Today I had the opportunity to play a old NES game called "S.C.A.T" Yes now before we all assume it's 💩 we should give it a try first. And if your curious it actually stands for "Special Cybernetic Attack Team". The version I got to play was from 1991, the title screen as no music which is disappointing and for those who like spending more time on the options screen there are none. You can only do two things, either start and play the game on your own "which is the version I played" or you can play the game with a friend.

I still want to give the multiplayer a try with friends, however I worry that with two players things might get too easy. Usually on the NES they still know how to keep things challenging regardless, but this time maybe it would be that one instance for those who struggle with the game that getting to the end would be much easier if you have a friend to help.

There's a small introduction to the games story "I like the animation of the dudes in their red cybernetic armour suits". It all start's basic and I will assume not much more will be added to the plot from here later. But so far it seems like the president of the united states has put together a special tactical force to take down the invading alien forces. Well at least I think they are invading, there might be a hint the aliens were already among the people and that their leader Malmort had been waiting for a weakened opportunity to launch a full scale attack on the humans.

And so it's basically up to two very suspiciously named characters called Arnold and Sigourney to save the day from these aliens who are trying to take over our planet. Arnold wears mostly blue armour and Sigourney wears red armour, both are male, Arnold being 34 and Sigourney 25. Both are the best at what they do, but I have to say there's something a little odd about Sigourney's character design, or maybe it's just me.

The year is 2029 and I was surprised that when starting the game you can actually pick between the two characters. Not sure if there's difference between them but from the little I experienced using Sigourney for some of the images here but there was nothing I found noticeable. Playing the game for the first time I picked the standard Arnold guy.

So what is "S.C.A.T" well the gameplay is like many other retro space flying shooters on the NES. For example you can think of games like Life Force and Gradius. The screen moves to the right, enemies appear and you have shot them down or avoid them and their bullets before they get you. The difference here is you control a guy in a cybernetic suit which already has a lot of fire power from the start.

There are still power-ups to collect, many are similar to other games, like having the bomb effect, lasers, waves, speed boost etc. From my understanding collecting the same power-us multiple times unlike most of the other space shooters it as no effect on them becoming any stronger. The only power-up that seems to make any difference in collecting it multiple times is the speed boost. In one way not having to collect the power-ups multiple times over means we can instead focus more on not dying rather than chasing power-ups. Unless of course you have some kind of strategic element to it, like for example a certain power-up maybe more useful at a boss or certain section of the level. While I think there were only two parts where I preferred a particular weapon I don't think at any point it really matters. What I realised is having the best speed, or if shooting enemies up close it more than made up for needing any particular weapon.

I found this to only start getting important to me on level 3. The game is challenging like many NES games, I died on the first level and was already struggling with the 2nd level. I had a feeling this was going to be another very difficult game but it will be a rather short one. I was right about thinking the game was going to be on the short side, but the levels are long once you get to the 3rd.
The voice that basically tells you to go and destroy the aliens at the beginning of the first stage surprised me, I thought it was really good quality for the NES. And it's been definitely noticed as I have seen others also comment on it's good quality. Enough that it made me question why not more voice samples were implemented into other games like the one experienced here with S.C.A.T. But of course the answer is the space available on the cartridge to work with.

So it took me a while to notice but you can control the drone guns that fly with you, initially they kept moving about on their own and I thought they would probably be more useful with better power-ups. But if you take control of them you can point them more accurately to where you want. This can of course be incredibly useful but I had initially some difficulty controlling them as there is already a lot going on the screen.

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Source: All Images Taken From Ingame Gameplay

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The music isn't bad but could be a little better, my first time playing I managed to reach level 3 and have to say I really enjoyed it. The great thing about S.C.A.T is you don't start right from the beginning of the game after dying, but instead you can keep trying the same level much as you like. The max level I had originally reached was 3 and do wish "that particular level" was a little shorter. It's a rather long level, and having to keep restarting right from the beginning "after the boss whips you down" multiple times as we try to understand how to beat it can be a little annoying.
Still we cannot complain after experiencing many other NES games and could easily take back that previous statement. I must say since we are fighting aliens I was a little disappointed not to see much of them.. we mostly fight their weapons but it would of been nice to see some more creatures spread throughout the game. For example the bosses could of been a good opportunity, but I'm not complaining about the bosses, I did noticed there seems to be a particular hate towards the 2nd boss in the game but I actually found it fun. I did find the last stage pretty challenging at first, but I honestly think the game is fair, And so with the conclusion of everything I have said I will be keeping this game in my collection. Hope you all have a good day or night and I will hopefully see you on the next Steemit post.

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