GOTD 6/3/2016: Rescue Mission (Master System)

[celerystalker]

One thing Sega has always been good at in every generation is light gun shooters. Virtua Cop, House of the Dead, Gangster Town, Gunblade NY... Sega's stuff has always been on point in the style. Rescue Mission is another Master System gun game that once again innovated by being utterly different from the usual shooting gallery of the era. You play as a sniper laying down cover fire for a team of field medics attempting to save your wounded brothers in arms. Armed with your Light Phaser and a working CRT monitor, it's up to you save the day and put to rest the sort of bastards whose only goal is to kill the wounded and medics. Dicks.

Rescue Mission adopts an overhead view, as you fire away at the enemy scum as your medics move about train tracks on a hand cart. They make their way along the tracks, stopping at the flag-waving wounded in order to administer treatment. Enemies swarm constantly from all sides, firing their weapons and lobbing explosives. There are also land mines on the tracks, which can be shot with your gun, and balloon bombs swooping in from above. Your medics have three life points each, and different weapons do differing amounts of damage. An explosion can kill in one hit, whereas most bullets only do one point. Damaged medics move slower as well, but they can be healed by shooting med kits left behind by treated wounded men... so don't go killing your wounded by accident. Making it to the med tent at the end of the round gets you a score summary before moving on to the next of five total rounds.

To make things more interesting, each of the three medics that represent your lives has his own skill set. Mike is inexperienced, so he moves quickly, but is slow to finish treating patients. Steve is lazy, and while he treats the wounded easily and quickly, he has to stop to catch his breath while moving along the tracks. John, your last life, is the best, being both fast in transit and in treatment. You can also pick up a protective item from the first rescued compatriot in each stage, and these will protect your medic from damages by the red enemy soldiers. Picking up duplicates of this item or a med kit with full health will trigger a bomb attack, killing all on-screen enemies and hazards. Killing one of your own, though, will cost you your item.

Rescue Mission is short, frantic fun, and is very fair in its three difficulty settings. The graphics are pretty good, and the music, while not annoying, might have done better to be a bit more militaristic. It's just a very different style of gun game, eschewing your typical galleries and target practice for something different. It's unique, fun, and cheap, so if you have a Light Phaser, it ought to be a no-brainer. I dig it.

Played it?

[Emperor Megas]

Own it, haven't played it yet. Sounds awesome though. The only light gun games for the Master System that I remember playing are Gangster Town and Safari Hunt...and I've played a WHOOOOLE lot of Safari Hunt back in the day.

[celerystalker]

Own it, haven't played it yet. Sounds awesome though. The only light gun games for the Master System that I remember playing are Gangster Town and Safari Hunt...and I've played a WHOOOOLE lot of Safari Hunt back in the day.

Safari Hunt was one of the two main drivers behind my getting a Master System along with Alex Kidd in Miracle World. I played them on New Year's Eve as a kid somewhere around 1987 or '88, and Safari Hunt just freaking destroyed Duck Hunt. It was one of the first games to shake my perception that the NES was the greatest thing in existence at the time, and there was a bigger world out there to look at in regard to games.

[Tanooki]

Owned it, both times I had a SMS, it's bizarre but entertaining in smaller burts as it's kind of unique.

I could have sworn I still had it on that (uncharacteristically) badass and pretty accurate atgames (them?!) Arcade Gamer Portable -- http://www.nintendolife.com/news/201...gamer_portable But no, it's not on there. That's my only access to SMS games anymore outside of warezing junk and I don't believe this ever hit the Game Gear which I do have.

[JeremiahJT]

Own it, have not played it. The only light gun games for the Master System I have played are Gangster Town, Safari Hunt, and Missile Defense 3-D. Need to go ahead and try it out.