Gain Ground has to be one of my favourite games of all time. My brother and I spent hours playing this addictive little arcade game.
I had the Sega Master System version that we used to play on my Sega Master System 2. It was a big hit in the arcades initially, and was also very popular on the Genesis, however I have played neither version so I won’t cover those here – needless to say it looks like the story/characters/graphics are a bit different on each of the platforms.
In searching for images (and a reminder of the facts about the game) I’ve also discovered that there’s a PS2 version of the game – but it doesn’t look the same and I doubt I’ll be hunting it down any time soon. I’d sooner get a ROM and an emulator to play the Master System version.
The basic premise of the game is that ‘Gain Ground’ is a popular human vs android sport that goes horribly wrong when the Mother Computer traps spectators in the game. You take the role of the skilled fighters who go in to save the innocents.
It sounds cheesy, I know, and to be honest I didn’t pay much attention to the story back then like I do with today’s games. The main attraction was the gameplay. It had an easy pick up and play mechanic and an addictive replay factor.
Initially, the heroes consist of a bomb expert, a spear-throwing tarzan guy, and a shotgun-totting ‘cool dude’. As you progress, additional characters are introduced that range from hi-tech rocket specialists, wizards and ninjas. But these characters are only temporary – if you lose them during a level they are lost until you pick up that power up in another level. You always have your three main characters though.
The idea is simple – get all your characters from their starting position (usually the bottom of the screen) to the EXIT (usually at the top of the screen). Preventing you from doing that are all manner of soldiers, robots, mutants, skulls, traps, spiders etc. There are also big bosses at the tenth level of each round, and there are five rounds in all consisting of different time periods from prehistoric times to futuristic times (I can’t remember the exact wording of the stages).
With a variety of characters to choose from, the game appeals to the strategic player who can choose which character is best for a given situation. You only control one character at a time and you only get to choose another when they are killed or reach the exit. It’s game over when all your characters are killed before reaching the end of a level, but you get three continues.
When choosing a character you have to think carefully about their skills. The Master System control pad has two buttons and as such each character has two modes of fire.
The bomber can fire a single bullets forwards and also throw bombs over walls, which is useful for killing robots before you are in their attack range. The disadvantage is that the bomber moves quite slowly.
The spear-thrower can throw short range spears forwards and spears over walls. Like the bomber, he’s useful for taking out shielded enemies but can also handle enemies up close better too.
But my favourite of the initial characters has to be the gunner as he can shoot single bullets forwards but also spin on the spot firing multiple bullets left and right simultaneously. He’s most effective at taking out groups of enemies and getting out of tight spots – such as when the mutant spiders surround you!
The biggest selling-point of the game, and the reason I loved it so much was the two-player option. A second player could jump in at any time and control their own set of characters. The ensuing button-bashing and gleeful shrieking is something I shall never forget. Too many games nowadays tack the two-player option on at the end of the game production, but in Gain Ground you are still playing the same game and the core gameplay never changes.
Another thing I loved was the atmosphere of the game. To this day I can still recall very accurately the different scores of music that were played throughout the game. I found a link to the tunes. They’re in midi format which I hate but they are probably pretty accurate considering the technology back then (I’m probably looking at it through rose-tinted glasses!). The link is good though as it has tunes for some of my other favourite games – Afterburner and Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Which was built into the console) – you might want to Google those games too if you’re interested.
I still have my copy of Gain Ground for the Master System (I still have all my games) but I have to admit I’ve never actually completed it! I did get to The Final Era (I’ve remembered the stages now thanks to the tunes) but it goes mental, with laser beams firing everywhere. This is where you really need the two-player (my brother had to leave home sometime) and I think the developer’s choice to use fast-paced music also makes it seem faster.
What with memory cards and hard disks nowadays it’s easy to pick up where you left off in modern games. But the Master System games were designed to be played from the beginning every time (If there was a save option I didn’t know about it) so every time we failed we would have to start at the beginning again – and we did, repeatedly! I remember staying up until the small hours of the morning playing this game with my brother, so addictive was the gameplay. Of course, games always have cheats but I’m an angel so I am.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed my little moment of retro reminiscing. Sorry the screenies are so small – believe me they’re the best I could find! I may write up another game when I feel the urge. I still have several Mega Drive games kicking around too…
**Sorry but the image uploader isn’t working right now so i’ll have to get back to you on that one**
**The image uploader is still broken so i’ve resorted to using the Mozilla Firefox browser which is working fine – so we finally have pictures! yay!=) **
