Being a late starter on the C64, this was amongst the first few that I played. Midnight Resistance was a conversion of a very popular Data East arcade game in which you take on literally hundreds of soldiers and far fetched mechanical bosses with the aid of many overpowered weapons and gadgets.


The Commodore 64 conversion contains 5 of the original's 9 levels, taking you from bullet-ridden highways to complex military installations. You start the game with five lives and basic rifle, but as you complete the stages, you will be given the opportunity to purchase new hand weapons and backpacks using red keys, which are obtained by shooting special key soldiers throughout the level. There are 4 different weapons to collect: Threeway shoots in 3 directions at once, Full-Automatic has a very rapid autofire, Shotgun packs a massive vibrating punch, and the Flamethrower which makes up for it's short range with sheer destructive power. Secondary weapons, which consist of backpacks worn by the player, include Electrical Showers, Nitro Explosions and even Homing Missiles. And believe me, you need them - bosses include hefty all terrain tanks, roving missile launchers, massive circular razors and even a fleet of 6 Harrier Jets!


This game has been converted extremely well to the Commodore, especially for an Arcade game released as late as 1990. Apart from obvious compromises like sprite size and colour, very few reductions have been made. The game plays excellently fast with smooth scrolling and well designed courses. The graphics are accurate, and are well animated in all cases. All the musics from the Arcade Game are in there, although not all are in the correct places.


I do not know why the last 4 levels have been missed out in this conversion, but I expect that they were just too complex to even try to recreate on the C64. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because I think the game just gets weird beyond level 5.