- Oscar, the Transformer.
The Human Race's last hope to defeat the machines and mutants in Droid City.
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Psycho-Nics Oscar is an 1987 arcade shooter made by Data East, one of their earliest Run-and-Gun action games in the Mecha genre.
Set in an unspecified timeline, seemingly after humans were taken over by machines, you're in control of the titular Psycho-Nics Oscar, or just Oscar for short, a still-functioning, modified and heavily-armed mecha, and it's you against a hostile robot army across deserts, jungles, hills and finally the machines' fortified stronghold.
The game is more or less a predecessor to Turrican.
Psycho-Nics Oscar contain examples of:
- After the End: If the landscape being filled with ruins and robots running amok is any indication. The backstory implies the game is set after humans were conquered by machines.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Malfunctioning robots have taken over the world and enslaved humanity. You must battle them.
- Animal Mecha: The second boss Oscar fights is a mechanical, two-headed dragon, both heads breathing projectile attacks in tandem. It reappears in the final stage.
- Arm Cannon: While Oscar lugs a gun, most of the hostile robots seems to have their weapons built into their hands. As well as the last few bosses in the final stage's robot facility.
- Chicken Walker: Two of them shows up at the end of stage 5 as bosses, though they're fought one at a time rather than together.
- Cut and Paste Environments: Most of the stages recycles the same background, notably the final stage in a robot facility where half the rooms are the same. Though it might be acceptable since this is one of the oldest mecha shooter games out there.
- Cyber Cyclops: More than one of the robot mooks have a sole red circular eye as their only existing facial feature. Including the two Chicken Walkers whose eye is larger than Oscar.
- Degraded Boss: The dragon mecha and Chicken Walker reappears as Mini Bosses in the final stage.
- Grenade Launcher: One of Oscar's power-ups, which fires a single, spiked exploding projectile that explodes a few feet in front of him. It's rather poor in range but deals plenty of damage.
- Power Up Letdown: One of the game's collectible items is a projectile launcher that travels straight alongside any surface, even running along walls, which can easily target turrets and enemies in tricky locations... but it's a terrible choice in areas with platforming elements, due to the fired projectile capable of only moving while attached to flat surfaces, making it impossible to hit enemies on an adjacent platform as the projectile will instead dive into a nearby gap. It's also useless against airborne enemies, unable to hit anything not attached to a surface.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Some of the enemy robots are shown carrying shields larger than themselves.
- Smart Bomb: One that creates a ring of energy projectiles around Oscar that damages all onscreen enemies when used.
- Transforming Mecha: Oscar is supposed to be one, according to the game's backstory, but that was more of an Informed Ability since he spends the entire game in mecha form. He did finally transform, in the game's final cutscene that have Oscar changing into a jet fighter and flying out of the enemy base.
- Weak Turret Gun: Sentry turrets are a recurring, minor obstacle that Oscar destroys in just a few hits.
- A Winner Is You: Beat the final stage, and you get a three-second clip of Oscar flying out of the enemy base. With a blood red "THE END" pasted onscreen. Again, justified as the game's really old and endings like these are acceptable at the time.
- Word Salad Title: Psycho-Nics Oscar. What the latter two words stands for is never explained.
