Analyzing Midnight Resistance and How it Compares with Similar Run and Gun Games

Platform: Sega Genesis (Mega Drive)

Developer: Data East

Publisher: Data East

Release Date: 1990

Genre: Side scrolling shooter, action, run and gun

Nerd Rating: 5 out 10

Midnight Resistance is yet another arcade port, which was taking the home console market by storm in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.  Little did we know that the home console market would win the battle against the arcade machines and put most arcades completely out of business!  But that didn’t stop the companies from switching over, often finding greater success and higher profits in the home console market.  Not to say Midnight Resistance is one of those games though, as this is not a game I ever heard of until I picked it up about 3 years ago.  I know my video games pretty well, arcade and home console.  But this one had never crossed my eyes before.

Midnight Resistance is VERY MUCH like any Contra game.  It is a side scrolling run and gun action game where you control the main character and kill off enemies, tanks, gun turrets, cars, and crazy bosses.  Surprisingly Contra has better gun control than this game, unless you get familiar with the optional configurations which allow you to press the B button to adjust the direction of your gun.  I am most certainly not a fan of this configuration as I find it to be extremely awkward and can get you into a lot of trouble if you need to change directions fast.  With the original configuration, pointing your gun in any direction causes you to move in that direction, which can often cause fatal missteps.

Learning the controls of this game is the first battle, as with almost any game.  But Midnight Resistance doesn’t give you any time or practice to figure it out.  You’re

instantly thrown into the heat of battle and asked to somehow defeat all your foes with no sense of what you’re doing.  It’s not ideal.  I died a few times before I figured it out.  But once I figured it out, I found myself breezing through levels much faster and easier than I would have expected.

So what makes Midnight Resistance stand apart from Contra?  The colors and sound are far superior to NES’s Contra.  The gameplay mechanics are also very good, but the shooting mechanics surprisingly are slightly inferior to Contra.  I really enjoyed the wide variety of gun power-ups which weren’t only very useful and effective, but also extremely badass! I really like how one can add multiple weapons simultaneously to their arsenal and truly annihilate the enemies.  This adds for some simplistic fun.  The layout of the stages are extremely familiar as they are not too dissimilar from Contra. The game is certainly not as challenging as Contra though… THAT is for sure.

Overall, Midnight Resistance is a fun run n’ gun game with some pretty intuitive control configurations for anybody who wants to try to learn them.  The game concept and stylistic play is far from new and it doesn’t really do much to set itself apart from its predecessors, including the likes of Contra on the NES.  Failing to really offer any new experiences, Midnight Resistance falls pretty short of a true quality game.  It does offer some fair challenges and can definitely maintain one’s attention for a decent amount of time, but it lacks that “whoa, I’ve never seen anything like this before!” feeling one gets when they first experience a new and inventive video game.  Midnight Resistance will forever be remembered as just another run n’ gun and will often be deservedly overlooked in the spectrum of the Sega Genesis library.

Nerd Rating: 5 out of 10

Submitted by NerdBerry