Developer: Pack-in-Video Publisher: Pack-in-Video Release: 08/30/91 Genre: Shooter
Sometimes I wonder what goes through the minds of developers that release a subpar game. The PC Engine is a shooter paradise with a library that rivals the best of them to this day. That means you can find shmups that span all settings: space (Super Star Soldier), fantasy (Sylphia), and even modern day (Download 2). By 1991 developers were on fire creating classics left and right. But here comes Power Gate looking like a title from 1987 that just got out of jail.
Power Gate surprisingly features a decent number of weapons. Even though each has limited uses you can stack them and hold every weapon in an inventory to switch as needed. There is a straightforward missile, homing missiles, an exploding bomb, a rotating shield that weakens as it hits enemies, invincibility and triples, which creates two duplicates of your ship. Weapons drop every few seconds so you are rarely without. This is good as the default shot only powers up once and gains rapid fire but that is it. You do gain ground missiles that upgrade to bombs which makes up for it however. Unlike most shooters you have a three hit life bar and the game is not stingy with energy power-ups not that they are necessary.
The problem with Power Gate is it lacks excitement. The game certainly tries to get your blood pumping. Enemy waves are frequent at least and aggressive. But they are predictable and repetitive. The game moves at a plodding pace that makes dead time stand out even more. The large sprites leave little room for interesting level design so you are left to slowly trudge your way to end of each stage. Most games with big sprites at least have cool bosses that take advantage of this but you get no such luck in Power Gate. In fact some of the levels do not have a boss at all! Someone must have woke up near the end of development as the last stages at least manage to be decent. Maybe if they had sprinkled some of that around the rest of the game it would not be so damn average.
Power Gate is an easy game that does not ask much of the player until its ending stages. The scoring system awards extra lives at 20,000, 50,000 and every subsequent 50,000 points. Every time I died I seemingly gained an extra life a minute or two later. Although your main weapon never becomes a powerhouse it barely matters as your missile sub-weapon makes up the difference. The game is extremely generous with weapons and it is a simple matter to stack multiple uses of the invincibility power-up or shield. With its three hit life bar you probably will not need them until the last two stages. Here the game puts you in narrow corridors with dense enemies and blocks that crush you to death. The lackadaisical pace is at odds with the level design leading to cheap deaths but this is the only part of Power Gate that resembles challenge.
It cannot be stated how much Power Gate resembles a first generation title. Even that feels like a misnomer as R-Type and Dragon Spirit were released within a year of the PC Engine’s life. The art looks flat and cheap. There are NES games that feature more detail which is sad. I suppose it takes advantage of the system’s large color palette but it makes little difference. The game throws around a large number of sprites but suffers from crippling slowdown, especially in the later stages. About the only good thing I can say is that a few levels feature parallax scrolling and foreground objects. But when the environments look so uninteresting is that really a compliment? By 1991 games like Download, 1943 Kai, and Seirei Senshi Spriggan were on the market making this effort that much more embarrassing. They should not have bothered by that point.
In Closing
What more needs to be said? Power Gate is a mediocre game with no redeeming values that you can easily skip and be better for it. From its graphics to its plodding pace Power Gate disappoints at every turn. It was a chore to stay interested long enough to see this through to completion even though the game is average in length. This game is so obscure I have only heard of it recently. There is a reason for that, it sucks yet somehow it got a sequel.
