E-Swat: City Under siege

Developer: Sega
Publisher:  Sega
Played on: Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

E-Swat is a game with an awesome concept that totally botches its execution.

The game opens up with a guy in futuristic power armor, but when you actually start the game, you get something completely different.

You play as a severely under-armed cop in a futuristic setting, for the first two levels you're given nothing more than your pea shooter and somehow you're expected to take down helicopters and cyborgs with it and yes, it's as difficult as it sounds.

By the time you reach the third level that's when you finally get to use the awesome armor and... it's pretty disappointing, you have a jetpack which depletes rather quickly, takes a long time to charge and is a bit unwieldy and you finally get to use new weapons, but honestly, I didn't find them all that useful and the game's difficulty level just kept escalating, moreover, in this huge power armor I found it very hard to duck and avoid gunshots.

E-Swat is an early Genesis title and it shows, graphically this is as run of the mill as it gets, the same goes for the soundtrack, in its time, I probably would have called this game mediocre, but 20 years later, it is definitely a below average game, this isn't to say that there isn't any fun to be had here, but I'm guessing this is one for the nostalgic crowd only.

Trivia: Did you know Robocop was the main inspiration behind this game? Heck, your character even resembles Alex Murphy.

Pros:

- The Concept is pretty good
- For better or worse, the gameplay is pretty standard

 
Cons:

- No powerups, power armor or any sort of abilities until level 3

- Too difficult for my taste
- Graphics and sound are below average for a genesis game

Final Grade: D

Packaging review: Unfortunately I only own this game as part of a collection