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All is not well in Cyber City. Criminals are running amok - looting, pillaging and raping the city of all its worth. Quite a lot of people aren't really too pleased about the rampant activities of these heartless crooks, and this includes Cyber City's mayor, who sets up the ESWAT (Enhanced Special Weapons and Tactics) division of the Cyber Police to deal with the evil, criminal menace.

The player takes on the mantle of a hard-bitten SWAT cop, who seems to be dealing with the criminal epidemic all on his own, with only his trusty service pistol for company. In order to prove to the powers-that-be that he's eligible to join the ESWAT elite, two levels' worth of eight-way scrolling platform blasting have to be tackled - each with a very nasty end-of-level crime boss to be exterminated.

Then it's on to all the fun and exccitement of donning the specialised ESWAT armour and using all manner of extra weaponry to blast those punks into oblivion!

This voyage of digital destruction takes hardened cops through some of the worst districts in town. For starters, our hero takes on the felons roaming the streets, doling out his own special blend of law-enforcing death to any cons that dare cross his path. Then it's time to strike at the root of the problem by blowing away the remaining criminals in the Cyber Prison.

Later on, our hero must enter a laboratory dealing with an experiment that has gone horrifically wrong...

As you may have gathered, the Megadrive version of ESWAT doesn't adhere closely to the original coin-op version at all, with completely different levels and weapons.

But... don't let that put you off. We thing that this is actually better than the original game, since there's more challenge and variety.

Along with giving the player the benefit of extra armour and powerful gravity-defying afterburners, power-up icons endow the ESWAT suit with a variety of deadly weaponry.

1. Shot The bog standard cannon which comes as standard on all ESWAT suits. Not much better than a good pistol, but does have infinite ammo.

2. Super Just like the normal shot, except that this little baby fires a lot quicker and shoots three times as many shells!

3. Rocket Launcher Switch to the rocket launcher for some real firepower! This sucker fires off a single missile that hugs the ground before destroying its target.

4. Plasma Cannon A real man's weapon, the plasma cannon has a far wider range and power than any of the projectile firing weapons.

5. Fire The ultimate in smart weaponry, the fire option can only be used once and fires off a truly devastating blaze! The suit also spins around incredibly quickly, thus grilling all enemies at any angle.

Along the path to the end of each level, there are plenty of icons lying around that ESWAT cops can use to prolong their crime-busting activites.

1. 1-Up Pretty obvious really. Collection of this icon gives the player another life.

2. Life Up If that energy bar is beginning to look dangerously low, picking up this icon will give the player some more energy to play with.

3. Life Max A sort of designer version of the Life Up, this little bleeder endows full energy!

4. Burner Max: ESWAT Officers can collect maximum fuel for their burner units by picking up this wonderous icon.

After the disappointing Master System version of ESWAT, it's nice to see that the Megadrive game is a whole lot more playable, with classy audio-visuals to match.

It's also quite difficult with even the easy level being a great challenge to complete. The super extra weaponry is simply the icing on a pretty substantial cake. Although it's nothing much like the coin-op original, I actually think that the Megadrive game is a lot better than the arcade, with better weapons and more addictive gameplay.

Highly recommended to all blasting addicts.

A metallic cop wanders around dispensing violent, fatal justice to the lawbreakers. Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound like the most original scenario of all time!

Despite this, ESWAT still manages to be a rather fun game. With its large number of moves and varied foes, ESWAT resurrects an old idea and attempts to bring it to the 16-bit format; and in that respect, it's successful.

However, one can only flog a dead horse for so long. As with shoot-'em-ups, the lack of originality begins to show, and can't be ignored: the armour-clad sections are great, and the backgrounds are quite effective (although there have been many better ones on the Megadrive).

So I can only recommend this too die-hard (ho ho) platform/shoot-'em-up fans - for others there might be different games that would be more enjoyable.

Presentation 94%
Great in-game presentation screens that give the game a great feel. One of the best presented Megadrive games available.

Graphics 90%
There's a great variety in the sprites and backdrops, and some brilliant parallax scrolling effects.

Sound 87%
Catchy tunes and hilarious speech (ever heard a SWAT cop with an upper-class accent?)

Playability 87%
Good, down-to-earth blasting mayhem that's almost annoyingly addictive!

Lastability 86%
The slightly repetitive action is more than made up for with plenty of extra weapons and varied levels.

Overall 87%
Not a very close coin-op conversion, but a damn playable game in its own right. Go for it!