Ludography
Midnight Raiders cover

1994 · Digital Pictures · Light gun shooter · Light-gun shooter

Midnight Raiders

Sega exclusive

A FMV rail shooter placing you in the helmet of rookie chopper gunner "Joker." Terrorists have kidnapped a German biochemist and taken him to a Middle Eastern oil refinery, where he is forced to work on a lethal toxin. Joker and crew must fly to the refinery, shooting down enemy tanks and helicopters, then Joker must rappel down to the refinery and rescue the chemist on foot.

Released
1994
Platforms
Sega CDSega CD 32X
Genres
Light gun shooterLight-gun shooterShooter
Developers
Digital Pictures
Publishers
—
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
First person
Themes
Action
Country
United States
Age ratings
ESRB T
Languages
English

About

Midnight Raiders is a live-action, full-motion video game developed by American studio Stargate Productions and published by Sega for the Sega CD in North America in 1994 and PAL regions in 1995.

Keywords

  • modern warfare
  • helicopter
  • war
  • hostages
  • modern military
  • full motion video
  • central intelligence agency
  • nuclear bomb
  • guerilla warfare

Media

Midnight Raiders screenshot 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Midnight Raiders is an interactive film game in which the player shoots targets to continue the video and progress through the game.

Story

A pair of Apache AH-64 helicopters, the Dragonfly and the Ladybug, is sent on "Operation Midnight", a covert mission to rescue a scientist who is being held hostage deep in enemy territory by the fictional Al Shakkur terrorist organization. Early in the mission, two allied trooper carriers are shot down, and the helicopter crews are left without their support. The team must infiltrate an enemy chemical weapons facility, extract the hostage, plant explosives, and escape.

Development

Midnight Raiders was developed by Stargate Productions as part of Sega's "TruVideo" line of interactive film games for the Sega CD. It was directed by Sam Nicholson, who also worked on Tomcat Alley, Wing Nuts: Battle in the Sky, Surgical Strike, Bug Blasters: The Exterminators and Star Strike. These latter two Sega CD titles were produced by Stargate for publisher Sony Imagesoft. Both were cancelled during the console's life but eventually released by Good Deal Games. A version of Midnight Raiders was announced and advertised for the Sega 32X for a late 1994 release but it was cancelled.

Reception

Critical reception for Midnight Raiders has been mixed and similar between all three region-specific releases the game saw. Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "It's a step up from Masked Rider Z, but frankly, that's not saying much." Other reviews included the Sega Pro which stated, "Not bad. The FMV movie is good stuff, although the simple shoot-'em-up action becomes repetitive after a while", rating it 81 out of 100. Retro Games Reviews gave it 4 stars out of 10, stating "Midnight Raiders is a weak attempt at the FMV genre due to its limited action, technical issues and poor controls."

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Sega CD1 October 1994North America · Europe 1 March 1995 · Australia 1 April 1995
Sega CD 32XCancelledUnreleased

Games like this

Collections3 collections

Platform libraries

Publishers

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.