thordog
Feb 25th, 2007, 08:15 PM
Shatterhand is a must have for all fans of the NES, it has the same type of gameplay as games like Castlevania, Blue Shadow (Editor's note: Released in America as "Shadow of the Ninja"), Megaman, and Ninja Gaiden. It was released in 1991 when gamers were starting to enter a new 16 bit gaming world.<BR>The story behind Shatterhand is, in brief, about a police officer who is attacked by 2 cyborgs and loses his hands. It is set in the future, where artificial limbs have reached a point in which they are able to mimic human movement almost perfectly. The police officer, or Steve Hermann (Shatterhand), is given a pair of artificial hands that are very strong, but he is given these hands with one condition, and that is that to destroy a group who are set upon world domination with their cyborgs; The same cyborgs that took his hands. So, bent upon destroying this rebellion, "Shatterhand" sets out to destroy them.<BR>As with most platform games on the NES, there are 2 moves, jump and punch, but there are 2 types of punches: a jab and a powerful hook. After collecting 3 beta boxes, Shatterhand will have a powerful bot that can aid him in his quest for a short while. There are 8 different bots and it depends on the combination of the boxes that determines the bot you get, but 2 perfect combinations awards Shatterhand full body armor.<BR>It has a similar level format to Megaman, in the sense that you complete the first level, then you are able to select from 5 levels you want to go kick ass in.<BR>The games has great graphics with great level background graphics. The game is very playable, but it gets quite difficult at times. The stages have a mixture of enemies, obstacles, and stages in ice and water. Shatterhand also has the abilty to cling onto fences. This helps him to reach higher places.<BR>The music on the game is good with a traditional NES style to it and the SFX sound relatively real i.e. explosions and gun shots.<BR>This is a must have for all NES gamers. It is a real challenge, but without the feature of passwords, it can prove frustrating.