In the late 80's (87 to be exact), Sega released an Arcade game called SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative, it was a mixture of Shmup and Missile Command like gameplay, and one of the first games that used a trak-ball like control, the arcade game was a little confusing since Player 1 was on the right side unlike any other game where Player 1 is on the left. Sega made a console version of this game for the Master System, in the rest of the world the game was renamed Global Defense, while the SDI name was kept for Japan.
Gameplay: 3/10
The game is splitted in two parts, first is the Offensive Half, this is the Shmup part of the game, your objective in this mode is to destroy all the enemies you can blow up: Missiles, Satellites, UFOs and Bases, you can have some power-ups for increase the speed of your sight or the "Explosion Radius" of your shots, and here's where the flaws begin:
First flaw: Even with a big radius, the game requires precision and i mean A LOT of it, since the enemy doesn't explode if it touches a pixel of the blast, it has to be near in the middle of the explosion, once your enemy reaches the left part of the screen you'll be unable to hit it.
Second flaw: If there's an item nearby when you get hit, the item will disappear, what's the point to that?
Third Flaw: The controls, the pad moves the sight, Button 1 blocks the sight, allowing the movement of your Satellite, and Button 2 fires, i know they tried to make some arcade-accurate controls but the Master System is unable to do that kind of things, so it'll be OK if the game was more like any other shmup instead of this mess.
Fourth Flaw: Your Satellite is way too slow, and this is a real problem in the later stages, because the enemy will shoot fast bullets, and it's a real pain, so you better practice how to dodge them.
Back to the gameplay, if one enemy escapes, you'll fill a square of a bar located at the bottom of the screen, yellow means half point, and purple is one point, so you can screw up 25 times, what happens when you fill the bar? i'll explain you later, by now let's check the Defensive Half, in this part, you'll be in a Missile Command like game, where your objective is protect a base from a Missile Rain, this sounds simple, but in the later stages will became a nightmare until you reach the last stage where the Missile Rain is next to impossible and you have a 99.9% probability of lose the game, and this is where the Fifth Flaw hits the scene: If the Damage Bar gets fill in the Defensive Half, your satellite will blow up and you'll be sent to the Game Over screen even if you had extra lives. If you lose all your lives in the Offensive Half, THAT'S IT, there's NO CONTINUES in this game, if you die in the Defensive Part of the final stage, you'll go back to the beginning of the game, a common standard of the Master System library of games, i guess Sega was focusing on the challenge, but being unable to continue is just a punishment that no one deserves.
The only way to obtain a 1 up is if you get a 100% in the Offensive Half, and for that you have to destroy all the enemies without a single miss (not even missing a base), it's hard to do that, but there's a good side to the hard work: First you'll get a 1up, Second, you'll get bonus points and Three, you'll skip the Defensive Half.
Graphics: 3/10
The Graphics department is just a fail, unlike many SMS games where the graphic level is more detailed than the NES, in this game, the graphics can be brighty, confusing and disorientating, specially with the sight, it's very small and barely visible, about the "Brighty" part is the background, in stage 1, the planet is too damn brighty so you can barely see your sight, and the only way to know where's the sight is when you fire, so the best idea is don't stop shooting for find your way, this only happens in the Offensive Half of Stage 1, out of that the graphics are a little less confusing since they're not too brighty. a funny thing that i saw in the Defensive Half is some Space Bases look more like DJ consoles, maybe you're defending Unicron's DJ console instead of a Space Base
, not to mention in the Offensive Halves of the Stages 9 & 10 we find out that the Galactic Empire is the enemy of the United States in this game, because there a lot of Death Stars in the background.Music and Sound: 1/10
The music is just horrible beyond belief: There's only ONE SONG for the WHOLE GAME, and that's totally repetitive in a game like this, because it's frustrating and boring to hear the same song all the 20 parts of the game, in the demo you can hear a different song, but that's only for the Attract Mode, and not to mention this game has the longest Game Over song, it's 1 minute long (yeah, 20 seconds longer than "Requiem" from Ace Combat 04), what's the point of have a long Game Over song?
Pro's
- Like in the Arcade version, this game has both Offensive and Defensive Halves.
Con's
- Horrible Controls
- Repetitive Music
- Eye-Torture Graphics in some stages
- Slow Ship
- You can only have a 1up killing ALL the enemies in Offensive Half
- It starts from "Very Easy" and becames "Next to Impossible"
- Fail the Defensive Half and it'll be Game Over
- No Continues, not even passwords or codes
Conclusions
This is probably the worst shmup i had ever played in my life, if you like the original SDI, just STAY AWAY of the Master System version, it's not worthy.
Global Defense's Final Score: 4/10