''BioMetal'' is a single-player horizontal scrolling shooter game released on June 1, 1993 for the

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...

(SNES). The game features six different weapons to combat the BioMetals, an

extraterrestrial Extraterrestrial refers to any object or being beyond ( extra-) the planet Earth ( terrestrial). It is derived from the Latin words ''extra'' ("outside", "outwards") and ''terrestris'' ("earthly", "of or relating to the Earth"). It may be abbrevia ...

race determined to destroy the human race. The gameplay is very similar to that of the ''

R-Type is a scrolling shooter, horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and released by Irem in 1987 and the first game in the List of R-Type video games, ''R-Type'' series. The player controls a star ship, the R-9 "Arrowhead", in ...

'' series, with the final boss even greatly resembling and behaving similarly to that series' iconic boss enemy Dobkeratops. The European and North American versions of ''BioMetal'' feature a soundtrack entirely created of remixed songs of

techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...

group,

2 Unlimited 2 Unlimited are a Belgian/Dutch dance music act, founded by Belgian producers/songwriters Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde in 1991 in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1991 to 1996, Dutch rapper Ray Slijngaard and Dutch vocalist Anita Doth fronted the ...

from their 1991 album, '' Get Ready!''. The Japanese version of the game features an entirely different soundtrack. A sequel called ''BioMetal Gust'' was released for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

in 1997, included with the '' Dezaemon 2'' pack.

Plot

It is the year GC 232 (Galaxy Century Year 232). A huge war that had begun years and years before has divided the Milky Way and all of its natural resources have been exhausted. The Milky Way Galactic Council is forced to send a fleet of starships to a nearby planet by the name of UP457 in search of any resources that can replenish the ones lost during the battle. However, during this mission, the fleet is destroyed by a race of half-machine, half-animal aliens referred to as "BIOMETAL" by the Galactic Council. One of the Council's supercomputers then calculates that the number of these "BIOMETALS" is increasing rapidly and will have the Milky Way completely taken over within 32 hours. So the Halbard's crew, young pilot Kid Ray and biologist Anita (a reference to the names of the two lead singers of

, who provided the music for the North American/European version of the game), along with their fleet, WASP, are assigned to eliminate the hostile threat on UP457.

Gameplay

Weapon power-ups are gained by destroying pods and picking up the released power-ups, which cycle through the various weapon types as in '' Raiden''. Some weapons cancel each other out. The player also has a shield in the form of four spinning orbs that circle around the ship when engaged. Charge power is drained when the shield is active. The shield can be used as protection against enemy fire.

Reception

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the ...

'' gave it a 23/40.

References

External links

*
BioMetal
' at GameSpy *{{moby game, id=/biometal, name=''BioMetal'' 1993 video games Activision games Athena (company) games Science fiction video games Horizontally scrolling shooters Side-scrolling video games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Super Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Video games developed in Japan Single-player video games Alien invasions in video games