Nostalgic Game Design Focus - Midnight Resistance

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Blaze through detailed, populated and deadly levels in this 2D shooter-platformer in an effort to rescue your kidnapped scientist "grandfather" and other members of your family.

In my opinion while this is not a perfect game (and I'll get into that later) this was easily one of the best games released for Atari in its genre. Think 'Metal Slug', significantly shorter, with more basic and less humorous graphics (Hey! It was released on a single floppy disk!).

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Welcome. This is 'Nostalgic Game Design Focus' a series where I get to think back and comment upon games that I had played when I was much younger - mostly from a game-design perspective.

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Title: Midnight Resistance

Publishers: Data East/ Ocean

Developer: Data East

Designer: Koji Akibayashi

Composer: Keith Tinman

Released: 1989 (Atari Port 1992)

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'Midnight Resistance' was another one of those games that I'd play a fair bit of in the mid-90s. Last memory I have of doing so was a dusky overcast day. I felt bad about having to stop playing the game so as to walk across town to a private tutor where I would fail to learn Italian. Nice enough fellow but I confess that it was hard to stay awake at times (and I 'really' tried to stay awake and focus - my brain said no and I'd end up apologizing to the tutor multiple times).

Anyway... this Arcade-to-Atari port would get many a playthrough - and I admit that I made it personal - even though, reading through the official story of the game, I clearly had a very different idea of what was going on!

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Premise of the Game (actual)

So, picture the situation. You live in a World where corporations make a LOT of money on drug sales. Here comes along a distinguished scientist who has develops a cure for drug addictions. You 'know' that somebody is going to get really ticked off about that.

The inevitable happens. The scientist and a bunch of relatives are kidnapped. Your relatives.

The government is useless and "cannot help you" (won't, more like it (no prizes for guessing why)), and so you take it upon yourself to rescue your family from the evil corporation yourself.

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Premise of the Game (my version)

Playing through 'Midnight Resistance' told me a very different story.

In my misunderstanding of the game the Earth has been invaded by aliens (a small deviation) and has exterminated much of humanity.

You are humanity's last hope, standing in the way of our complete annihilation - and have resolved to take the fight to the enemy.

Heh... I had a good laugh at how different these versions of what's going on are - but as you shall see - my younger self had a point (and the game itself had zero narrative via which to correct my errant perspective).

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Game Play

In the control of the player the character could do the following:

• Run (because action heroes don't walk ;c)

• Jump (and fall)

• Crouch (and crawl if I remember correctly)

• Climb Ladders

• Shooting in at least 8 directions (while jumping)

• Launching a secondary weapon

• Collecting Keys and Exchanging for Power-Ups

While it often gets compared to Contra, I understand that there are significant differences. Plus its a game that is mostly quite well made and is designed with joystick users in mind.

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The character controls were for the most part rich, and provided for a great amount of flexibility in-game.

One thing that I remember being quite impressed with is watching how even laying upon the ground one could rotate the gun more or less reliably without getting up. This is because the programming of the controls were simply 'that' good.

When the gun is pointing to the extreme left then moving to the right brings it clockwise. If it doesn't reach the extreme right then moving to the left will reverse the direction. If it reaches the extreme right position then moving to the left will send it clockwise downwards.

Yes it 'could' get a little annoying to have to move a little more than necessary to the right or left just so as to get the right weapon direction - but considering that this was designed for single joystick use - I was rightfully impressed.

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This applies also when running or climbing ladders, which meant that you didn't 'have' to jump to point down or such.

As impressed as I was by the relative freedom of the controls, looking back I do feel that there was room for improvement, particularly upon home systems like the Atari and Amiga with their keyboards.

Through toggling 'caps-lock' it would have been possible to lock the weapon's direction in place, resulting in a less chaotic spread of bullet fire. ;cP

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Weapons and Items!

Shotgun - I personally favored this weapon for some reason (and called it a rifle). It simply fires brown bullets that are more powerful - but it was pretty good for conserving ammunition and laying on the damage for longer. 500 rounds of ammo.

Full-Auto - Rapid fire in an age before the 'Mega Machine Gun' of Metal Slug graced the screens of arcades and consoles, this weapon could lay down fire faster than 'auto-fire' and could lay damage fast. Still - it was a little wasteful on ammo - which dropped fast. 500 rounds of ammo.

Three-Way - A classic in arcades, being able to fire this ensures that you are more likely to hit stuff. It also is more damaging at short range as a result - but getting up-close to maximize on damage, where applicable, was a challenge - especially since I recall this weapon consuming ammo thrice as fast. 500 rounds of ammo.

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Flame-Thrower - This is a fun weapon to have, especially when powered up. Its just so darn destructive! Best of all, it fires in at least 16-directions (when switching from one direction to another) to produce a lovely arc of fiery death. Its only short-coming is that it has a short range - but it was still fun to use. ;c) 500 rounds of ammo.

Nitro - A 'special attack' - Sending up a flare which explodes into multiple bursts near the top of the screen. Useful for dealing much damage to bosses near the top of the screen.

Shower - A 'special attack' - Sending up a canister into the sky, shards rain down over the entire screen (never harming you in the process). ;cP

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Homing Missiles - A 'special attack' - A bunch of mini missiles are launched from your character and chase the nearest enemy. Good against multiple and/ or slower enemies.

