Hell Fire 1990 By: Toaplan

Overview:

A little bit like Atomic Robo Kid (another Genesis Game) and a little like Cosmic Avenger for Colecovision, but it's really most like BioMetal for SNES. The graphics are pretty awesome. The game is set in a very techno/space setting with lots of enemy space ships, robots, and machines. It's all very crisp, colorful, and intricate. The animation is very smooth. The music and sound effects are simple and not really annoying (as much as a shooting game ever can be.)
Blast your way through your enemies with various kinds of weapon upgrades and power ups, but be warned, one hit means death. Game play is very fast-paced at times and really intense when the screen is packed with enemies and enemy fire. The controls aren't difficult to use, but using them to their fullest is vital. Learn to switch weapons with ease or you are doomed. All in all, a very fun and challenging game.

Directions:

You can fly up, down, left, right, and diagonally, but you cannot change the orientation of the ship. This means that the ship is always facing forward. You begin the game with a rather puny looking weapon. Don't worry, this weapon will destroy most enemies with one hit. There are tougher enemies that will require more than one hit or a stronger weapon, though. Your weapon starts out firing small pink blasts straight ahead. Change the direction of your fire by pressing B. The color of your ship will change as well as the weapon fire. Pink fires straight ahead, yellow fires straight behind you, green will fire straight up from the side of your ship and straight down, and blue will fire in an X pattern four shots diagonally at the same time. Use the pink weapon when the enemies are coming straight at you and the yellow when they sneak up behind. The green weapon will help when you are sandwiched between enemies. The blue is very useful since it fires in so many directions and fires the most shots at once. Use this one when the screen is packed with enemies. In addition to these you also have a laser blast that you can use by pressing C. This weapon fires a large, powerful red beam in front of you that will do heavy damage to any enemy. You only have a limited number of these, so don't waste them.
Pick up power-ups by destroying parts of the scenery and some enemies. Not all enemies or destroyable scenery bits will have power-ups. Power-ups will be round balls and will all look different depending on what they do. The triangle with the small flashing multi-colored crystal gives you another laser blast. Picking up a power-up marked with the letter P will change your main weapon into powerful lasers. Things take less hits to blow up with this weapon. You can pick up more of this power up to make it even more powerful. Pick up three and you will fire triple the shots! A globe with a minus sign in it will give you a shield for a while. This shield will not protect you from collisions and only stops one hit. After that it vanishes. A large flashing globe will give you a helper. A little robot will appear that will fly around you and destroy some enemies. The robot will also catch some enemy fire before it reaches you, but this isn't reliable and shouldn't be depended on. The power-ups with the letter B on them seem to just be bonus points. You keep all power-ups until you die. If you die, you lose everything.
The number of ships you have left are displayed at the top of the screen next to a little picture of your ship that will be whatever color you are currently. If you are hit by enemy fire, run into or touch an enemy (particularly tricky to avoid with some bosses), or run into anything else (like the ceiling or floor) you will lose a ship. You can get extra ships by picking up flashing 1UP power-ups, which can be found in the same fashion as other power-ups, though more rarely. Gaining enough points will also get you extra ships.
After you have passed through the level you will have to fight a boss. Bosses are big, mean, and fire many many shots at you at once. You will have to dodge like crazy while trying to take out their weapons. Each boss will act differently and you will have to defeat each one in a different way. The big square boss of the first stage can only be defeated by taking out all of the cannons on it and then shooting the red globe inside of it repeatedly. Other bosses will require various strategies.