By Toxic Tommy

The Grand Master arrived from a far away galaxy with a not -so-grand plan for Earth. Now, the world is his slave. The planet's only hope for salvarion is a super, high-tech brotherhood of space-age samurai -- the Striders.

We know what you're thinking, SMS gamers -- Strider! Awesome!! You stuffed quarters into the coin-op, and you drooled over the Genesis version. Now you can have a Strider of your very own. However, don't let your expectations get the betther of you.

This 8-bit incarnation is a noticeably scaled-down version of the classic, futuristic hack and slash adventure with its own strenghts and weaknesses. You get six levels of average fighting action. The side view, multi-scrolling graphics feature many of the great Strider characters and much of the scenery, but they aren't going to make your eyes pop out. The sounds are low key.

As in the other versions, you play ace Strider Hiryu, and you wield an awesome Plasma Sword that rips through the opposition. Eight-bit Hiryu has all the classic Strider moves such as the outrageous somersault and the neat, one-handed grabs. He also has the same weird slouching walk as he tiptoes up inclines. What he doesn't have is speed, but the other Hiryus aren't the quickest video heroes around, either.

Fortunately, you don't have to be quick to plaster the Master's army. The main alien force is full of soldiers, robots, and animals, but you rarely face two standard enemies onscreen at the same time. Your toughest fights are against mid level and end bosses, which include a robo-gorilla, a bionic centipede, and a huge, mechanical dinosaur. Master SMS swordsmen ought to plough right through the first four levels, but average fighters will get a work out.

The battleground is pretty much the same as in the larger versions. Your one-man invasion begins in the Soviet Union, cuts through a tropical rainforest, and ends up at the Master's outer space moonbase. Each level has several time limit zones that force you to keep moving. Running out of time gets you as often as enemies do.

Strider is an average action game that features steady if unspectacular combat. If this is your first Strider experience, you won't be disappointed, but you ought to hunt down the arcade version of tackle a friend's Genesis cart to really find out what all the excitement's about.

Protips:

• Defeat the robo-gorilla without eating up precious time, by standing toe-to-toe with it. You'll lose two lives but it's much faster.
• To take minimum damage versus the little Tyrannosaurus, time a jump as it charges you so that you land right behind it. Now chase it and slash it before it turns to charge again.
• When clones of a bad guy reapear continuouly, just jump over one of them to make them stop.
• After you beat the Level One muscle man, quickly duck under the platform to avoid the napalm.

• Somersault down the snowy slopes to avoid mines and save time, but stop when you reach the ledge, you can't make the cliff jump that way.

  Raiting: Graphics: Good, Sound: Good, Gameplay: Good, Funfactor: Good, Challenge: Good.

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