A great EGA shooter with a surprisingly good soundtrack and lots of firepower. Major Stryker must fly to three different planets to fight aliens which are threatening the Earth. He destroys alien space ships and rescues humans in beautifully layered, triple parallax scrolling EGA levels. Mission briefings are delivered by a beautiful woman who adds some rather tame sexual innuendo, but the game is still appropriate for children. Apogee's FAQ used to claim that versions 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 were never released to the public, but I was able to prove that v1.3 appeared on a number of shareware compilation CDs and set the record straight. There are 3 episodes in this game, with only the first episode playable in the shareware version.

Episode 1 - Lava Planet
Episode 2 - Arctic Planet
Episode 3 - Desert Planet

Downloads

Complete version history:

Major Stryker v1.4 Registered Version (1,254,110 bytes)	20 February 1993	DOS	Play online
Major Stryker v1.4 Shareware Episode (567,784 bytes)	20 February 1993	DOS
Major Stryker v1.3 Shareware Episode (571,050 bytes)	1 February 1993	DOS
Major Stryker v1.0 Shareware Episode (556,293 bytes)	xxxx	DOS

Help running DOS games

Availability

Apogee generously released this game as freeware under the Major Stryker Freeware License in March 2006.

Cheat Codes

Customer Cheat

The cheats here are a bit more complicated than in other games. There is a two step procedure to active the cheat mode. (This cheat mode only works in the registered version. It does nothing in the shareware version.)

Type [C] [H] [E] [A] [T] at the Main Title Screen. All keys need to be pressed one at a time. When you get it, you'll see the message that says "Cheat Active" (it really isn't yet).
During the game, hold down the [backspace] key, and then press the [H] & [S] keys at the same time. When you are successful, you'll see a message that says "Cheat Mode On" (it is now). You can hit these three keys again to turn the cheat mode off.
Once activated, you can press these keys to activate various options. Please note that you must hold down the [tab] key first before pressing the others, or it won't work.
[tab] [O] - Fire Options
[tab] [R] - Rapid Fire
[tab] [S] - Shield Options