After destroying the final boss, your character (or characters) triumphantly return to the surface...
Congratulations indeed, you've beaten a fairly difficult video game without continuing!
But this is a game from the 80s, so you're not finished yet.
The game loops from the start, and as far as I can tell, it does so until you finally lose all your lives.
Well, it's a victory of sorts, so that means it's HIGH SCORE TABLE TIME!!!
There you are, then, that's Bullet- a game I waited about seven years to play.
I think it's easy to see why it fell into total obscurity, even if we ignore the possiblity of a limited release or most of the boards getting converted into Tetris. The fact of the matter is, it's not an amazingly good game like Robotron: 2084, nor is it a particularly important one in the history of the genre like Commando. It does its thing well enough, mind you, and it would be another five years until something in the same vein (Total Carnage) came along, but it never elevates beyond that. There's a number of different reasons why- the action itself is surprisingly slow-paced and lacks the intensity of its peers, the weapons system feels a little redundant as the only way the weapons differ is with their range, and the aesthetic elements lack punch (especially the sound effects, which are disappointing when compared to other games on the same hardware) but honestly, I think the biggest problem is the lack of danger- although there are some hairy moments (mostly in the sewers) you rarely feel any sort of panic that you get in other games in the genre, no thrill in the face of death.
It's the controls, you see- I believe that dual-joystick shooters thrive on confinement, on giving you as little moving space as possible. When you give a character who can aim in any direction at the drop of the hat too much freedom of movement (and allow them to simply walk away from a lot of the enemies) then the thrill of combat is lost a bit. To demonstrate my point, let's have a quick gander at fellow System-16 game, Alien Syndrome. Both games came out in the same year, both are multi-scrolling Commando shooters, both refuse to let the player continue, and both have a similar graphical style (in fact, there's a strong chance both games were done by the same development team, as Emmy and Mary share the same death scream and the Suubway music is an unused track in Alien Syndrome when explored in BridgeM1, the MAME music player). yet despite not having the dual-joystick control scheme, I prefer Alien Syndrome. Why? It doesn't throw nearly as many enemies your way, but because you don't have the benefit of being able to shoot and move independantly, the game offers more challenge, and the enemies are actually threatening because they move faster. While both games allow for scrolling, Alien Syndrome also confines the player on later stages through the use of walls and narrow walkways, which Bullet lacks. Neither control scheme is superior to the other, though- it all depends on the implementation, as Bullet proves.
In the end, Bullet's alright. It's competent enough, offers a fair challenge if you want to get to the end without continuing, and with three players the constant fights you'll inevitably have over the power-up pads will provide some entertainment, it just feels lacking in the thrill-power department, and there's better dual-joystick games out there... Indeed, it looks like Jarvis and Turmell had a better grasp on the genre after all... But hey, at least it's better than Front Line.
Just one thing to say before we go...
As I said, Bullet was originally heavily protected, and the emulation in older MAME versions wasn't perfect.
How so? There were two main problems...
First, Chris (P3) couldn't fire at all. You could aim, but her gun wouldn't fire.
Secondly, the game would lock up as soon as the boss encounter on Stage 2 started.
No Extended Play for this one, I'm afraid. Maybe some day in the future...
Fight on, Emmy, Fred and Chris, for another combat!! Fight on to the index!