Raptor: Call of the Shadows (video game)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Your engine's turbines roar as you scream out of the sky. Startled troops look up just in time to see your wing cannons blaze. You feel the plane buck slightly as your missiles streak towards their targets. A flash in the distance tells you that they have done their job and so have you. The Mega-Corps pay well, for those good enough to survive. They call you into the shadows with dreams of wealth, and you answer, the only way you know how.

Raptor: Call of the Shadows (often called Raptor for short) is a 2D Vertical Scrolling Shooter for the x86 PC written for MS-DOS, by Cygnus Studios (which has since changed its name to Mountain King Studios). It was published by Apogee Software on April 1, 1994. In 1999, Mountain King Studios re-released Raptor as a native Windows program, and in 2010, the game was re-released again by DotEmu as Raptor: Call of the Shadows 2010 Edition, featuring smoother graphics with support for higher resolutions, as well as native compatibility with Windows XP and Vista.

There is not much of a story in the game. Your character is a mercenary flying the super-tech Raptor, sent on interplanetary missions to knock off top competitors of MegaCorps.

The game is divided into three "sectors": Bravo Sector, Tango Sector, and Outer Regions, all of which have nine sub-missions called "waves", making for a total of 27 levels. The full version of Raptor allows players to start out in any of the three campaigns, though playing them in order will help the player to more easily accumulate money for weapon and shield upgrades.

Not related to animal raptors of both kinds.

Tropes used in Raptor: Call of the Shadows (video game) include:
  • Always Accurate Attack: The laser turret, but only on Airborne Mooks.
  • Beam Spam: The Twin Laser. Via Zerg Rush, many of the enemies near the end of the game also use this on you.
  • Bottomless Magazines: All your weapons have infinite ammunition, save the Megabomb.
  • Cores and Turrets Boss: Most of the end-level bosses in Outer Regions, including the Final Boss, are this.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Averted. When your ship's hull integrity is less than 15%, every hit you take will cause you to lose one of your weapons. Boss ships and components start bursting into small explosions once they are almost destroyed.
  • Damage Is Fire: Boss ships (and your ship) will be covered in explosions when they are almost destroyed.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: The most basic weapon in the game (the machine guns that you start off with) is capable of destroying everything in the game given enough time and shields. This might not really apply to mooks since they only remain on screen for a set amount of time, but against bosses, the damage can really add up.
    • This technique is made even easier when you have either the Auto-Tracking Minigun or the Laser Turret, as it lets you inflict your Death of a Thousand Cuts without suffering one yourself.
  • Degraded Boss: Many end-of-level sector bosses appear as Mini Bosses in later levels of the sector.
  • Death Ray: There is a weapon you can buy called the Deathray in the DOS version. However, it doesn't always kill everything with one hit. The Windows version calls it a Plasmaray, which is probably a more fitting name given that it is described as a "plasma cannon on steroids" in the Help menu.
  • Denial of Diagonal Attack: All other equipment except for the auto-aiming turrets can only fire straight, with minimal spread. Yet another good reason for you to equip the auto-aim turrets at certain times.
  • Description Porn: There is one for the game's Excuse Plot located on page 04 of the DOS version's in-game help; it's also at the very top of this page.
  • Dual Boss: One of the bosses in Tango sector, consisting of two laser cannons hidden underground.
  • Elite Mook: Ships that you encounter in earlier sectors or waves may reappear later as either ships that look the same but have more firepower or as re-colored variants with more firepower.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: The Deathray and Twin Laser. This offsets their ridiculously high damage output, making other weapons more viable on certain occasions. Enemy lasers also fall under this trope.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: Averted. The Deathray, Laser Turret and the Twin Laser are instant-hit weapons.
  • Game Breaking Bug: In both the Mountain King Studios and DotEmu releases of the game, using a keyboard to play will only allow your ship to move at half-speed, while using the mouse will prevent your ship from flying to the extreme right side of the screen.
  • Gatling Good: Your regular machine gun, as well as the auto-aiming one.
  • Giant Mook: Some waves in Bravo Sector feature a massive vessel that has two smaller mooks attached to it. This ship can survive one hit from the most powerful weapon in the game and, when rammed into, can deplete a full shield bar before expiring.
  • Have a Nice Death: When you run out of shields, you are treated to a two-clip cutscene, with the first showing your ship crashing and the second showing you slumped forward in the wreck.
  • Holiday Mode: Certain dates, which are the birthdays of some of the developers, give a non-standard version of the Apogee theme sung by said developers and automatically activate the game's Silliness Switch cheat, which is anything but silly in difficulty as it adds lots of extra, very tough, enemies to the levels. These extra enemies are so tough it takes several shots from the most powerful weapon in the game to destroy them.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The Twin Laser. The game fittingly describes it as "the first, and last, weapon every pilot needs".
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: Near the end of the game (Outer Regions), you start encountering many red-coloured units. They have tons of armour and firepower.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Averted, see the Made of Iron example.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Your ship can be equipped with several missile weapons, some of them having insane refire rates. The enemies in the final chapter, Outer Regions, also love to use this on you.
  • Made of Explodium: Pretty much all your enemies, as well as your ship if your regular shields drop to zero.
  • Made of Iron: Your ship, which starts out with 75 regular shield points out of a maximum 100. The only weapon strong enough to deplete that amount is a constant laser, which few enemies use, or if you fly into a Giant Mook or boss ship. Other shots will only do up to around 20 shield damage. In addition, you can purchase up to five secondary shields, each of which can take twice the amount of damage as your regular shields. And you will need all of them.
  • Nintendo Hard: If you plan on actually beating the game on any difficulty higher than Rookie, you'll be spending a lot of credits on regular shields and Phase Shields, especially while playing through Outer Regions.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: The Deathray may be devastating and all, but why bother buying it when you can wield two at one go?
  • The Paralyzer: The Power Disruptor. Sort of. It can stop some enemies from firing, including some bosses, and it can also kill enemies over a fairly lengthy period of time.
  • Ramming Always Works: You will take severe damage from any ramming attempt, but with enough shields, you can destroy even bosses by ramming them.
  • Recurring Boss: Many of the earlier bosses appear in later levels as mid-bosses.
  • Regenerating Health: On any difficulty except Elite, your ship's regular shields will slowly recharge as long as you do not fire or get hit.
  • Shout-Out: A couple of subtle ones in the terrain for levels, including something that looks suspiciously like a Monolith in a dig site.
  • Silliness Switch: On the Birthday Mode, new enemies are introduced into the levels if you activate the Silliness Switch. They're even worse than the Demonic Spiders!
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Almost everything you fight is either a machine or a structure (that always blows up when destroyed). Even the little people in Tango Sector explode when you get the drop on them.
    • A few levels have buildings taller than the screen. Blow them up, and they will continually explode as new parts scroll in.
  • Updated Rerelease: The 2010 Edition, featuring a few aesthetic changes as well as XP/Vista compatibility.
  • Wave Motion Gun: Any laser weapon. Not surprisingly, they hurt a lot.
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