Gain Ground

[Stan]

Okay, everyone, here we go again! Remember now, these games are played in two week intervals now, not one. More time will be given for games that seem to deserve longer play time, and this may be one, but I can't say I've played it enough to know that or not. When I was younger, my brother and I picked up an excellent game for the Genesis called "Tyrants" (PAL people know it as Megalomania). It was an interesting game where you organized humans into little villages, mined for resources, built weapons, and destroyed your opponents' people. Quite a lot of fun, so when I saw something like this for the Master System (I guess it was also released in 16-bit format, but I never played it), I was pretty excited. I only played it for a little bit, but it seems to be quite an interesting game with plenty of potential. The box art is pretty epic looking. What am I talking about? Well, my friends, nothing other than....





Gain Ground is part action, part strategy, as far as I can tell. I can't say what happens in the long run because I haven't played that far, but it presents quite well. You get to control and select different players to rescue friends, kill whatevers in front of you and make it to the end. Apparently, there are a massive 50 levels in this beast! Depending on who you save, you get different characters to fight with from spear throwing cavemen to laser wielding troopers. And, every 10 levels you face a giant freak of a boss! What fun! This game appears to have a ton of variety as well as plenty of strategy. Since it's the only game of it's kind for the Master System with the exception of Populous, I'm pretty excited to give it a more thorough go. Once you guys try it out, let me know if you think it warrants additional time, because it seems like it may. Start playing!

[Jo Musashi]

Yeah this is a good one, a solid action/strategy title. I would say it's more of an action title since you could just blast your way through shooter-style (using SOME strategy of course )

I haven't played the SMS rev much but I played the Genesis version a lot and really enjoyed it. I think I just saw it on one of those "TV Games" sets, the one with the battery-powered Genesis controller u hook up to your TV and it contains several titles. Cool to see an older title that wasn't necessarily well-known getting some exposure 15 years later (although they probably threw it on cos the rights were cheap )

[Hades]

I never really thought of this game like Megalomania(Which I love!) or Populous,but yeah.

Once again this is a great choice, I used to play this heaps years ago on my cousins SMS, loved just building up teams of all the tough unit types. Never finished it though, could get too the last set of rounds and one of the levels just seemed impossible. Great for two player action aswell. Gonna have to give it a shot, and hopefully somene here can beat it and share some secrets!

[Roth]

Sweet! I love this game. I've been looking for both versions (Genny and SMS), so I'll be playing this via emu. I like the way it's set-up... I believe you go further in time as you get further in the game, so you have some barbarian type people in the more futuristic settings. It's pretty tough, especially the bosses. I'll be playing this today for sure Good pick Stan!

[kidd_J]

This game is awesome, ive been looking to get a copy of it on mega drive for ages.
Ive made it past the first few bosses but never finished the game. Its very addictive game too, i shouldnt have started playing it when i should be studying.
Funny thing is the whole game is set in 199X according to the manual, they had a very optimistic view for technology advancement in the late 90's.

[Stan]

It was a toss up for me between this and another game which I will not mention because it will be my next pick unless someone grabs it. Hope I can find time this week to play Gain, I have like a million papers to grade. Damn it.

[Roth]

Well, I played it today and did better than I thought I would! I got to the Near Future (world 4), then it started getting tough. I was getting taken out by everything When I got to the fifth stage of world 4, I used my first continue. From there on out it was all downhill. I think you get unlimited continues until you reach Gain Ground, the fifth world. I got there and lost my remaining men... Game Over. It was fun going through it though! I love this game Maybe I'll get even better and be able to fight some of these bosses better next time. They are a bit hard (except the two tanks, that was pretty much cake) and take some time, and some men. Oh well, I'll do better next time, I'm sure of it.

[anagrama]

Great choice. I hadn't played it in ages, but it came flooding back when I gave it a blast tonight. It's a litle slow-moving at first, but the strategy & charcter variation amply make up for it.
Only had a brief go, and made it to the start of the 3rd world on one credit. Hopefully a fortnight will be a long enough period to make some serious inroads into it...

[Sinistral]

To be honest I could never get into this, it seems a bit samey to me, and the player is a bit too hard to control, found it very sluggish. I'll give it another go though, never been past the 6th level though, so maybe it'll get better.

[CRV]

A fine game that I was playing a bit a few weeks ago. The Master System version has some music not in the Gen/MD version, BTW.

And also BTW, both the SMS and Gen/MD ports were done by Sanritsu...*plug**plug*

[Bock]

The arcade version is ace. 3 players action.

[Stan]

Arcade!? Begone, non-SMS player! Back to thy sick collection!

[JellyCrystals]

Sadly, never played this game, although I am intrigued... Might keep an eye out for it.

[RetroReserve]

Good choice, quite an under-rated game.
The Gauntlet style action and strategic undertones help to make this an above average game. I'll have to play it again some point this week.
Anyone else notice the price increase of this now on ebay since it has been game of the week?
I got mine for about £1.50 but I saw one the other day at about £6 - £7 with plenty of time left. Would liked to have seen how much it went for in the end.

[Stan]

Man, is that happening again? We should restrict access to this site. Too bad we can't make the Game thread members only.