The game has apparently been remade by an independent developer with updated graphics and sound but apparently very little else has changed. If you want to have a look at that you can find it here

By the way this game was called "Salamander" in Asia but it was unaware of this until I saw the remade version.