Pyramid Intruder. Yet another Japanese only release for the 3DO. Set in 2035 it is your job to traverse 7 levels of a Martian Pyramid.
A 1995 Taito release for the 3DO and was converted from a Sega Laserdisc game called Pyramid Patrol.
It seems to be compared with the likes of Sewer Shark, Novastorm and Microcosm. It is certainly in the same genre. Personally I would say it is probably genetically a lot closer to Burning Soldier on the 3DO. Certainly in look and feel.
The story line has aliens up to their usual underhanded sneakiness building a huge ancient pyramid on Mars, from which they intend to launch an offensive against the planet.
Your job as pilot is to, wait for it, that’s right! Stop them. Not through negotiation, or by offering them tributes or gifts but by blasting them to where ever nasty aliens go when they get sent atom-by-atom from this mortal plain.
To that end you zoom around the extended Pyramid, and when I say extended it features quite a few more chambers than the traditional Earth based pyramids.
During the rendered introduction your space craft looks amazing, sadly during the game it looks less so.
It’s getting to the point where I could make a template for this sort of game as, yet again, the self same criticisms that surfaced for Microcosm, Burning Soldier et al, raise their ugly head, once again for Pyramid Intruder.
The craft handles like a shooting mouse pointer without even offering a knowing nod to the laws of physics. The aliens do vary from level to level but they might as well not bother and the selection of lasers is reasonably distant from inspiring. Essentially missile-like ones and photon-pulse like ones. To add insult to weapon-layout injury the differing power-ups are straight from the original holy-writ on such things: Big bomb, sweeping bomb and shield.
Leaving only the sweeping pre-rendered streamed from CD backdrops and end of level baddies to inspire. Which actually they do.
Each level has a tunnel sequence where you as pilot get to chose left or right. These tunnels are not pre-rendered but rendered real-time in 3D, similar in many ways to those found in Crystal Dynamics Total Eclipse. During these sequences a few waves of enemy ships attack you and you get the opportunity to collect ‘Gold Statues’ the reason behind this collecting is however some what obscured.
After a time wandering the tunnels you enter the chambers which are generally being streamed from CD. These are rather pretty when all said and done and quite
varied. Each takes its style cues from ancient Egypt but with a set in space twist. There is one sequence where enormous Anubis statues fall on you, another where giant pendulum-like axes swing at you and yet another set in column lined hall. These are fairly impressive and rescue the game if only in the eye-candy stakes.
The difficulty is reasonably balanced – I achieved level 6 of 7 after about 2 hours of playing – set I should mention on ‘easy’. The entire game is in English despite it only being released in Japan – go figure that one out in your own time.
The conversion from the Sega LD isn’t exact other than obviously the lesser resolution the on-screen cockpit that the Sega version had was lost in translation to the 3DO only appearing briefly during the start of each new level.
The last thing I will mention is the audio sound track. It reminded me of Kramer vs Kramer. Yes that’s right the 1980s movie of the same name or perhaps Class staring Rob Lowe. The music has trumpets in it. It is not Rock music and it isn’t Techno or Rave it’s 1980s brass band music with a leading trumpet… It isn’t annoying, it doesn’t grate but it is kind of weird and ever so slightly relaxing. Very odd!? Yes I know.
So, is it worth having? Yeah why not. I kind of liked it. It is rare- very rare but grab a copy if you can.
3DO Kid.
Recently grabbed a copy of this game and I think it is pretty good. Collision detection seems a bit wacky though. I never know what I can run into and what I can't. Seems to lack consistentcy. Otherwise, I'm having fun.