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"A lengthy game of run 'n' gun"

This game showed up late in the Game Gear's life span. It's a pretty good game of run 'n' gun with an isometric overhead view. It's also a lengthy game, proof that the Game Gear is capable of delivering a gaming experience that can keep us busy for hours upon hours.

The setting is a futuristic city, and the story isn't all that important. It's just an excuse to put one man in a maze of rooms and pit him against armed guards and other enemy characters. Our guy is charged with the task of navigating through a warehouse district, an industrial park, and an old abandoned train station in order to enter a high-rise building through a weakly defended "back door" and broadcast proof of an evil corporation's wrongdoings over the TV stations. All of the areas our guy must pass through are defended by armed guards and robot sentries.

As mentioned, the view is isometric overhead. To move straight through a corridor, you have to press the directional pad diagonally. Our hero starts out with a machine gun and can get a decent variety of weapons as he progresses, including a laser rifle, photon gun with three-way fire, flame-thrower, and grenades. All of the weapons have a limited ammunition supply. Weapons, ammo, medkits, and other items can be found in the various levels, which are all appropriately labyrinthine. There are also numerous secrets and extra lives to be found, which are always fun to look for. This game has some sneaky secrets to discover.

Enemy characters include a few different kinds of armed guards, robot sentries, and mutant creatures, all of whom will attack on sight. Guards fire laser blasts and rockets. Tank robots prowl the warehouses, firing lasers at any intruders they see. Smaller walker robots prowl the hallways. Mutant creatures inhabit underground caverns. Our hero has a health bar, and he can also get armor to help defend himself. He takes less damage from hits while wearing armor, but the armor takes damage from each hit.

The game is composed of twenty expansive levels across a good variety of locales. Warehouses, canal areas, underground caverns, sewer networks, a chemical plant, an abandoned train station, and a high-rise building with several floors connected by elevators. Most of the levels are a good-sized labyrinth of rooms and corridors, providing us with a lot of ground to cover and some good exploration. Locked doors impede our guy's progress. He has to find colored keycards or sometimes a switch on a wall to unlock them. Some of the levels take place outside, in a canal area full of walkways and bridges. There are some nasty instant deaths that can happen from falling into the canal water, sewer water, or even an abyss in a cavern. The game needs to be played carefully, as we have a limited stock of lives and no continues. There are moving platforms that our guy can ride across abysses. While I don't care for the abysses all that much, their appearances in this game are tasteful enough that I can forgive them. Most of the time, we're on solid ground here. The abysses that do show up can be circumvented easily enough with the moving platforms, and for the most part it's tastefully done.

Arena: Maze Of Death has three difficulty levels, and they're all pretty challenging. Even on the easy setting, it's a difficult game to get through. It takes practice to become proficient at avoiding enemy fire and efficiently dealing with the bad guys. Because the game is so long, passwords are given out after each group of four levels. The passwords save your progress, including weapons, ammo, health, armor, and extra lives. Not quite as good as a battery backup, but it's functional.

Graphically, this game is pretty good. Everything is well presented, with some good detail on the furnishings inside the buildings. There's nothing by way of pretty scenery here (as in, beautiful outdoorsy vistas). It's mostly warehouses and other types of buildings. Considering the futuristic cityscape setting and the locales our hero visits, it's all well done. And considering that this is an 8-bit portable system, these are some impressive graphics for an isometric view. The hero and his enemies are all well animated. Gunfire takes the form of rapid-fire bullets, laser beams, and bursts of energy in blue and green. Explosions and flame from the flame-thrower are properly fiery. This is a good-looking game.

The sound department is also good. A nice variety of explosions, laser fire, automatic weapons fire... By Game Gear standards, the effects here are mostly well above average. The machine gun effect sounds rather wimpy, but that's not a weapon that gets a whole lot of use (it's the weakest weapon in the game). The rest of the effects here are standard fare. Blips and bleeps accompany the grabbing of a medkit or activation of a wall switch. A low hum of machinery is heard as a door opens.

This game has a good soundtrack. There are a couple of lengthy pieces that play as we're running 'n' gunning, and they do a great job of setting the mood. This music is above average as far as Game Gear music goes, with a good number of instruments playing. It's not obtrusive, and neither is it dull. It fits the scene perfectly with its futuristic sound. My only complaint here is that there could have been more variety to it.

Arena: Maze Of Death is one of the greats on the Game Gear. It's a solid game that offers hours of game-play, intricate labyrinths to navigate, some tricky situations to deal with, and plenty of entertaining secrets to discover. It's not perfect, but its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/05, Updated 08/19/11

Game Release: Arena: Maze of Death (US, 1996)