Collection essentials #95: S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team (NES)

That is, um…a very interesting choice of title. Perhaps it’s no surprise that they changed the name for the European release to “Action in New York.”

Anyways, S.C.A.T. is a shoot ‘em up. One thing that’s different from your average game in the genre is that you can actually act forwards OR backwards, whereas most such games are designed for everything in the game to come from in front of you and therefore lock you into shooting in one direction. Another thing that’s atypical is that you have a health bar, whereas the norm is dying in one hit. Now, shooting in a certain direction requires facing that direction, which can be a pain, but there’s a remedy to this. There are a couple little satellite things that orbit your character, and you can lock them into shooting a particular direction whenever you want by pressing their button when they’re facing the desired direction. This way you can have them concentrate on one side and manually fire towards the other. And on top of all those things, this game lets 2 players team up for simultaneous play! This is all stuff that I really like in a game like this.

I didn’t know about S.C.A.T. growing up, but as an adult it’s proven a good choice to break out when I have a friend over wondering what to play. One time a friend and I made it all the way to the final boss, but blew it…augh!! That was the closest I’ve gotten to beating it at this point in my life. 

I’ve seen some people who aren’t so high on this game, but I’ve always really enjoyed it. I guess, in other words, don’t listen to those people, S.C.A.T. is not scat!