Get a triple dose of Strider from our Strider History Night stream replay

By Paul Acevedo
last updated

Back in December, Windows Central streamed a downloadable Xbox and Windows game from Capcom called Strider. The game became one of my favorites of 2014 thanks to its sleek style, fast pace, and rewarding sense of exploration. We've been wanting to come back to Strider on the stream ever since, and at last we're doing just that.

Why just play the newest Strider though? Last year's Strider is actually the latest in a long-running series. Seeing as how many readers and viewers probably haven't played the previous games, we've decided to turn back the clock a bit. Tonight we're playing the original Strider, Strider 2, and Strider (2014) all in one historic Twitch stream. Join us to see why the series is so beloved with hardcore gamers and have a blast chatting with the Windows Central crowd!

Update: The stream has ended. Continue reading to learn about the Strider series and see our full playthroughs of Strider 1 and 2!

Watch live video from EastXTwitch on Twitch

Follow this link to watch part 2 (Tyler playing Strider 2014).

Strider 1, 2, and 2014

Capcom released an arcade game called Strider in 1989. The game impressed with its flashy sword-based combat, wall climbing and no-gravity sections, and huge mechanical bosses. The next year, Capcom created a completely original Strider game for the 8-bit NES. The NES game starred the same character, Strider Hiryu, who later appeared in the Marvel vs.Capcom series.

Strider wouldn't see an official follow-up until 1999 with the arcade and Playstation One release of Strider 2. The sequel played much like the original, with the addition of new moves like double-jumping and a Boost skill that lets Hiryu fire projectiles from his sword. The characters still existed as 2D sprites, but the backgrounds became 3D – for better or worse.

Strider Xbox One

We'll be playing Strider 1 and 2 in their entirety (which shouldn't take too long) before moving on to the newest game in the series.

In 2014, developer Double Helix teamed up with Capcom to make an all-new Strider for Xbox One and 360, as well as other platforms. The new Strider combines elements from the arcade and NES games (plus Strider 2) into a single action-packed Metroidvania-style platformer. With super-fast gameplay, wonderful music, and tons of futuristic areas to explore, Strider is a fantastic modern take on the classic series.

  • Strider – Xbox One – 3 GB – $14.99 – Xbox.com Link (opens in new tab)
  • Strider – Xbox 360 – 1.5 GB – $14.99 – Xbox.com Link (opens in new tab)
  • Strider – Steam – 3.7 GB – $14.99 – Steam Link

The Stream

Strider Xbox One

We'll be streaming Strider, Strider 2, and Strider (2014) for at least two hours tonight, starting at 8pm Central (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific).

To join us, please follow me at Twitch.tv/Eastxtwitch and tune in during the stream. You can watch the stream right here in this post, but you'll need to watch from the Twitch website or a separate app to participate in our always delightful stream chat.

What's the best way to experience Twitch? The Twitch website on your PC or Mac web browser. If you don't have or prefer not to use a computer, you can get the Xbox One, Playstation 4, or Xbox 360 Twitch apps and watch from the comfort of your couch. Android and iOS both have official and unofficial Twitch apps to choose from as well.

On Windows Phone, you'll have to grab an unofficial app. My recommendation is Unstream. It has far more features than competing apps, such as the ability to see a list of users participating in the stream chat. You can even add our channel directly from within the app! Just search for Eastxtwitch, select the channel to view our profile, and then select Follow from the pop-up menu at the bottom.

I'll be available for a few minutes before and after the stream if you have any questions or just want to say hi.

Streaming schedule

Strider Xbox One

Want to know what's next for Windows Central's weekly Twitch streaming contests? Here's our upcoming contest schedule. The stream always starts at the same time: 8pm Central (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific).

  • Thursday, February 26: ScreamRide from Frontier and Microsoft
  • Saturday, February 28: Asphalt 8 (Windows 8) from Gameloft. Guest cohost: "Gameloft" Ryan!
  • Saturday, March 7: Order & Chaos Online (Windows 8) from Gameloft. Guest cohost: "Gameloft" Ryan!

In addition to our Saturday contest streams, we also livestream a variety of different games throughout the week. These streams don't have contests, but they still offer a great chance to see more exciting games while enjoying our live commentary and stream chat.

  • Mondays: Playstation Vita games! See what the other side gets to play.
  • Tuesdays: The Witcher 2 for Xbox 360. Catch up on The Witcher saga before The Witcher 3 launches in May!
  • Wednesdays: Xbox One games. This Wednesday is Strider history night, featuring Strider 1 and 2 plus Strider for Xbox One!
  • Thursdays: Dragon Age: Inquisition! Game selected and funded by our excellent stream viewers.