Barrier - A pair of blades spin around your character. These help keep minions off of you and deal damage. After dealing a fair bit of damage they vanish.

Charge - Gives every regular weapon an additional boost in firepower. Really satisfying to use but is lost once you lose a single life.

Ammo - Adds 500 in ammunition (up to the maximum 999 rounds). Often cheaper than weapons.

Top - An Extra Life is always handy.

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Keys

During the game, particular red or yellow coloured foot soldiers will drop keys when defeated. A player may carry a maximum of 6 keys. These keys are used between levels to gain access to better equipment and/or to release hostages.

Should the character get hit and lose a life, all the keys and equipment gets strewn about the screen (kind of like how Sonic the Hedgehog spews power rings when hit by something bad) and the character must collect them again.

There is a possibility that keys can get lost either due to multiple lives lost or to level progression (where one is no longer able to reach them - or they are permanently left behind) - which limits armoury options. These items quickly get expensive in mid-levels, forcing a player to make difficult choices.

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Level Design

In 'Midnight Resistance', most of the levels are very well designed, well-populated with enemies, and have the kind of progression that make you wonder what is coming next.

That being said, there is a definite 'screen-by-screen' transitions limitation that may have been smoothed over but is still noticeable at times. This is most notable when entering a screen transition where enemies are either close by or are actively shooting from off-screen.

This one could put down to developers still testing the limits of what the Atari ST could do (or could have been due to RAM limitations of the ST). Other systems' transitions with but a couple of exceptions were demonstrably worse. Still - the game could have been a little better had this limitation been overcome.

In terms of level design elements one can find a rich variety of things to mention.

Enemy placements and spawning are pretty much pre-determined - and each enemy has its own behavior and attack patterns. The pre-located ones were pretty smartly placed and added to the challenge of the level.

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Very rarely did anything feel unfair - and such cases were mostly due to the limitations of flip-screen transitions.

Levels are mostly believable and feature wrecked city streets, rural forested and mountainous zones, corporate and military zones... and what appears to be either the moon or another celestial body.

In truth the first few levels are far better designed than the last few. There were still positive elements to those final levels but again the impression is that things were rushed. The penultimate level involves climbing ladders and a fairly interesting boss battle. The final level features 1 enemy type along with some really lazy level design (artificially making the minions seem more challenging by narrowing or even nullifying a character's ability to dodge bullets (reducing the importance of skill over luck).

In spite of my ripping into the game over later level choices, I do still feel that it held my attention for a reason. Between good controls, a fair amount of replayability and load-out options, and the aesthetics, this game had a lot of good elements going into it.

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Multiple Endings?

Well... not exactly.

Remember how I said earlier that you get to rescue your family?

Well, since you need to use keys to release them before the final level, its entirely possible to end up with insufficient keys to release them all.

And this is where I personally took the game personally. If I wasn't releasing them all then I was failing. And when I had insufficient keys - I had to make a hard choice that came down to more than equipment choices. I'd find myself leaving the older persons behind and saving the younger ones first. Which made sense to me at the time as in my mind there was also the responsibility of ensuring the survival of the human race - there being nobody left (by my mistaken perspective - but it 'could' have gone down like that!).

Well, depending on which persons you save, the end credits will include those persons - while starts representing those left behind will twinkle across the sky - a reminder that you could have done better.

I found such to be a nice touch (sort of reminds me of Metroid's ending).

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Game Atmosphere

'Midnight Resistance' is a game where every level has its own 'thing' going for it. No two are quite the same and while this might result in a degree of inconsistency - especially with regards the final level... its pretty well put-together overall.

Actually... lets talk about the final level for a moment... as it is a bit of a sore point.

I have yet to decide which scenario is more likely - that the hero is high on drugs and is seeing everything from a tainted perspective... or whether the bandana-wearing action hero is actually fighting walls of alien faces in outer space... without a space suit.

This along with the relative lack of detail in level leads me to believe that the last level was shoe-horned in, rushed, and contrived - and while the final boss is OK - the question remains... Why?!

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Well.. the answer could very well be 'Games! That's why!' and considering that the last installment of 'Nostalgic Game Design Focus' was about a game involving bubble-breathing dragons. ...Eh.... Why not?! Sometimes people need to concern themselves less with realism and more with fun... though I'm not sure this gives the final level of 'this' game a free pass.

Ahem... besides this, the Atari version of the game has pretty good graphics (although the color palette is a little subdued at times), and very good music that adds to the game. Even the weapon selection locations have this throbbing sound that serves to remind you that this is serious business.

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This time I'll be linking a relatively long video that somebody posted more than two years ago - but for good reason. In a mere half hour you'll be able to appreciate both the music and the 'entire' game! I seem to remember it being longer.

Ah, childhood! ;c)

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Well the nostalgia seems to be stuck in full-auto. I invite you all to leave comments below! Sure I basically laid the entire game down but believe me when I say its well worth the play (even if the last level seemed more than a little rushed and contrived). :c) Do you have any comments or feedback? Do get in on the discussion down below!

Also, if you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your followers and friends then a resteem is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

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