Biohazard Battle is a horizontal 2D shooting game released for the Sega Genesis in 1992.
The game has a pretty neat premise, its setting being a futuristic, science fictiony human planet where genetic modification was in common use. However, biologically engineered monsters created from this technology broke free from their human masters, causing the world to become a primal lair of uncontrollable beasts swarming about. The reason I liked the premise so much was because the game's art style reminded me of the post-apocalyptic anime movie “Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind†or the Sega Saturn game “Panzer Dragoonâ€, and truth be told the game does a decent job of bringing this to life, with levels like an industrial city overrun by prehistoric-looking giant dragonflies, sinuous airborne serpents, and massive bugs crawling up the sides of ruined skyscrapers. Later levels include out-of-control monster jungles (again, brings back mild Nausicaa memories), slimy caverns filled with more of the same, and oceans swarming with all manner of malevolent underwater beings.
Interestingly enough, your “ship†isn't actually a “shipâ€; instead you get to pick from one of four genetically created beasties that fly around under human control. These range from two huge insects, to a dragon-like creature, to a being that's impressively animated to flow like an aquatic animal of some kind. To help you out, you're given a little helper ship that orbits around your creature, serving doubly as a shield and an extra gun. It's important to maneuver yourself so as to cause this orbiting helper-gun to aim at incoming waves of enemies you can't quite otherwise reach. Available for pick up are different colored power ups. It's neat how depending on what creature you choose, the effects of these power ups are different (for the dragon “red†is a laser, but for the flowing aquatic thing it's a rapid fire energy weapon with shots that bounce and ricochet.) Getting several of the same color causes your power to upgrade up to three levels, which is a good idea to try to do with all the slimy monsters you'll be pitted up against.
Biohazard Battle could have easily fallen into the pitfall of being so generic that it didn't have anything to distinguish itself from any other mediocre shooter. However, its premise is creepy and compelling enough to manage preventing this. The gameplay, too, is fairly nice, and the mildly eerie sci-fi music overturing everything, while not as good as Metroid (a sci-fi Super Nintendo game with genuinely creepy music), does serve to add a certain degree of atmosphere. It still has room for improvement, though.
For one thing, I wish it was possible to “lock†the position of your helper-ship. This would have made some strafing and aiming maneuvers less awkward. As it is, there's no excuse for the developers not doing so: the A and B buttons on the Sega pad have “shoot†and “charge shot†functions respectively, but “C†just does the same as the “B†button. They could have used the free “C†button for the aforesaid feature I wish was there. It also would have been nice if your ship-creature didn't explode into flames at a single touch. Maybe a shield power up you can find, or a health bar? As it is, that's just a little too unforgiving! Also, while the graphics in this game are mostly good, there are some parts where the modest 64 color palette of the Sega Genesis takes it toll, causing the visuals to look pretty grainy. Particularly mediocre-looking were levels were the sky in the background or mountain ranges in the scenery were made of only one or two solid colors.
Furthermore, while the game has a creepy and intriguing premise behind it, I sort of felt like the developers didn't have a high enough budget to bring that premise to life as well as they could have. I'm not expecting them to do anything grandiose and elaborate on an old Sega game, but it would have been neat to have some static images showing cut-scene-like story exposition at the beginning (like they did in other Sega games such as Vectorman or even Zero Tolerance.) As it was, there's just a title screen reading “BIOHAZARD BATTLE†followed by a brief screen where your creature is deployed from a cool-looking but unexplained ship in space down to the planet below. I wouldn't have even really thought the story had a specific story or premise aside from “let's blow stuff up†unless I took the time to read the instruction manual.
While there are better shooters out there, Biohazard Battle does stand sufficiently on its own two feet. Parts of it haven't aged well, but parts of it are still fun. Ultimately, Biohazard Battle is the sort of thing that's probably worth the time of an inquisitive retro gamer if he or she is really interested to begin with. Maybe pick this one up at a flea market or thrift store.
Final grade: B