Game Info
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Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year of Release: 1990

Game Review & Impressions
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What happens when you chuck 2001: A Space Odyssey, Shinobi and gameshow in a development blender? Well, you get Surprise Attack. This complete and utter oddity from Konami is clearly aping Sega's Shinobi, except it replaces all the ninja stylings with cosmonauts and ray-guns.

The principle stages of the game involve scouring the area for bombs to defuse, most of which are protected by a whole bunch of bad guys. These can be despatched with a couple of blasts from your wrist laser, while others will deflect these, and can only be defeated by hitting a specific weak point. This process becomes so much trickier when the game introduces the gravity-defying ability to flip upside down and walk on the ceiling, something that really screws with your brain, owing to the fact the controls get reversed.

To aid you in your mission, you can collect weapons upgrades, which bestow you with explosive projectiles, and you can acquire temporary invincibility by walking over one of the power backpacks left at key points in the level. Using one makes you totally impervious to harm, not to mention allowing you to fly, although you do earn a special bonus if you manage to complete a stage without using one.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Surprise Attack is the bonus game, which pops up between levels. While Shinobi had you slinging shurikens at ninjas in first person, Surprise Attack goes Pop Quiz on you. You're asked a series of science pop culture questions revolving around space and similar themes, earning bonus points for each correct answer.

If I'm honest, I'm not a massive fan of this game. It looks great, but it's still Shinobi with space lasers, and has been done before. It's also really quiet difficult, with later levels really sucking some of the fun out of things. It has Konami's typical quality production values, but just isn't especially fun to play.

Chapters
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TBC