Like your bio-hazards and your tough shoot-em-up battles? You've come to the right place!
“You, are becoming Gods. There's a new master of creation, and it's you! Unravelled DNA, and at the same time you're cultivating bacteria strong enough to kill every living thing! Do you think you are ready for that much power? You lot? You lot? Cheeky bastards.” So said the prophetic Stephen Baxter, played by actor Christopher Eccleston, in the 2003 TV Series The Second Coming.
Well, turns out ol’ Christopher was right and they should have damn-well listened to him! Not only was mankind foolish enough to make an utterly deadly virus, but they’ve only gone and released it during a global bio-war. The fears and nightmares of anyone that has watched Prometheus have come to life in brutal fashion (and we don’t mean the plotting), populating the planet Avaron with vicious creatures which have nigh-on destroyed civilisation. Fortunately humanity was saved by a group of survivors that managed to escape in time on the good ship O.P. Odysseus; orbiting the planet for two hundred years, they have now determined that the proportion of dangerous lifeforms have receded to a possibly manageable level, and that the time has now come to reclaim Avaron. A good question at this point would be, why didn’t they wait another hundred years until the virus lifeforms had withdrawn to a kitten-like levels of hostility? I guess that would have made for a quite dull game.
Anyway, going with an ethos of fighting fire with fire, the Odysseus has sent four specially created bio-ships into the fray. Just 8 levels and a few smashed control pads lie between them and the conquering of Avaron (brilliantly this is a Japanese translation typo of Avalon, in case you were wondering.)
Christopher Eccleston: Ignored
Alien Design Workshop
There were certainly some interesting design decisions made concerning the various alien organisms found in Bio-Hazard Battle. At it’s highest level I would say that the brief almost certainly said “insects/crustaceans and/or components of the reproductive system”.
But, that would sell short the level of skill the development team have shown in managing to follow the line of ‘body horror’, so successfully expounded by HR Giger, without going too far. If they had simply designed and implemented a giant purple floating cock & balls or anus firing laser beams the game would have simply been banned. But, instead the designs are able to suggest this (in a gross but characterful way), making the player feel uncomfortable – and really making them want to avoid the giant testicle-crab flying their way – without going too far. It’s an extremely fine tightrope to balance upon, and chapeau to the Bio-Hazard development team for walking it so skillfully and no doubt utterly delighting every 12-year-old (and most blokes up to the age of 75) who played the game.
Weapon of Choice
Start the game and you’ll be presented with the ship select screen. Thankfully the ship designs are somewhat more family-friendly than many of the alien types, with a mix of insect and manta-ray type bio ships to pilot. The differences between them really are more than just aesthetic too: The insect/bug type is a lot faster and maneuverable, with more direct-fire type weapons, while the purple fish/crustacean moves more slowly but functions as a kind of gun-ship with weapon pods automatically targeting enemies around it.
As well as this the weapon power-ups in the game change depending on the ship you are using with different effects for each. It’s a really neat touch and means the play style can vary quite a lot between play-throughs, giving the game more lastability.
As well as standard fire hold down the button to build up to a power shot. This changes between ships as well, helping to add to the variety. Also: Quite satisfying to use.
Biological Light and Magic
Special mention must go to the audio and visual elements of this game; put simply, they are stunning. The graphics are beautifully defined, colourful and most importantly don’t ever seem to slow down or stutter regardless of the amount of action on screen. The backgrounds (which change a lot over the course of the game) really do evoke the feeling of invading an alien-possessed world, with the levels gradually becoming more bizarre as you move from the surface into the inner sanctum and passages of the alien defenses. It’s all very ‘Inner Space’, and it’s backed up by an awesome soundtrack by composer Kenichiro Isoda.
There are often mentions made of popular shoot-em-up Xenon 2, and the fact that they managed to enroll 90's electronic music maestro Bomb the Bass to create the soundtrack (they were there way before it was cool!) but I would go as far as to say that Bio-Hazard Battle’s audio soundtrack is better. There, I said it! Please don’t go, let me explain why… It’s the way it’s implemented; Anyone that has played Rez will know the almost hypnotic effect of connecting electronica music with the tempo of the action on screen and it’s deployed to excellent effect in this game, lulling you into a frenzy of proboscis-fish-killing action while you play.
This level's boss involves taking down an old human-made ship that has been re-purposed by the virus to defend Avaron. It goes on for some time but is superbly characterful!
Review - Filbert Wang
A lot of modern games lull you into a false sense of security regarding your games playing skills. After living in that cosy bubble of infinite lives, big health bars and shallow difficulty curve, playing Bio-Hazard Battle for the first time is like a big, hard slap to the face by one of its disturbingly phallic flying beasties.
But what an invigorating splash of cold water (or effluence) it is! Firstly, I have to mention the graphics and sound; there aren’t many Mega Drive shooters which push towards peak-SNES territory in the visuals department, but this game certainly comes close. And the thumping soundtrack (mentioned above) sounds brilliant; put the game through a hi-fi system/amp or decent pair of headphones and you’ll be amazed at the quality the developers squeezed out of that Yamaha sound chip.
But what about the gameplay? Well I’ve already mentioned the difficulty, and this game certainly doesn’t take any prisoners (although probably best not being taken alive looking at some of the denizens of Avaron!) Straight from the ‘one hit and you’re dead’ school of shooters the difficulty mode will seem unreasonably brutal at first. But, the more you play (and die!) the more you realise the balance of the game has been expertly constructed, and in the way of the best titles of the genre, at no point will it ever feel unfair. Game Over again? You were just a bit too slow to recognise an attack pattern, or forgot that a particular enemy was going to emerge at that point. And as you learn how to play the game your appreciation for it, as well as the depth and flexibility offered by its ship and weapon system, will grow.
This game won’t be for everyone; I dare say a fair few people will throw their controller in disgust after they’ve died for the umpteenth time trying to get off the second level. But stick with it, put in a bit of time and effort, and be rewarded by one of the richest shoot-em-up experiences on Sega’s 16-bit machine.
Killing in the Name
In the most honest piece of marketing ever about what potential customers should expect when they purchase a game, the Japanese version of Bio-Hazard Battle was known simply as ‘Crying’. It certainly has some interesting box art too, enigmatically showing lots of chemical symbols and science-looking stuff.
Somewhat more crude and brazen is the US and European release box art, which incorrectly shows some sort of Battlestar Galactica-type ship (rather than one of the bio-ships that you actually play as in the game) fighting with the ‘appendage’ monster.
Cover images courtesy of Segaretro.org
Expect to Pay
At the bargain-basement end of the buying spectrum prices range from £10+. But, you get what you pay for: my copy was boxed, but it looked like a gerbil had been nibbling the edges of the sleeve and then the game left out in a shop window in the sun for 17 years. Expect £20 or more for a PAL copy with manual and in a decent condition.
If you want the expertly-named NTSC version of the game be prepared to splash the cash; prices can easily reach £100 or more for a complete copy!
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