12 Days of Xmas 12 - Bonanza Bros for the Sega Mega Drive
39Twelve days of Christmas, done and dusted, and what a fasntic way to finish off this series. Bonanza Bros is like a reverse Santa Claus simulation where you need to break in, get the goods and get out.
Bonanza Bros. (sometimes written Bonanza Brothers) is a 3D-style, 2D side-scrolling stealth action game developed and released by Sega in 1990. It is one of the earliest arcade games powered by the Sega System 24 arcade system board. It was ported to various home systems, including the Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-CD, and several home computers.
Bonanza Bros. is a side-scrolling stealth action game, with shooter and platform game elements. The players take the roles of one or both of the brothers Robo (1P, red) and Mobo (2P, blue) (Mike and Spike in some PAL versions). The object of the game is to travel stealthily around each building while avoiding guards, retrieve several objects within a time limit, and move to the roof where a blimp is expecting the player with the loot. In this fashion the plot and gameplay resemble the older Atari 2600 title Keystone Kapers, but with added features that are similar to the ones in Lock 'n' Chase. Two players can play cooperatively at the same time, as the screen is always split in two.
The places the brothers burgle include a bank, a millionaire's mansion, a casino, a mint, an art gallery and a treasury. While similar in graphics and gameplay, the story and the Bonanza Bros.' role changes from the original Japanese to the early western versions: in the former, the duo are thieves attempting to steal valuable treasures for profit whilst avoiding getting arrested; in the latter, they are recruited by the Police Chief of Badville to test security facilities and help the police recover evidence from various crooked businesses and institutions, but on the threat of jail if they fail to do so.
The player can walk, jump, shoot and move behind a column or large furniture, which allows both hiding and dodging shots from the guards, which cannot be neutralized definitively, only stunned for a few seconds using the gun or pressing a door against them. They are alerted by sounds or with the Brothers entering their field of vision, and then either hide, call for help or fire against the player. Some guards have a riot shield and can only be hit when moving away. A player loses a life if hit by a guard's projectile or melee attack, attacked by a dog, pressed by a door, or by failing to make a jump onto a springboard or zipline and landing stuck in the ground. Losing a life in these ways causes the player to drop all items. Running out of time both costs players a life and forces them to restart the stage.