Taking place many years in the future in another star system, a century long war is waging between the Earth Defense Fleet and the Barrax Empire. Two Earth Defense Commanders, Lori Bergin and Barry Mayers, were returning from a research and destroy mission regarding the latest Barrax technologies on planet Urania, when suddenly a Barrax cruiser materialized behind them, brought their ship in and took the commanders hostage on planet Terrainia. The player's mission is to rescue the Commanders and eliminate all Barrax threats in the process.
Gameplay
4 screenshots of Battle Squadron
Battle Squadron supports both mouse and joystick controlled play. The game is played from the perspective of elite fighter pilots of the Earth Defense Fleet, known as the Battle Squadron sent to rescue two human agents, Commanders Berry D. Mayers and Lori Bergin, from the clutches of the ruthless alien empire, known as the Barrax. The player's fighters carry unlimited projectile weaponry and a finite number of Nova Smart Bombs. Players acquire weapons by shooting down Barraxian Artillery Gunships which carry weapon Power-Up icons. Weapons include the Red Magnetic Torps, the powerful Green Emerald Laser, the two-way firing Blue Anti-Matter Particle Beam and the sideways firing Orange Magma Wave. Other pick-up items include Barraxian jewel caches marked by small green X's which are worth 1000 points each. The player has the option to increase the number and speed of enemy bullets therefore altering the game's difficulty.
Notable features of the game are relatively big sprites (with Predator-esque cloaking effects applied to a few) and numerous weapon upgrades (supposedly 25 in total). Barraxian opponents consist of ground installations (generally gun turrets and launch platforms), ground vehicles, aircraft and numerous genetically-engineered living weapons.
Enemies include:
Cargo vehicles that drop weapon upgrades upon destruction.
Four-craft squadrons of Barrax fighters that will release an extra, collectable Nova Bomb upon destruction of the entire squadron.
Two different varieties of gigantic, apparently robotic terror machines, functioning as the bosses of two separate levels.
What appear to be several giant faces in the terrain, once again, serving as end-of-level bosses.
Star Fleet Battles (SFB) is a tactical board wargame set in an offshoot of the Star Trek setting called the Star Fleet Universe. Originally created in 1979 by Stephen V. Cole, it has had four major editions. The current edition is published by Amarillo Design Bureau as Star Fleet Battles, Captain's Edition.
Wing Commander is a media franchise consisting of space combat simulation video games from Origin Systems, Inc., an animated television series, a feature film, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures. The franchise originated in 1990 with the release of video game Wing Commander.
1943: The Battle of Midway is a 1987 shoot 'em up arcade game developed and published by Capcom. It was the first follow-up to Capcom's earlier 1942. Like 1942, despite the game being created by Japanese developers, it has the player-controlled Americans attacking the Japanese air fleet; this was due to being one of the first Capcom games designed with Western markets in mind. The game's name is a reference to the Battle of Midway, which occurred in June 1942.
Jets'n'Guns is a 2004 2D horizontally scrolling shooter for Microsoft Windows by Czech studio Rake in Grass. In April 2006, a version for Mac OS X was released. In December 2006 an expansion, Jets'n'Guns Gold, was released. A version for Linux has been developed by Linux Game Publishing. A sequel, Jets'n'Guns 2, was available in early access, and released on 25 July 2020.
Metal Slug is a Japanese run and gun video game series originally created by Nazca Corporation before merging with SNK in 1996 after the completion of the first game in the series. Spin-off games include a third-person shooter to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the series and a tower defense game for the mobile platform. Originally created for Neo-Geo arcade machines hardware (MVS) and the Neo-Geo home game consoles (AES) hardware, the original games have also been ported to other consoles and mobile platforms throughout the years, with several later games created for various other platforms. The games focus on the Peregrine Falcon Squad, a small group of soldiers who fight against a rebel army, aliens, zombies, mummies and various other forces intent on world domination.
Sins of a Solar Empire is a 2008 science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Ironclad Games and published by Stardock Entertainment for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that incorporates some elements from 4X games; its makers describe it as "RT4X". Players are given control of a spacefaring empire in the distant future, and are tasked with conquering star systems using military, economic and diplomatic means.
Haegemonia: Legions of Iron, or Hegemonia: Legions of Iron, is a 3D real-time strategy game developed by Digital Reality for Microsoft Windows, and by Microïds for iOS.
Gun-Nac is a 1990 scrolling shooter video game developed by Compile and published by Tonkin House for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was released in Japan on October 5, 1990 and in North America in September 1991.
Major Stryker is a 2D vertically scrolling shooter video game written for DOS by Apogee Software. Its working title was "Strike Force" and was released in January 1993. It consists of three episodes, with the first episode distributed as shareware, and the rest available commercially. The three episodes are set on a Lava Planet, an Arctic Planet and a Desert Planet. The game was re-released as freeware on March 14, 2006, and on Steam with support for Microsoft Windows and macOS in 2014.
Breed is a squad based, science-fiction video game developed by Brat Designs and published by cdv Software Entertainment. The game was released in the U.S. and Europe in March and April 2004.
Viper Phase 1 is a 1995 scrolling shooter arcade game by Seibu Kaihatsu. It is a spin-off in the Raiden series set in space.
Shienryū (紫炎龍) is a vertical scrolling shooter created by Warashi for the arcade which was released in 1997, later followed by a Sega Saturn console release in 1997 and PlayStation release in 1999 (JP) and 2002 (US).
SWIV is a 2D vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game originally released in 1991 for the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC home computer formats. It was converted to the Game Boy Color in 2001.
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII is a 2007 flight combat video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, developed by Ubisoft Bucharest and published by Ubisoft. A sequel of Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, the game puts the player in an elite Allied squadron trying to prevent Nazi Germany from creating a weapon of mass destruction. As the player progresses, they will travel around the world and battle the enemy with a list of prototype fighter aircraft and upgrades. Multiplayer mode includes deathmatch, cooperative, capture the flag, and epic battle.
Mars Mission was a Lego theme sold from 2007 to 2009. It is set on Mars and features astronauts, aliens, and high-tech machinery.
Hybris is a vertically scrolling shooter for the Amiga home computer developed by Cope-Com and published by Discovery Software.
Dariusburst is a horizontal scrolling shooter developed by Pyramid and published by Taito. Forming part of the Darius series, it was released for the PlayStation Portable December 24, 2009. Like previous Darius games, Dariusburst is an offbeat sci-fi shooter set in outer space with aquatic-themed robotic enemies. In keeping with tradition, the game also features branching paths instead of the linear progression found in most video games. There are a total of 11 zones in the game, with 5 stages per run.
Raiden V is a shoot 'em up video game in the Raiden series developed by MOSS. It was released in Japan for the Xbox One on February 25, 2016, with a director's cut version being released worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows in 2017. A Nintendo Switch version was released on July 25, 2019, making it the first Raiden game to be made available on a Nintendo console since Raiden Trad.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
