Major Stryker
Major Stryker is a 2D vertical scrolling shooter game written for MS-DOS, by Apogee Software (now 3D Realms).
The game was originally distributed as shareware. It consists of three episodes, with only the first episode distributed as shareware, and the rest available commercially. The episodes are:
Lava Planet
Arctic Planet
Desert Planet
The game features PC Speaker and Sound Blaster sounds, and the AdLib music is similar in style to Bobby Prince's other songs. The game uses EGA graphics and draws three backgrounds ("triple-parallax scrolling").
Major Stryker was re-released as freeware on March 14, 2006.
The only named characters are the titular hero and Fleet Admiral Yoshira, a very attractive, often flirtatious woman who briefs the character between levels, and seems to be in love with him as well.
Gameplay
There are three difficulty levels, each of which has drastically different levels of powerups, enemies, and enemy fire.
Powerups available include laser powerups (boxes marked "00," "01," etc.,) which affect the pattern and number of shots fired, speedups, holding patterns which stop the screen and release a fleet of enemies, Zap Bombs which cause screenwide explosions and extra lives. Hostages can also be rescued by ramming into the capsules they are contained in.
