The OSS: Honourable Mention Zero Tolerance SEGA MegaDrive / Genesis

Yes, It's a bit strange having an honourable mention in before the main content but hey, I'm not one for "properness" and the "correct" order of things so fuck it.
I'm still working on play throughs, getting screen-shots etc. For the other games so this one will do for now. yeah I could google these but prefer to take my own where possible

I picked this game up for pretty cheap on ebay a while back, not really knowing what to expect, the name looked appealing so why not? Purely an impulse buy.

Here it is in the MegaDrive + Mega CD, it's in one of the larger 3rd party carts similar to EA carts and can be opened with a torx bit for easy cleaning.

Zero Tolerance:

I was expecting some kind of shooter or side scroller of some kind, what I got was a 3D First Person Shooter, yes.. a FPS game on the SEGA MegaDrive... It's pretty impressive for the 16-bit console. The game itself is very Doom/Wolfenstein like, and plays surprisingly well on the MegaDrive, although the actual game window is smaller than full-screen(see screenshots), I am aware of other first person games on the MegaDrive, such as Core's "Corporation" which has more "RPG" elements and also known as "Cyber-Cop" in North America. i may look at the PC version of this in another post.

Now you me think "this is just a crappy Doom clone", and you'd be forgiven for thinking that. But you'd be kinda wrong, 1. It's not that crappy, and 2. It's more Wolfenstein in space than Doom.

The Game:

Released in 1994 from developer Technopop, and published by Accolade, this was a MegaDrive/Genesis exclusive, at the time it was overshadowed by the likes of Doom, and Wolfenstein.

The game has a nice animated 3D rotating SEGA logo and a cool looking animated Title screen / intro with nice moody music, Two player mode is also available which is in the options menu it says "Two player (Via Cable)"  so a second TV, megadrive, game and the link cable, which connects via the second controller port are required for this, so I have not tested this. Also in the options menu you can enter a password, which you get once completing a level by clearing it of enemies, pause the game and it will list the completed levels with the password beside them, along with a large map of the current level, Now if you're familiar with older games you'll know what these passwords are for and what they do, if not, work it out.

You get a choice of 5 characters when you begin the game, when one dies you can chose another. each has their own speciality and varied starting items which can have an effect on gameplay.

There is a Story/plot to the game, but I'll not go into that too much here, basically you're part of a badass "Zero Tolerance" commando unit and you gotta kill all the alien bad guys. What more do you need from a FPS video game plot? 

Controls:

The game Controls fairly well on the MegaDrive pad, I've also tried with an arcade stick but find the pad works better, controls can be changed in the options menu you can chose between a few different button configurations, but as standard D-Pad moves back forward and turns left or right, holding A then pressing left or right will allow you to strafe, pressing A and up, will make you jump, and A+Down will make you crawl / go prone, B shoots, C button will cycle through your inventory which is displayed at the top of screen. Turning around can be a bit slow but not to the point where it gets unfair. movement is relatively smooth in the 3D environment which is again impressive from the MegaDrive hardware.

Graphics and Sound:

Music and sound: Although basic during gameplay, is nice and moody and doesn't get annoying or mess with the sound effects, the Weapon noises / gunshots are also satisfying, the game also includes digital speech which is clear and audible, So, Thumbs up there.

Graphics: The Graphics for the hardware this game runs on are very impressive, textures and enemies are nice and clear when close up, there are also some nice effects like blood splatter on the walls or floor when you kill and enemy although the environment is 3D the enemies and items are 2d sprites which again is expected but are clear and work well.

Having said all that, it can be hard to see enemies at a distance, which is where the hud comes in, with it's mini-map which shows which direction you are facing and enemies show as red dots. also show is an ID card for your current character and health / ammo / item stats, your inventory at the top and in the bottom left your "comms" which will flash up information or when the level has been cleared. the actual gameplay happens in the upper section of the screen, this is probably due to the hardware limitations, as also seen in the likes of duke nukem, quake, doom, wolfenstein etc, having options to reduce the 3D gameplay window size. But here, there is no option to change this, but it's not needed i played this on both larger LCD screens and an older(as old as the game itself) 24"CRT(1994 sony trinitron) and it was fine.

Video of intro, options and gameplay, captured with kazam and played on Gens/GS R7 on 64bit kubuntu 13.04 - played on an emulator as i don't have any capture equipment / decent camera, video put together with openshot.

Conclusion:

Zero Tolerance is nice and satisfying, again this is an impressive game, and a fun one at that, these days being used to super high frame rates and 1080p+ shooters these days it's hard to go back to these limited older titles and actually play them, but it is worth it, and really puts into perspective how much the industry and technology has progressed in the past 20 years.

I would highly recommend anyone with a MegaDrive / Genesis to pick this one up, it's truly a really good title and it's not at all expensive, with 40 levels there's plenty to shoot through, and it packs a decent challenge too.

Bonus Point: Both Zero Tolerance and It's seemingly unfinished sequel have been deemed by the developer as publicly distributable Freeware so feel guilt free to hit the game up on an emulator ;-)

The roms can be acquired here: http://www.technopop.net/ along with plans to make your own link cable for Two player. nice!