We hope you'll tune in as often as you can! Set a recurring alarm on your phone so you'll always know when it's time for the stream to start.

Thanks to our Twitch stream moderators KalelCanFly and DerekDoesIt (who goes by isi mcf here at Windows Central) for keeping our streams clean and stress-free!

Paul Acevedo
Paul Acevedo

Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!

26 Comments
  • Remembered me of 8 and 16 bit classics....
  • @Paul I've come to realize that most streams except yours have Stream Quality ranging from:
    1. Source
    2. High
    3. Medium
    4. Low
    5. Mobile
    Would like to know if this is a preference set up by the streamer.....and if it is, can you please go for these options instead of the always "From Source" quality. Reason I'm pleading is, I'm always at your streams when at home but I do find myself outside or late at work most times and with Cellular data, there's no way I can watch your stream with quality as "Source"....it lags and consumes soo much data. If I had options lower than Source, I would definitely go for it and enjoy your stream as always whether home or outside. Hope you consider this, thanks as always, Kenzibit :-)
  • Kenzibit, unfortunately we don't get a say in the quality so the only option for viewers (as far as I know) is Source. Only partnered streams get to support the selectable quality settings, which is a drag. Wish we could do anything about that - eventually one of the WP apps will support turning off video and just chatting (one of them does now but it's still downloading the video), which would let you participate in chat and contests without taking a big data hit.
  • Ok...that would be cool. Thanks :-)
  • The world has moved on past Strider 2014 but it's still a very good game.  It's unfortunate that Amazon purchased Double Helix Games.  They went from up-and-coming developers with Strider and Killer Instinct to nearly forgotten.  Hopefully they have something in the pipeline. 
  • I'll try to make it.
  • If I haven't played Strider 3-2013, will I be able to follow the story of Strider 2014?
  • Wasn't there also a Strider released for Sega Genisis?
  • Don't think the genesis could handle a CPS1 arcade port, check this out xD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_6oTooXLK0
  • I almost choked on my tortellini when I read this. Genesis handled Strider just fine! The YM2612 (OPN2) FM synth sound chip in the Genesis is close enough in spec to the YM2151 (OPM) FM chip in the CPS1 Arcade board that the music sounded strikingly similar. Although with the CPS1 having a dedicated Oki MSM series ADPCM sampler in addition to the OPM, voice clips etc sound much better than they do on Genesis. The screen resolution was the same, I believe, the pace of the game was admirably similar, and pretty much all the elements are there. Heck, the Strider character sprite itself is actually MORE detailed on the Genesis than the Arcade. Where the Genesis version primarily fell short is in colors. The CPS1, I believe, could display I wanna say 4025 colors at once (4095?) out of an even bigger total pool, where the Genesis could only display 64 at once out of a total pool of only 512. Therefore a lot of the little details in the backgrounds and secondary characters were truncated, but still very well approximated. Also, Genesis' poor RGB-to-Composite conversion distorted many of its colors, where the Arcade's RGB output would've been dazzling, and crystal clear. The Arcade might've had more characters on screen at once too, but it's been long enough since I've played it that I'm not positive on that point. But still, the Genesis version is a simply spectacular port of the CPS1 game, so not only is the idea of Genesis not being able to handle Strider completely wrong, but it actually would do the best job of all the home systems of the generation. With the resolution, CPU heft, and FM sound of the Genesis, I can confidently say that neither the SNES, PC Engine, or Amiga would've done as well with their port (and PC Engine was the only other one that even tried). Also, the fact that all mention of the eminent Genesis port was absent only shows that while the Windows Central editors are FANTASTIC within their areas of competency, and we all benefit from them greatly, the nuances of legacy video games are apparently outside of that scope. I has a disappoint. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • We talked about the Genesis version and several others during our stream (I know it very well!). It just didn't need to be in the article itself. You should have tuned in! :P
  • Oh. My apologies, Paul. I retract my statement (though I still would've mentioned it in the article.) ;-) Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • I agree that Genesis was the only console that could emulate the pace and feel of the game. What I meant was that there would be unlikely have a 1:1 port of the original on the Genesis :)
  • 1.1? Well, no. You were right if that's what you meant. But gosh is it super close! :-) I think it's perfectly fair to call it "basically arcade perfect" (as opposed to absolutely arcade perfect). Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • The purist in me was too strong last night lol.
    Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast were consistently better after each generation, and were undoubtedly the best for arcade ports when compared to the competition!
    I still play my Saturn and Dreamcast, missing my Genesis games, but PC emulators are very accurate.
    Someone on local CL is selling 19" Sony RGB studio monitors for $45!! Thinking about making a retro cabinet ;)
  • It's okay. I was a little overzealous last night too. In fact I still feel terrible for what I implied about your, and Paul's knowledge of old games. Please forgive me, guys! :-) I have always felt that the Sega systems were the best arcade port platforms of their generations for the most part - with the caveat, of course, that not EVERY arcade game that appeared on a Sega system and a competitor's system was best on the Sega. Still, in terms of big picture, I think the rule holds, and the only system I felt ever really gave a Sega system any serious competition on those grounds was PC Engine to Genesis (that's not to dismiss some pretty serious SNES offerings, but for numerous reasons, both hardware and software, I feel it trailed the pack as the arcade port platform) 4th gen is my favorite generation of gaming for a whole host of reasons, one of which is the hardware component of the system wars was the most complex, most nuanced, and most give and take of any other era. So much so that I happily stand in complete defiance of the lock-step "SNES-is-best-PCE-is-worst" position and argue instead for a "too-close-to-call" effective three-way-tie. This medium is probably not the ideal medium to try to defend that position though, so I'll just leave it as an assertion for now. :-) I have a thing called "Nerd Noise Radio" which is a video game music thing on Facebook and Google +. I'm planning to launch a blog, and a message board, and eventually a podcast, but for now, that's where you can find us. We can get pretty deep into sound hardware, and other hardware for that matter, so THAT would probably be the medium to pick up the SNES vs Genesis vs PCE chit chat. :-) Meanwhile, I'll apologize once again to you and Paul, say "Yay Strider" one more time, and then quit hijacking the thread! :-D Cheers! Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • It's okay. I was a little overzealous last night too. In fact I still feel terrible for what I implied about your, and Paul's knowledge of old games. Please forgive me, guys! :-) I have always felt that the Sega systems were the best arcade port platforms of their generations for the most part - with the caveat, of course, that not EVERY arcade game that appeared on a Sega system and a competitor's system was best on the Sega. Still, in terms of big picture, I think the rule holds, and the only system I felt ever really gave a Sega system any serious competition on those grounds was PC Engine to Genesis (that's not to dismiss some pretty serious SNES offerings, but for numerous reasons, both hardware and software, I feel it trailed the pack as the arcade port platform) 4th gen is my favorite generation of gaming for a whole host of reasons, one of which is the hardware component of the system wars was the most complex, most nuanced, and most give and take of any other era. So much so that I happily stand in complete defiance of the lock-step "SNES-is-best-PCE-is-worst" position and argue instead for a "too-close-to-call" effective three-way-tie. This medium is probably not the ideal medium to try to defend that position though, so I'll just leave it as an assertion for now. :-) I have a thing called "Nerd Noise Radio" which is a video game music thing on Facebook and Google +. I'm planning to launch a blog, and a message board, and eventually a podcast, but for now, that's where you can find us. We can get pretty deep into sound hardware, and other hardware for that matter, so THAT would probably be the medium to pick up the SNES vs Genesis vs PCE chit chat. :-) Meanwhile, I'll apologize once again to you and Paul, say "Yay Strider" one more time, and then quit hijacking the thread! :-D Cheers! Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
  • Yes there was! It was a fine port of the arcade version. We're playing an emulated version of the arcade game tonight.
  • I'll see the gang later, 
  • Tuning in for the original Strider!  Hey Paul, have you seen Osman?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFmJp-34_Lg
  • I've always wanted to play Osman! I also enjoy Moon Diver. Have you played that one?
  • Never, but it looks interesting.  Selling on XBL for $15 too.. Too bad Xbox One lacks backwards compatibility :/ If they added Xbox 360 hardware to the One it sure would beat the hell out of Playstation's compressed/laggy cloud gaming.  
  • I'll definitely try to be there. Not sure if I will be available tonight yet. But if I am, I will see you guys then.
  • Could not load twitch.tv on my browser or phone.  Such a shame, was looking forward to it.  Guess I will have to watch the saved videos (if available) :)
  • Did you use a phone app? It's strange for it not to work through a real PC browser. The play is available now, but again, it needs to be played on a PC web browser.
  • I mixed it tonight. Out of town untill sat. I will try to see one then.