Stryker’s Run
BBC Micro, 1986
The BBC Microcomputer System was the most advanced technology I had ever seen. It was made by the BBC, yes the tv broadcaster, with tech company Acorn as a bid to push computer literacy in the UK. It was Acorn's first use of their ARM processor, which is now used by phones, iPads, basically everything except your computer. I was lucky to have a BBC Micro at home, but most British children of the 80s will at least have seen them in schools. Americans had The Oregon Trail (MECC, 1985), we had Chuckie Egg (A&F Software, 1983).
Allegedly I was the only one in the house who could use it properly, although I was three years old. The BBC had successfully computer literised me, and these skills enabled me to go on in later life to become a grown up man who plays old computer games and types about it on the internet. Thanks, BBC public education scheme!
Stryker’s Run is one of the more exciting action games on the platform, a sci-fi side-scrolling shooter in which you can not only walk, jump and shoot, but enter vehicles and battle in the skies. You are John Stryker, stealing battle plans from the enemy Volgan HQ. Classic joints. It was so colourful and had so much detail to the backgrounds, it felt like a lived-in world. That sounds ridiculous today looking at the screenshots but it’s true. Enemies could die from friendly fire, you even had allies who would help you battle. My little child brain was captivated.
When I booted it up again I was surprised to see Chris Roberts’ name pop up on the menu screen, he of Wing Commander (Origin Systems, 1990) fame. He went on to set up a movie production company that was funded using the same German tax loophole as notorious awful videogame movie maker Uwe Boll, before it was ended in 2006. The company that funded them collapsed and their founders went to jail. Roberts sold his company 10 days before his court appearance and was sued by Kevin Costner.
Roberts has since distanced himself from scams by teaming back up with his old film buddies to make Star Citizen, an unfinished space flight sim which has so far taken 13 years and $800 million dollars, with in-game microtransactions of up to $48,000.
Chris Roberts went to school with Martin Galway, who created the music for Stryker’s Run. If you are into electronic music, especially Japanese, you may recognise the menu music as Rydeen by the legendary Yellow Magic Orchestra. He repurposed this again for other games but this remains the best version. Many games in the 80s ripped off pop music (in fact they often openly cloned other games entirely) so it’s unlikely this was licensed. There is an unverified forum post in the depths of the internet claiming Galway didn’t know it was Rydeen, but it's so similar that I doubt it.
Martin Edmondson and Nicholas Chamberlain also worked on Stryker’s Run, and would go on to make Destruction Derby (Reflections, 1995) and Driver (Reflections, 1999). 1980s UK was basically a bleak, grey version of Silicon Valley, where a lot of famous designers and publishers started as bedroom coders. The kids will never believe us.
It was published by Superior Software, another tiny company started on the side by a couple of British blokes who wrote and published games. Up to this point they had most notably published Repton (Tim Tyler, 1985) and would be a relatively big player in the market.
While the colours and graphics are eye-catching even today, they are a bit flickery in motion and the game is quite jittery. It wasn’t unheard of at the time but contemporaries with lesser graphics managed to get a smoother ride. The official blurb says it has the most advanced graphics on the BBC Micro and not many reviews form the time contest that claim.
It’s a slow paced game despite the action movie look and story, possibly due to the strain of the graphics on the system which causes the frame rate to drop further when there is a lot of action on the screen. You're walking slowly and edging towards mines, not bouncing around like in a NES platformer.
Games were hard back then, but Stryker's Run is pretty brutal. There are no levels, just one big level scrolling right until the end, for which you have nine lives, no 1ups or other bonuses. I remember being excited if my brother was able to get far enough to see a new piece of scenery, which seemed like an incredible achievement, but some of the bits I remember were only three or four minutes into the game!
Your grenades are basically useless due to their limited range, but a single enemy is easy to kill by shooting your laser gun from outside their range. Helicopter bombs have to be avoided, but they shoot randomly and come from every direction so they are difficult or sometimes impossible to avoid. Mortar or rocket soldiers guarantee damage as far as I can tell. Sometimes you’ll be under attack from all of these things at once, with some mines around for good measure. Multiple enemies slow the game to a crawl which makes it even harder.
Part of the point of this website is to close the loops in my mind by completing these games I never played or finished. But while I got a lot further than when I was a tiny child, I still didn’t clock this one. According to the internet, finishing a 'run' would take around 30 minutes. I was however playing the ‘Master’ edition meant for the more powerful version of the BBC Micro.
The Master version seemed noticeably difficult, with aggressive enemies, more gun/mortar emplacements, and more frequent and random helicopter bombs. Some reviews think it may even be impossible to complete. Aside from that, the most noticeable difference is driveable tanks, a few extra sections and the improved graphics and backdrops.
When I switched to the standard edition things were much more achievable given some patience. I think I will return to complete the standard version one day, I still have an itch to scratch, but after an hour of banging my head against the Master version I’ll give it a rest for now. It’s a great throwback, but not one you can enjoy for a huge length of time.
Just as I did with SD F-1 Grand Prix, I have made some gifs for your enjoyment because they don’t seem to exist!
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