Trans-Bot

Boy oh boy I loves the shooter games! While the ship-modification aspect of these games is either poorly employed, or none too oft, it is always a welcome addition when it is done well. Transbot succeeds in this field, providing several ways to accessorize your vehicle, and several different firepower configurations. However, as is usually the nature of the shooter, the difficulty may be too much for someone looking for a game requiring little time to master.

No plot to speak of. That being said, this is a much-needed game to fill out the Master System's shooter library. Most look to the Turbo Duo or the Neo Geo for their shooter fix. The craft is brightly colored and controls like a dream...actually that's a little of a misnomer. That would be kid of a depressing dream, limiting your unconscious thought to 8-bit. Still, I suppose I have had those dreams ...

The bread and butter of this game, as alluded to in the preceding paragraph, are the ability to "pimp yo ship". This is done by shooting at the cargo transports that careen across the bottom of the screen occasionally. Shooting these vessels will produce a question mark sphere, and collecting these question marks gives you a random letter upgrade. The upgrades range from ripple or plasma lasers, or either a standing mech that fires lasers, the ability to shoot forward and backward, or the glorious torpedoes. Certain enemies will require a certain attack to be taken down; therein lays the challenge. Shooting certain item-specific enemies with the wrong weapon will result in a horrid "death by never-ending waves of hot lead". Perhaps the hyperbolemeter is running a tad high here; suffice it to say the challenge become rather great rather quickly.

This game also offers an appropriately intense soundtrack. The enemies begin advancing in progressively thicker waves, until most of the screen is occupied by enemy formations and their accompanying firepower. If the difficulty is not enough of a deterrent, transbot offers a very satisfying experience from start to "hellish firestorm of gruesomely excessive violent death". Not for the faint of heart.